Merry Xmas / Happy Holidays

What’s a Christmas Day like for a vegan? Well, I ended up opening my presents before going to bed on Christmas Eve. I was overjoyed at receiving lots of great vegan items… everything from a vegan slogan T-shirt to an animal rights cotton carrier, vegan chocolate bars, some Lush bodycare and an Animal Aid mug. I think I got the most vegan related items than I’ve ever had – which is great, as I think this means awareness is spreading. I love my friends that put thought into getting items that really matter to me.

Vegan Pressies 2011:

So after getting up late (did I mention I tried one of the Angell vegan choc bars before going to bed and loved it?) and realising a cold was coming and my throat was getting killer sore (think edgy razorblades), I took a multi-vitamin and had my usual soya hot chocolate (I say ‘usual’ – this is usual at weekends and holidays, as on work days or getting up early days I need an energy drink due to lack of sleep instead). I went to see my folks before starting on the big Xmas dinner. This year I’d decided to actually try a proper vegan turkey-style Christmas dinner. Usually I just eat anything… whether I feel like beans on toast, veggieburger, veggie cottage pie or whatever else takes my fancy. But since I do always wish meat eaters would try veggie turkey I figured maybe I ought to have one for a change so I could really show first-hand what it’s like.

I discovered the week leading up to Christmas that there are actually lots of different veggie roasts you can buy. In Tesco you can buy Quorn veggie roasts as well as a Tesco meat-free Chicken roast (ok, chicken’s not turkey, but still!). In Asda you can buy Linda McCartney’s vegetarian roast plus various nut roasts. The best vegan roast in the UK however is Redwood’s Celebration Roast – available from Holland & Barrett and various vegan/health stores. Some of the veggie roasts such as Linda McCartney’s we can’t eat as they have milk and eggs in. Redwood do a 100% vegan roast.

The ‘Celebration Roast’ actually comprises of six turkey style pieces, plus 4 ‘pigs in blankets’ – veggie sausages with vegan bacon wrapped around them. You also get some vegan gravy mix. This is cheaper than buying a real turkey – plus if you buy one of these, an animal doesn’t die. You’ve saved a life. Win win all round.

I put everything in the oven… and waited… After x amount of time I decided to see if they were done and opened the foil to see how the turkey-style pieces and pigs in blankets were doing… The aroma was very ‘meaty’ – in fact, I was almost put off wanting to eat it – the thought of eating something so ‘turkey-like’ almost sickened me, as I haven’t eaten anything tasting of turkey in the last 21 years, since going vegetarian. I was a little apprehensive and told my mom she may end up having to eat all of it!

I put the sprouts on the grill and then added hot water to the gravy granules. The gravy smelt very beefy! I’m used to having vegetable gravy granules while this Redwood gravy was more meaty too.

Eventually the moment I’d been waiting for arrived. Everything was ready so I served it up… Trying a piece of the turkey (fake, don’t forget!) was daunting… I put it in my mouth with a piece of potato and sprout. The taste WAS very turkey-like. In fact I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to eat it all. Thoughts and flashbacks of real turkey filled my mind. It almost tasted too much like real turkey. The sausages almost tasted too much like real sausages too. (I should at this point point out that I’m one of the pickiest eaters on earth when it comes to food. Even food I CAN eat, a lot of it I don’t like…. like I don’t like asian food… or indian food… even if it’s vegan).

The end result:

While I think I’m happier eating non-meat-like items, unless it’s a veggie burger or things like cottage/country pies, I think this roast would actually be perfect for anyone who eats meat that might like to try a meat-free roast – because it really IS similar to real turkey, and real sausages and bacon (the bacon’s not as crackly and softer, but still. Actually I eat the Redwood’s bacon sometimes when I make a BLT – I just wasn’t so keen on it wrapped around a sausage). Seeing and trying something like this makes me wonder why more meat-eating folk don’t actually bother trying it. Why do people keep eating slaughtered animals when they can try something so similar they probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference? Is it out of laziness? Is it just because they THINK they love the taste of what they’re eating and couldn’t try anything else? Why aren’t people open to trying different food?

