“Soy: Savior or Sinner”

“Forgive me people, it has been 22 days since my last blog”. Aug! I’ve thought about this blog a lot over the last few weeks. There are so many topics that I want to discuss. The problem is, the more I learn about a specific topic, the harder it is to sift through the information to decide what is fact and what is fiction.

Most recently I’ve been researching soy. As a vegan, soy can come into play quite often in food choices, especially when eating fake meat items. Soy is in almost all vegan chicken nuggets, burgers and hot dogs. It is also commonly found in items that are vegan by chance, such as bread, baked goods and salad dressings.

Although soy has been consumed for centuries, it has traditional been eaten as boiled soybeans (edamame), tofu (soybeancurd), natto (fermented soybeans), miso (fermented soybean paste), okara (a byproductof tofu), soybean sprouts, soymilk, yuba (by-product of soy milk), kinako (soyflour), and soy sauce.  It also has traditionally been eaten in much smaller quantities than a vegan eating quick “go to” foods would consume today.

So what? What's the problem? Well, soy contains isoflavones which are chemicals that mimic estrogen in the body. The trouble is, there are studies that seem to indicate that these isoflavones are a good thing, and some that show it is a bad thing. However, the more recent research seems to indicate this is not a good thing, especially when soy is eaten in it's "isolated protein" form, ie: as fake meat and as a food additive.

What’s a vegan eater to do? Personally, I’ve cut out the fake meat almost entirely from our diets. I still have a couple of boxes of Boca items lingering in the freezer, and I will hang onto them to cook up in a dire pinch, but we’re talking maybe once a month vs. once a day or more like we were eating them. Once  these items are all gone, I will not buy more.

The kids have transitioned easier than I thought. I think this is because they’ve been eating vegan for over 9 months now, and have lost the desire to eat things that taste like meat, even if they are “fake”. Their pallets have changed so much for the better, it’s pretty amazing. Today for breakfast, my 3 year old had raw baby orange peppers, and curried potatoes. Wow!  What American three year old eats that for breakfast!

As far as traditional soy products go, I think  they are best eaten in small doses. Tofu in a stir fry…ok, tofu as a scrambled egg replacement…not ok.

If you’d like to learn more, and would like to see the article that I have heavily referenced for this blog post, please go to http://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/pdf/pdf050400nl.pdf.

The Must Have Cookbook!

I was looking through my cookbook collection, and I have purchased 11 Vegan cookbooks since we went vegan in February 2010. Some are better than others, but I’ve finally found my “go to” cookbook. It’s called “How it all Vegan - 10^th Anniversary Edition” by Tanya Barnard & Sarah Kramer. I’ve made several of their soup recipes, and the family has loved them. Each time I’ve made a double or triple batch, expecting to freeze some, but have not been able to because the soup is gone by the next day.

The recipes from “How it all Vegan” are fairly quick to make (generally it’s taken me about ½ hr of prep for the dishes I’ve made), use healthy ingredients, and they taste good. Gotta like that!

There is also a baking section that I have yet to explore, but the titles of the recipes sound great – “Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie”, “Maple Walnut Brownies”, and “Better than Butter Tarts” are a few that look pretty darn good.

Now, there are some ingredients that the general omnivore eater may need to go get to make some of these, but many of them are made with ingredients that are found in your average grocery store. Of course, Whole Foods has pretty much anything you’ll ever need to eat vegan if you are lucky enough to have one close to you.

In any event, if you check it out, let me know your thoughts!

Museling (Not for the squeemish)

I made the switch to eating vegan for health reasons, but I find myself being drawn into an internal debate with myself about some animal issues. It was probably inevitable. Most books on Vegan eating are written first with the animals in mind, health secondary.

Recently, I have been introduced to an issue in the wool industry called "Museling." When I first read about it, I was pretty shocked. I never gave wearing wool much thought. I read "Farmer Boy" (By Laura Ingalls Wilder) when I was little, and heck, sheering sheep didn't sound like something bad! It sounded kinda fun! Certainly, it didn't seem like anything that would harm the sheep. I never gave it a thought.

