Vegan news in the area

For starters bargain-hunters, get your shop on, because Natural Goodness is closing after 15 years! This was my neighborhood health food store for YEARS! I'm so sad to see it leave. Where am I going to go for a fresh carrot juice in the middle of the afternoon for a pick-me-up now? Stock up on vitamins, toilet paper, teas essential oils while you can!

There's a new semi-vegan eatery in town. Maru Global serves Japanese street food. They offer quite a few vegan options, including soups and desserts. They have pizza, burritos and all kinds of good stuff. Haven't tried it out it, but take-out seems like a good option, especially when it starts getting warmer and you can take lunch to Washington Square West park!

I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this organic, vegan, soy-free ice cream sweetened with agave from Coconut Bliss. I can't wait for summer when I'm craving ice cream and won't feel guilt free when eating this. Available at Whole Foods.

And vegans beware! I saw these amazing-looking and very tempting donuts in the frozen aisle at Whole Foods, but upon closer inspection I see that eggs are listed twice in the ingredients. It says dairy-free...I don't know about you, but I consider eggs a dairy product. Make sure you read labels!

People talking about Food

People come over my house all the time and say, "oh you guys should totally watch Food Inc." We haven't watched it yet, only because we've been researching this stuff for over a decade. I'm vegan because of factory farming, and while in a perfect world everyone would be vegan, I know a 'perfect' world is also a non-reality.

Thankfully, to people like first lady Michelle Obama and food researcher and author Michael Pollan, people are talking and more people are starting to listen.
Michael Pollan appeared on Democracy Now on Monday. Tuesday,  Michelle Obama talks to Larry King about childhood obesity. After listening to Pollan discuss Oprah's lawsuit with Big Beef, I was curious to see how deeply Michelle would delve into our food industry and she just barely grazed upon the subject matter. Larry seemed much more intent on finding out about life in the White House, instead of focusing on the issue. Probably no fault of either of them. Big Beef strongly discourages any flack on their industry, as we've seen in the Oprah case, which she has not broached since.

I'm happy to see food as a discussion in our society. After reading Barbara Kingsolver's book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle I have a new respect for this Slow Food Movement and I'm a supporter of bringing back extinct breeds of livestock, versus factory farming. If that is what it takes for people to eat healthy. I like the idea of America re-inventing itself based on tradition.

What this country needs is more discussions about food, and to invigorate the public to make better choices. Healthy living costs more. I spend a lot of money on food, but since it's my health and future I'm investing in, it's a no brainer. I stopped thinking that I need a new pair of shoes, or a new bag and instead, buy lots of fresh produce, super-foods and supplements. Talking about food is the first step, now we must ALL put it into action. However you eat healthier, it's up to you, but fresh food is key. Banish prepared foods, processed foods and sugar and you will have a healthier, more fulfilling life of purpose. Both Pollan and Michelle Obama stress the importance of the family meal. This couldn't be more important. Take a step towards eating healthier today. Your body will thank you.

New York wants you to eat less salt

Mayor Bloomberg wants all New Yorkers to eat less salt, thereby asking the restaurant industry to lower their salt usage. Wanna know what I think? Eat at home more! Make food yourselves! You have all the control over your diet this way. Have to eat out 3 meals a day 7 days a week? Well, besides there being much wrong with this lifestyle you also have no control over what goes into your body. However, order green salads with olive oil and vinegar, no added salt. In all the restaurants I've worked in, which tally over a dozen, any chef is willing to make a low-sodium meal upon request. Pretty soon, New Yorkers will be hand-fed tablespoons of mysterious green goo, if Bloomberg gets his way.
Stand up for yourselves and eat responsibly.

the Great healthcare Debate

Over my morning caffeine, I had the pleasure of watching Arlen Spector preside over a bunch of Pennsylvanians at a town hall in Lebanon. I know what PA is truly like, having lived here for over 15 years. I see the difference between the city people and the country folk. I was somewhat prepared for the misshapen 35-year-old who identified herself as a Republican and a Conservative and asked Sen. Spector to uphold the Constitution so that we don't turn into a Socialized country like Russia! I screamed at the television at that point, angrily sloshing my tea and feeling disgusted.

This opinion piece from NPR neatly sums up my feelings, and probably a whole lot of other peoples'. After hearing a sad story from my 65+ friend who recently had surgery, but is entirely active and able, that she might have to move into a senior building because of her medical bills. This from a woman who rides her bike all over the city and looks 50. Straight from the source and it broke my heart.

backyard chicks

I came across this story on NPR today. Thought some of you urban urchins with a penchant for nature would find this interesting. My co-worker gets green eggs from his CSA and here's why.
I'm not gonna start eating eggs or anything, but man would I love to hug a chick. And I also wouldn't be opposed to raising chickens for eggs-for-profit, but I think my fire escape has enough going on right now without an added chicken coop.