After finishing dinner I ate my Moo Free chocolate Santa, which was another Christmas present from a friend, had a look around Facebook and discovered that California now makes McDonalds state that chemicals in some of their food can cause cancer. Wow. I didn’t know about that. After googling a bit it turns out that Acrylamide is the chemical that has been discovered to cause cancer and it is particularly high in high temperatured fast food such as McDonald’s fries. Here’s an article from 2004 - http://corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11351 – it’s interesting how so many people eat McDonald’s but really don’t care what they’re doing to their bodies. It’s also no wonder cancer rates are getting higher when so many people eat at fast food places such as McDonalds. Is it worth paying their cheap prices if you’ll eventually get cancer? It’s funny how people don’t care about what they put into their bodies – until they actually do find out they’ve got something like cancer. They don’t care about animals getting abused and murdered… and they don’t care that the food they’re putting into their bodies could bring on something like cancer either. What DO people care about? They don’t care until it’s too late to care.

I tried watching a couple of movies… first Ice Age, then Kung Fu Panda that I’d recorded earlier… but neither of them interested me. I ate a vegan carrot cake that I’d bought from Goodness Direct, and ended up finishing the night reading a book (how rock n’ roll… Although to be fair it was Nikki Sixx’s Heroin Diaries book which I’ve had for years and never got around to finishing it - I finally got it finished at 5.45am). My mom told me she loved the pigs in blankets (not at 5.45am) – yep, she got the ones I didn’t eat. My mom eats meat, yet everything vegan that I give her to try she loves… It makes no sense why she doesn’t go vegan. I guess she buys meat mainly for my dad… and eats it too.

Now it’s Boxing Day and I’ve just read in the paper that Tory minister Jim Paice is declaring that the fox hunting ban failed. I think that’s insane. If it HAS failed it’s only because the stupid toffs that go out fox hunting are so disrespectful that they don’t care what they do. How is it that the smoking ban managed to be successful when so many people were involved? The general public managed to abide the law of not smoking in public places – yet these moronic fox hunters, of which there are a lot less, think that because they’ve got a bit of money they can disrespect laws and do what they want? That shows how screwed up this country is. The general public with less money has more respect and are more law-abiding than these despicable toffs. Yet the law is not enforced when it comes to people with money that say ‘tallo-ho’. It sickens me, it really does.

Happy Xmas! Ha.

Forks Over Knives

Want cancer, diabetes, heart disease? Then eat meat and dairy!

Forks Over Knives is a documentary now available to buy on DVD that shows how eating a plant based diet can cure diseases. It can reverse the effects that eating meat and dairy can cause, it can stop you having to take pills on a daily basis. Dr. T. Colin Campbell and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn have both been inspired by the research discoveries they’ve made during their years in the medical industry which led them to the conclusion that meat and dairy is bad for humans. Eating meat can cause strokes, heart attacks, dairy has been shown to bring on more cancerous tumour growths, hypertension and diabetes and more. On this DVD the duo explain it.

More and more people are getting these diseases. There are some interesting quotes in the movie, one being ‘One quarter of what you eat keeps you alive, three-quarters of what you eat keeps your doctor alive’. The medical industry makes billions from the illness of humans. This is why many won’t just tell you to change your eating habits and cut out meat and dairy - and are just happy to keep giving you pills. Would they like to be out of a job? Hell no!

In the DVD you see a number of people who were on medication for diabetes or heart-related problems - and you see how thanks to a change to a plant-based diet they have combated those diseases and no longer need medication, becoming healthier, happier individuals.

Forks Over Knives is the DVD everyone that eats meat or dairy needs to watch. Everyone is always so happy to keep their eyes shut and pretend cruelty to animals doesn’t happen, as long as they can eat the food they like - but in years from now when you start needing medication on a daily basis, won’t you wish you’d done something about your eating habits? Won’t you regret the McMurder Burger you ate on a weekly or monthly basis? Or that slab of steak that wrapped its wings around your heart. Was it worth that taste to be unwell?

Forks Over Knives is inspiring from 30 seconds in - and doesn’t let up until the end. A definite, informative DVD to learn from, and for others to learn from too.

Watch this trailer and then order the full product. It’s well worth it - especially if it means you get to live longer!