Here is Wikapedia's definition of the process:

Mulesing is a skilled surgical task^[1] that involves the removal of strips of wool-bearing skin from around the breech (buttocks) of a sheep to prevent flystrike in regions where it is common.

Hmm, that doesn't sound good. Now, here is a picture:



Umm, that really doesn't look good. At all.

Here are the top 10 wool exporters in the world:

Global woolclip (total amount of wool shorn) 2004/2005^[26]

1.  Australia: 25% of global woolclip (475 million kg greasy, 2004/2005)
2.  China: 18%
3.  New Zealand: 11%
4.  Argentina: 3%
5.  Turkey: 2%
6.  Iran: 2%
7.  United Kingdom: 2%
8.  India: 2%
9.  Sudan: 2%
10.  South Africa: 1%
11.  United States: 0.77%

Australia is #1. Australia had planned on no longer using the Museling method of fliestrike control at the end of 2010. It has changed its mind.

If you'd like more information, google it yourself, or start with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulesing.

Sometimes, "I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then." (Toby Keith)

Very Exciting! New Restaurant!

Check out this new addition to the plant eating scene in Ann Arbor, MI. It is replacing an old Quizno's location. It's called the "Jazzy Veggie" and it is going to be completely plant based, down to a vegan pizza! How excited am I on a scale of 1 - 10? I'm a 9! To be a 10, it'd have to be my own restaurant! Here is a link about it:

http://www.annarbor.com/business-review/new-jazzy-veggie-vegan-restaurant-set-to-open-next-month-in-downtown-ann-arbor/

Finally Getting Organized!

This morning, I spent about 2 hours organizing various grains that I've had sitting in bags in my pantry. As you can see from this shot, I still need a few more containers, but for the most part, they are now labeled and marked if they are "gluten free" or not. (We do not follow a GF diet, but it's good to know). I was about to type up cooking directions to add to the back of each container, so that anyone in the family could easily cook them up if they wanted to (ummm....well a person can dream, can't they?) when my husband walked in and said, "Hey, that looks great! Oh, but are they BPA Free?" uhhhh, I don't know! I looked them up. They are OXO brand, but I bought them at Target. Now, OXO Pop Tops sold everywhere else apparently have round buttons on the top and are made with a thicker plastic than the ones that Target sells, which are  #7 plastic, and a square button top. Usually, #7 contains BPA, but not always. Unfortunately, I already threw away all of the labeling. So, I guess a trip to Target is in my future today to confirm whether or not they are BPA free. It really bugs me that I have to do this. Usually I pay attention to the BPA thing, but I was so excited to find containers that stack and seal well, I just didn't think about it. Honestly, I am not sure if it's even an issue, since everything being stored is a solid. Can BPA leak into non liquid materials? I could not find an answer to this question online this morning, although I only spent about 20 minutes looking.

Am I too anal about this stuff? Maybe. But we are inadvertently exposed to so many things that negatively impact our health, that I feel an obligation to have as much knowledge as possible about products that I use, so that at the very least I can make an informed choice.



New to this

This time, however, my husband is on board, along with 3 of our 4 children. Our oldest, who is 18, hasn't bought what I'm selling (yet!), but I'll give it time.

Why do I call it "herbivore eating" or "plant only eating"? Here is the reason...when you say that you are Vegan, or that you "eat Vegan" or are a "dietary Vegan" or pretty much use the term Vegan when you've cut out eating animal products for health reasons, and not only because of ethical reasons, die hard Vegans get really ticked off! I can respect that, it's just that there isn't any other term out there that means "I do not eat animal products, and this decision was based mostly on health reasons".

However, for the sake of simplicity, I am going to refer to "eating a plant based diet" as eating Vegan in this blog from now on, or at least until I come up with a better term for it.

So, on that note, I hope you enjoy following me on this Vegan eating journey. It has opened my mind, eyes and my arteries, I've loved every minute of it (almost:) so far, and can never see myself heading out for a steak again!