When I was a little girl, we had a backyard chicken coop just like these newbies. Only my family did it to save money, and probably for the animals too. I had to clean the chicken coop every day as my chore, harvest the eggs and feed the birds. There's a fabulous photo of me, age 3, with a huge bird in my arms. (sigh). Nowadays, people are doing it more to avoid additives and ensure quality. I think it is awesome.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104304441&ft=1&f=1001

Nutrition tips from a beached whale

This morning on Rachel Ray, beached whale Winona Judd gives nutrition tips. I'm sorry, but if someone with two chins is giving you tips on how to eat healty, run, as fast as you can, to the nearest salad bar.

Big Box lunch at KFC

When I first saw this Variety Big Box lunch from KFC advertised, my first thought was total disgust. I mean, have you looked at this lunch, that is meant to feed one human? No wonder we have an obesity problem on our hands. Who eats this crap? And more importantly who encourages us to eat this?
Who can possibly fit this in their body. Answer, many more Americans than you can imagine. And probably an entire village in Africa.
Who needs 3 types of fried chicken with a biscuit, gravy and mac-n-cheese? I guess obese people think they do, or at least that's what KFC is gonna tell you. What ever happened to a balanced plate? Where are the veggies? Oh, that skinny green leaf in that bulky sandwich hardly counts. And coleslaw slathered in artery-clogging mayo hardly constitutes a vegetable.

Oh KFC, just because you've so courageously stopped debeaking birds does not mean you have to serve more to the masses. It's counterproductive. And you are hurting people by serving this. Heart-attack on a plate, coming up.

Vegan Pot Pie

I love a savory, steaming delicious pot pie. This year, although I've been raw for almost 9 months, I decided to stick with what I know people enjoy and make a vegan pot pie for Christmas Dinner.
I choose to use spelt flour, because it has more nutrients and is easier to digest than wheat flour. I also chose to use tempeh, because it is delicious and unprocessed. You can use tofu, if you prefer.

Vegan Pot Pie:
2 potatoes, diced (1 red, 1 white)
3 tsp extra virgin olive oil
1 C chopped yellow onion
1 C chopped carrots
4 C cubed tempeh * see note
1/2 C frozen peas
1/2 C frozen green beans
1 TBSP fresh parsley, minced

Gravy
1 vegetable bouillon, dissolved in 2 Cups boiling water
2 1/2 TBSP shoyu
1 tsp dried herbs (sage, thyme, oregano)
2 TBSP cornstarch or 4 tbsp arrowroot
1/4 C rice milk
salt and pepper

Crust:
1 C organic spelt flour
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/4 C olive oil
1-2 TBSP ice water *must be iced!

*note: Start by boiling tempeh for 10 minutes, set aside to cool and dice into small bite-sized pieces.
Thaw frozen vegetables during this time.

Boil diced potatoes in salted water until just tender. Drain and set aside.
Saute onions and carrots in heated saucepan until onions are translucent and carrots are tender. Transfer to a casserole dish. I use an 8x8 2 Quart baking dish. Add potatoes, tempeh and parsley.

Make gravy in small saucepan on stove top. Combine veg stock, shoyu, herbs, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to simmer and whisk in cornstarch or arrowroot until sauce begins to thicken. This should take a about 1 minute. Add more thickening agent if mixture doesn't thicken. Slowly whisk in rice milk and take off heat. Pour mixture into casserole dish.

Preparing the crust is simple.
Combine salt and flour in food processor, pulsing until well-mixed. Add oil and process until mixture is crumbly. Slowly add water, with machine running until mixture forms a ball. Roll ball onto lightly floured surface to 1/4 inch thickness or until large enough to cover casserole dish.

Bake for about 45 minutes or until crust becomes slightly browned. Let sit for 10 minutes before serving.

Delicious.

This recipe serves 6-8 comfortably and is great for pot-luck dinners or as another side dish for the carnies.

holiday shuffle

It's been a while since I last posted on Musings, but I've been busy over at For the Love of Raw. For delicious tips on the raw stuffed mushrooms from Christmas Eve dinner, see Mushroom Love
The holidays totally wiped me out, between working retail, shopping and preparing a menu for two different dinners with my partners' family, I'm lucky I'm still standing.
After being reminded how much they loved my oatmeal cookies last year, I decided to make a huge batch of cookies for Christmas Eve, along with a delicious vegan pot pie for Christmas Day. December 23rd rolls around and wouldn't you know it, my oven is broken. Hardly a surprise, considering I haven't even turned it on since going raw in April!
The cookies never made it to Christmas Eve, but they did make it into an oven on Christmas.
The recipe is simple and one of my favorites. These cookies are so good, I recommend making at least two batches:

Oatmeal Cookies with Chocolate Chips (or Raisins) (OR both!)
1 C Spelt Flour
1 C organic rolled oats
3/4 C maple syrup
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon

1/3 C water
1/4 C safflower oil
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract or 1 whole vanilla bean, seeds scraped from inside.