Visit www.forksoverknives.com for more info.

Juicing, Rebooting & Raw Burgers

After my last blog entry last Monday when I’d been inspired from watching ‘Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead’ I decided to go on a sort of juice diet for 5 days. I say ‘sort of’ because I made a few compromises. Due to always having a lack of sleep from Sunday - Thursday (I usually get 3 hours max sleep on Sunday nights which then screws me up for the rest of the week) I kept my energy drink in the morning in my daily diet. I know that’s cheating but if you had only 3 hours sleep I’m sure you’d need a bit of caffeine too. I imagine the reboot programs are more for people who get adequate amounts of sleep - not people having three hours a night. Anyway, after signing up on www.jointhereboot.com and doing the questionnaire to find out which reboot I should do, it told me to go for the 5 day Reboot Express - which is 5 days of eating and drinking fruits and vegetables only.

I decided I wanted to make it more liquid based though, so made my Reboot Express JUST juice and smoothies. I decided I didn’t want to eat whole fruit or vegetables. I wanted to see if I could just do it in liquid form. Being that I constantly eat junk food, this was a challenge. So for the next few days I took a bottle of juice and a travel mug of smoothie to work to have while at work - I then came home and had more juice and smoothies. You can get enough nutrients from juice to not need to ‘eat’. Vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals are greater in juice than in ‘hard’ food.

I ordered a juicer on Monday night. It arrived on Wednesday and I made my first ever home-made juice. I opted for apple, kale and ginger - and later tried apple and carrot. It was better than I thought. You picture green vegetable juice as tasting bad (or maybe it’s just me that does) - so I was pleasantly surprised that it tasted decent. The problem came when I then decided to add some plums. After taking the stone out of the first plum and putting it in the juicer, I thought to myself ‘do I need to take the stones out, or will the juicer do it for me?’ I mean, it takes the juice and throws the rest away as pulp. I’d read that you can put whole apples in and don’t have to cut them up - so not thinking properly, I put some plums in without taking the stones out. Damn. Not a good idea. (Hey, I’ve never had a juicer before!) Ten minutes later I realised there was a bit of fiberglass in my bowl of pulp, the fruit wasn’t being juiced properly - and yes, it seems part of the fibreglass had been broken, I guess from the power of the plum stone(s). Damn.

I’m in the process of getting a replacement lid/food shoot for the juicer. In the meantime I have tried to replace it by gaffa-taping part of the glass piece back on, Blue Peter style. But I really need a new lid/food shoot.

I did manage to last 5 days. I decided that my 5 days would be up on Saturday evening (I decided to buy the juicer on Monday night). I had a festival on Saturday so figured that would be tough. I’m used to going to festivals and eating crisps whenever I get hungry, and eating pieces of Tofutti cream cheese on toast before leaving the house at the weekend. Also, since Lakeside Ethical Treats was at the festival I wanted to buy a couple of Sweet & Sara Smores (these are heaven). I ended up cementing the completion of my 5 day juice/smoothie diet by having a Smores at the festival at around 8pm.

Since then… well, I’m back to eating ‘junk’ food. I’ve eaten chips, crisps, all the usual things that I like - although I’m also trying to include more juice and smoothies into my diet. I’m trying to make every day half healthy as well as half unhealthy. Monday I made a smoothie for work (adding in some soya protein powder) while then having chips for tea at home.

Yesterday I decided to make my first ever home-made raw vegan burger. This was something I’d been thinking about for a week or two. I started craving a raw veggie burger. Back in May when I went to Houston, I tried my first ever raw veggie burger courtesy of Pat Greer’s Kitchen. I’d never eaten a raw burger and if you haven’t, you probably imagine it doesn’t taste good and don’t imagine it tastes anything like a ‘real’ burger. Well, I tried Pat’s raw veggie burger and was really impressed. It tasted great. I was amazed that you could make burgers that tasted as good as ‘real’ burgers. It didn’t need to be cooked, yet it tasted great and like it WAS cooked.

I decided last week I wanted to try and recreate that burger. I had no idea what ingredients were used, but googled ‘raw veggie burger’ online and checked some recipes (there are a bunch out there). Some used walnuts, some used flaxseed, some used sunflower seeds, some used sundried tomatoes. I managed to get some walnuts, sunflower seeds and sundried tomatoes. I actually got the ingredients while on the juice/smoothie diet so I was itching to make a raw veggie burger but not wanting to actually eat any ‘proper’ food, I had to wait until my 5 day fast was over.

With Sunday being too crazy busy (all day band videoshoot, interview and gig), Monday editing photos all night and Tuesday writing gig and festival reviews, I only decided to make time for the burger last night. I couldn’t wait any longer - so got the ingredients out when I got home from work having watching another raw veggie burger recipe on youtube, and finally made my own. I added some carrot, kale and mixed everything together. As I don’t have a dehydrator I had to use the oven at the lowest gas mark. It takes forever to dehydrate the burgers which is a bit of a pain - I was starving while I was waiting - so ended up eating crisps and Tofutti cream cheese on toast in the process (kind of defeating the objective of trying to make healthy food!). Eventually, it looked like my burger was just about ready so I took it out and tried it (after a photo of course). I used a couple of cabbage leaves for the ‘bun’ - like Pat Greer does… and then took my first bite.

Wow. It was good! I was amazed that I had actually made something that tasted great. It tasted as good as the burger I’d had at Pat Greer’s in Houston. It was so good that I then decided to make five more! :D Today I’ve brought two to work. One I’ve put on wholemeal bread (as I had no bread rolls) - just to see what it tastes like on bread. I’ll taste it later. I’ve eaten the cabbage leaved bun one already and again loved it. It’s awesome to be able to bring a ‘burger’ to work that you can just eat and doesn’t need to be cooked, but tastes great as it is.

If you’ve never tried a raw veggie burger, I recommend it. That’s coming from one of the world’s most pickiest eaters - AND worst cooks! If I like them then you will. Or should. On one hand you may think that they’re not as convenient as eating burgers from a store/diner, and if you’re as busy as I am, you don’t want to be in a kitchen putting ingredients together, but the great thing is that you can make numerous burgers and save them for later. Unlike when you just put one burger under the grill, you can make five at the same time, and then just eat them whenever you feel like one without needing to cook it. It is there, ready, and tastes awesome.

Try it. Reboot your life.

Shari’s Raw Veggie Burger Ingredients:

Sunflower seeds

Sundried tomatoes

Carrots

Walnuts

Kale

Celery (chopped)

Onion (chopped)

Water

I didn’t measure anything - just added a suitable proportion of each. I juiced the carrots and just used the pulp (drank the juice!) - then mixed everything together and put them on tin foil, making into a round ‘burger’ shape. If you don’t have a dehydrator, put on the lowest gas mark in the oven. Dehydrating takes a while. Turn over when one side is done.

Barcelona Cat Bar

I’ve just got back from a quick trip to Barcelona. I went there for a concert, as you do. Of course I printed out a list of vegan/veggie places from Happycow before I went and also a map of the vicinity of our hotel with a bunch of them marked out. It turns out that there are quite a lot of vegetarian restaurants in Barcelona - and also a handful of vegan places. As my friend likes a drink (whereas I’m straight edge), I figured Cat Bar would be perfect for both of us. It is a bar that sells lots of different types of beer (all vegan) - as well as all vegan food! It was 5-10mins walk from our hotel (at Boria 17) and open late. After checking in at our hotel, we pretty much grabbed our purses and went. We found Cat Bar easily and went in to have a bit of food and something to drink.

As it was a Tuesday there was a live performance taking place when we got there, playing acoustic music at the front of the bar. Cat Bar is quite small - or at least it is width ways as you walk in. The back of the bar wasn’t so full so we found a table there. The Cat Bar has an upstairs too although we didn’t venture up there, although there was a balcony with a few folk looking down, watching the acoustic performance.

Our view from the back:

Due to me checking out the menu online at http://catbar.es I knew exactly what I wanted to eat immediately - so as soon as I got to the bar I ordered veggie sausage, beans and chips. The prices in Cat Bar are great - sausage, beans and chips is only 5 Euros. I had a coke to go with it for 1,50.