3/4 C vegan chocolate chips, or raisins, or combo of both

Preheat oven to 350'. Coat baking sheets with oil.

Mix dry ingredients together in large bowl. Set aside.
Mix wet ingredients in small bowl.
Stir wet mixture gradually into dry ingredients until well mixed. Add chips and/or raisins until well-mixed.

Drop cookies on sheet using two teaspoons to make uniform-sized cookies, about 1 dozen per sheet.
Bake for 15-18 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned.
Let sit on sheet until slightly cool.
Continue until all cookies are baked. Serve warm, they will be a crowd-pleaser!

*note: I especially love this recipe because it contains heart-healthy oatmeal and warming cinnamon. It is surprisingly low in fat, contains no soy products and no refined sugar. No one will ever know they are eating a cookie that might actually be good for them!

See following post for Vegan Pot Pie

Heard on the radio

The secret is out of the bag. Vegetarianism helps the planet!
On NPR today, just in time for the glutinous holidays, an impressive chunk of time was devoted to a show about vegetarianism, health and global warming. The segment was called, Healthy Planet, Healthy People, and focused on how what is good for the planet is actually good for us too. They discuss how going vegetarian is the easiest thing you can do to counteract global warming. At least on privately-funded radio we can still seek the truth. I hope they do this every Sunday.
Included in the segment are interviews with vegetarians and their personal experience as to why they chose that path. Even though animal cruelty is a big motivator for some of us, sometimes health and science are also factors. It's interesting to hear other points of view and a wide range of topics all converging around my favorite subject: Vegetarianism. The show also offers advice to those who are interested in changing their eating habits, so I recommend it to newbies. I must add my two cents, however. They recommend taking it slow, like cut out bacon this month, sausage the next, and so on 'til you're meat free. I recommend cold tofurky. I understand maybe eliminating red meat, then chicken and fish, and perhaps that might be an option for you, but try to nip that bad habit in the bud and just end your relationship with the burger. Meat will probably end up grossing you out before you know it anyway.
Think about what you eat this Thursday on Thanksgiving, and bring a veg option to dinner, just in case. Remember, Mother Earth will thank you.

Living Local in the City

After lamenting over high-priced, imported tomatoes at Whole Foods (see Animal Vegetable Miracle post), I took the day off yesterday to check out Reading Terminal Market. Iovine's Produce stand offers a lot of organic produce, but not one sign tells you where the veggies originated, in fact a sign saying "produce from all over the world", sent a shiver down my spine.
I remembered the Fair Food Farmstand, in the North-East corner of the market, and decided to press my luck and see what I could turn up.
I was surprised to even find them open, because in the past, when I've visited on a weekday, they are often closed by the time I make the trek. I was expecting crates and crates of potatoes, which they surely had, but they also had a lot of other great items that I didn't imagine to find.
Yesterday, the Fair Food Farmstand was stocked with everything I could possible want to make a delicious dinner. Albeit a bit more expensive, the local purple kale blows conventional kale out of the water. Tomatoes, you got 'em and heirloom varieties too! Lettuce, yep, an oak leaf lettuce fresh from a farm. Mushrooms, many varieties, a rainbow offering of squash, peppers, radishes, Brussels sprouts, cranberries, apples. I've already started lining up my produce picks for a very raw Thanksgiving meal, and the Fair Food Farmstand has pretty much everything I could want. Every item here is local and organic, from small farms all over Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Each item has a little sign so you know exactly what you are getting. Is it more expensive? Well, maybe. I spent 13 dollars on three very necessary items, kabocha squash, purple kale and some awesome-looking spinach. Then I went to Iovine's and spent the same amount on 4 other organic items. Maybe eating local does cost slightly more, but remember you are helping the small farming industry and not some stupid conglomerate who has no clue about tasty food.
So, just when I thought the going for local produce was getting tough, the Fair Food Farmstand saved the day. Check out your local city market for a similar stand, if it doesn't exist, press for it by contacting local farmers and co-ops into making it happen for your locality.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