I wasn’t actually expecting two sausages so that was nice! And the whole meal was tasty.

My friend chose the burger for 3 Euro…

We stayed there for a couple of hours. Cat Bar has free internet - I specifically took my mini laptop so checked my emails, facebook - and also showed my friend the Vegan Black Metal Chef’s first video as she hadn’t checked that out.

Eventually we figured we’d better go and get some much needed sleep - although not without me being tempted by the vegan chocolate cake at the counter. It’s only 1,50 and also super-nice. Actually, I managed to withheld myself from eating it until breakfast next morning. The staff member at the Cat Bar put it into a nice bag for me to take away. I completely forgot to take a pic of the cake but recommend it with everything else Cat Bar sells.

Saying bye to Roy and co. at the Cat Bar (excuse their blurry arms, I only took my cheap Olympus camera!):

Next time I’m in Barcelona I’ll go back for sure. I definitely love the cheap prices - and it’s cool to find somewhere that’s not just a cafe or restaurant but a bar too. Purr-fect for keeping everyone happy. Plus the best thing of all is that it’s 100% vegan. Miao!

Madrid

It’s been a month since my last entry. Busy busy busy. I seem to be overloaded with work. Well, by work I mean zine work… not real work. I don’t class zine work as real work even though it’s what I put most of my time and effort into.

This past weekend I went to Madrid though, and since while I was there I managed to go to a couple of veggie places, I thought I’d post here about them. Unfortunately I didn’t visit enough to warrant a special ‘Vegan Madrid’ page on the website. My trip saw me arriving into Madrid Friday evening - and then heading to the airport at 3.30am on Sunday morning.

Friday evening I decided I’d check out Yerbabuena, which is at Bordadores, 3, in Madrid. It is quite a small place with room for room for about 40 people. Unfortunately when I got there it was full (well, one table had a ‘reserved’ sign, another was free, but the man said that was reserved too, and a couple were leaving but the waiter said that was reserved too!). The waiter asked me to come back in 20mins. Being that I’m a bit impatient, I decided not go back that evening and instead I went to get fries at Maoz (us busy jetsetters do not have time to waste and hang around! lol). If you want to visit Yerbabuena in the evening it may be better to call to reserve the table to be sure you get one.

Maoz (http://www.maozusa.com/) is a great little fast food chain that sells falafel and other vegetarian food. There are branches in the US, UK, Netherlands, Spain and France. The Madrid location was at Calle Mayor, 4. What I especially liked was that it was so close to a McDonalds and Burger King - showing that fast food doesn’t need to be made from dead animals and there are alternatives that taste great. I went in and grabbed fries and a drink.

Next day my friend and I headed to Yerbabuena (http://www.yerbabuena.ws) for my second attempt. Thankfully this time it wasn’t packed and we got a table. Their menu is extensive with all sorts of items, either vegan or vegetarian. Lots of food to choose from and lots of drinks too. It was hard to choose what to eat as there were many good choices. They had a pizza on the menu, so being as soya cheese pizza is my fave food in the whole world, I asked if they could do me a soya cheese pizza. Yes, they said! It came with a bit of salad and garlic on top (I’d have preferred just the cheese pizza but I won’t complain about that too much!). The pizza was huge and I was full before reaching the end. Although maybe the garlic also put me off slightly. That said, if I’m ever in Madrid again I’d go back and ask for it again (just ‘no garlic’, next time).

Drinks-wise I asked for a soya hot chocolate, which interestingly came in a glass with a straw and half a cherry in the straw! It was nice, though!

My friend has this to eat, which she enjoyed…

We also were given nachos and guacamole as an entree, and some mints/sweets with the bill.

The one thing I didn’t like about Madrid was at the airport in the tourist shop when I saw T-shirts with bulls on. Spain, we hate bullfighting. Do you not realise that? Only idiots with no brains or hearts care about bullfighting. Thankfully the cool veggie restaurants made up for this and it was soon forgotten. It’s great to see that even in a city/country where animals are abused and mistreated, there are vegans and vegetarians and vegan-friendly food places. With Catalonia being the first Spanish city to ban bullfighting, the evil sport is on the way out… while vegetarianism is growing and growing.