I have to admit, Barbara Kingsolver was one of my favorite authors for a long time, so when her most-recent book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle was loaned to me by an Epicurean co-worker, I dove in, ravenous for what she had to offer.
The premise of the book is a hot topic in today's' green-minded culture. Eat local, eat only what you can raise yourself or what's in season, and relish the treasures of your community. Kingsolver and her clan moved to the Southern portion of the Appalachian Mountains with the goal of raising her family on the fruits of the land. She is not a vegetarian and I cringed when I read the part about her raising her own turkeys for food, but I'm also inclined to doff my hat to her; that she can raise her own food and feed her family. She is adamant about the sources of other meats, insisting on locally, grass-fed varieties, so that's all I'm going to mention about the meat-eating, but still, her approach is a noble one, ensuring that at least the animals she does consume, led a decent life eating good food too!
I haven't finished the book yet, but I am already under the influence. For years I tried to eat locally, (I think it's called macro-biotic), and with the exception of bananas or citrus fruit, managed to subsist fairly well. Today, I know a lot more than I did then.
Now, when I go to Whole Foods, because the farmer's markets have ended for the year, I scan the tags looking for locally grown food. Tomatoes, forget about it. The closest tomato I can find is shipped from Florida. Luckily I still have some growing on my back porch, but I've harvested the last few before the frost and dread life without tomatoes. Avocados? Lettuce? It all comes from California, and this is Kingsolver's main contention. We've been spoiled by luxurious produce shipped from all over the world, oblivious as to what the cost on our environment is. I spotted these lovely oranges that looked great for juicing, bu when I saw they were from South Africa, I quietly passed them by. Kingsolver, equates calories with gas mileage, and in one instance, says that eating an apple from Washington State for someone on the East Coast is similar to driving 3 hours to walk 3 miles on a treadmill. Kind of counter-productive. In a time when global warming is directly linked to issues such as these, I want to take my part in this mission and try not to eat something, just because it's exotic, looks delicious or I need it for my recipe. Chances are that that red, delicious apple, might not taste as tasty as it looks. My boyfriend thinks I'm crazy, but I put my foot down at unnecessary items that have been shipped across the ocean.
For a raw foodist like myself, it is especially difficult. We subsist on nuts, that are primarily grown in places like Thailand, and while I grapple with that issue, I must remember to choose other items that haven't travelled as far for the rest of the meal.
Right now, I'm really digging squash, all types, simply steamed and topped with my own fresh-grown parsley. You can also make a nice squash mash, with steamed squash processed with olive oil and herbs. In the northeast, pickings are slim, but this is also the time of year when home-cooked foods, like root vegetables and onions can make a great meal. Stews really benefit from local produce. Can't live without that avocado? Well neither can I, but at least if we take small steps in passing by those delicious fruits from South Africa, we are making a difference.

another reason to be veg

On CNN today, there was a report on luncheon meats and sodium nitrates. Apparently, processed meats, including hot dogs, contain cancer-causing sodium nitrates. Yumm-O!
This mostly affects children, school lunches are loaded with such debilitating foods, and unhealthy single men who never grew up. Health officials advise you to take your kids off processed meats, as they have a direct link to cancer. Thanks Mom! Oh how I wished I was raised vegetarian, knowing these toxins may lurk somewhere deep within.

A spokesman for the American Meat Association makes the counter-claim that pomegranates contain mega-doses of nitrates, but health official re butt by adding that it is when nitrates are combined with meat that it becomes a problem. Besides, Have you ever seen, "Thank you for Not Smoking?" Those spokespeople will say anything to get paid and keep their company flourishing.

I couldn't find the direct link to the story I just saw run on CNN, but here's an article from 2005. This is not new news. Come on people. Stop eating that Baloney!

For the Love of Raw

I've begun a new blog, to replace Wandering Cup and to embrace the raw foods lifestyle that has taken over my brain. It's unfair to bog down this blog with all things raw, so I deemed it best to begin again with a new scope in mind. If you are interested in raw foods, please join me at For the Love of Raw. Recipes, reviews, insights and observations coming soon to a blog near you.

vegans have better foresight (and hindsight!)

On Coast to Coast Tuesday night, Gerald Eplin talked about plants, bio-communication and memory. He said that a vegan or vegetarian is more likely to experience a higher state of consciousness and due to a greater sense of compassion should excel at activities such as remote viewing and memory recall. Cheers fellow vegans! Another great thing about us.

vegans on tv

I'm excited about the increased presence of vegans in the media. Marilu Henner has been making the rounds this week, promoting her stint on Donald Trump' "Celebrity Apprentice". Last night she was on Jimmy Kimmel and also on Jay Leno earlier in the month. Henner is probably best known for her role in the sitcom, Taxi, but most recently she has been working the health food circuit, publishing more than 7 books on healthy living. What I like most about Henner, is that she hardly ever uses the word "vegan." Instead she concentrates on health, which opens more ears ( and pocketbooks!). The word health is a welcome one, while the word vegan, indicates a strict lifestyle most people don't even want to begin to understand.
Henner publicly embarrassed Jimmy Kimmel last night, explaining his puffiness around his eyes is due to too much cheese and dairy and that the fat gullet around his mouth and chin was evidence of too much meat.
Keep your eyes peeled for more appearances on television by Marilu Henner. She's a fireball, must be pushing 60 and looks fantastic. If women need further impetus to become vegan, take a look at Henner for inspiration.