I've had a slightly horrified reaction to the notion that I would flirt with veganism. To be clear, this is definitely a fling: I love me some cheese. It's just that every year, I try to give up some major dietary group for lent. I used to give up sugar, but in recent years I've sort of lost my sweet tooth, so this doesn't mean too much. Then I switched to meat, but since I switched to humanely raised meat, I don't eat enough of it for the dietary loss to register. So: milk and eggs. Odds are I'll last about two days.
Though lines like this, from a review of a vegan cookbook, ought to give me strength:
They say they came up with the list of just over 100 recipes and wrote the headnotes, such as: “‘Chicken’ Noodle Soup: Just like Mom used to make — minus the pieces of decomposing, rotting chicken carcass.”
Still, I don't think I'll buy the actual book:
The cookbook makes little use of traditional Asian meat substitutes (there is one recipe each for seitan and tempeh) but there is a lot of frozen Italian “sausage” and vegan creamer sprinkled around. Recipes without those foods were tastier, such as spaghetti squash with spicy braised greens, raisins and nuts, a huge hit at my table because of its subtle infusion of chipotle chilies.The authors go beyond veganism at many points, rejecting olive oil for cooking in favor of coconut oil (they believe heating olive oil makes it dangerous to health) and disallowing non-whole-grain foods like semolina pasta and white rice.
I wouldn't give up semolina pasta if it gave you cancer while you were eating it. And I abhor fake meat. If you really want anonymous grade-z vegetable matter pulverized into tiny pieces, assaulted with various chemicals, and then processed into something that at leas superficially resembles a chicken muscle, I suggest you have the processing done by a chicken. It may be cruel, but at least the chicken will produce something edible. The longest meal I ever spent was a Thanksgiving far from home at which someone's awfully thoughtful sister-in-law made a Tofurkey specially for me. One cannot, when presented by a beaming hostess with one's very own Tofurkey, do anything except manfully carve two or three thick slices and hoover them down with a delighted smile. I would have enjoyed chewing my way through the aluminum siding of their tract home quite as much. Which probably would have taken less time.
Yanno, the Eastern Orthodox fasting rule for Lent forbids meat (including fish), eggs, dairy, and olive oil. So my wife and I wind up being vegan for a good six weeks every year, and they're the hardest culinary weeks of my life. At least there are several "fish ok" days sprinkled here and there.
It's about sacrifice... If you aren't willing to actually sacrifice, then what exactly IS the point? It doesn't have to be food, anyway, unless you are doing for tradition's sake, but it should be a serious minded thing. Being one 'o them Protestant types, I've always been on the serious reflection side for Lent, so I never gave up food. If I were to, though I would give up something hard, like grains... you would be surprised how hard they are to eliminate, versus just beef.
Personally, I just think it's more important where you're mind is when you sacrifice, rather than what it is... after all, how can we compare a food sacrifice to allowing ourselves to be murdered?
Think Indian cuisine. They have had millenia of dealing with vegatarianism and so have come up with lots of tasty stuff that doesn't involve meat, or fake meat. Of course, then there is no sacrifice.
I wouldn't give up semolina pasta if it gave you cancer while you were eating it
I think we've found what you should give up for Lent.
Fake meat products can be pretty yum once you get used to them. Most of them taste good in their own right, they just don't taste like the meat they're intended to mimic, so if you're used to eating meat, you think they taste bad.
There's also none of that vein/gristle/fat/skin grossness, and they're a lot easier to work with, since the "raw" product isn't filled w/ germs and such.
Hey, now, hold on. I have been a vegetarian about 10 years now. And I too am generally not much of one for fake meat - gimme black bean veggie burgers, not veggie burgers made to taste like burgers.
But, we made a Tofurkey once. It was OK. I'm not saying it was the second coming or anything. I may not make one again. But it was OK, and I don't really see how anyone who generally likes turkey and soy stuff and whatever wouldn't have found it, well, OK. And as for being all hard to chew -- no way, man, try making one yourself, your hostess must've biffed something.
There's a lot to be said for how it's prepared too. Could be your hostess couldn't have baked an edible turkey turkey to save her life either...
I wouldn't give up semolina pasta if it gave you cancer while you were eating it.
Funny, but not surprising, because whole wheat protein (gluten) has exorphins that mimic the effects of opium in the brain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluten_exorphin
You can get rice pasta or some other substitute, but your body will know something addictive is missing. If your goal for lent is to sacrifice, try giving up wheat/rye/and barley and going with the gluten-free diet.
BTW: Wheat equivalent to four pieces of bread a day does significantly increase your risk for cancer. This would probably be a healthier diet than fake meats and you still get all the guilt-ridden Catholic self-sacrifice!
Do these people use chalk?
There's also none of that vein/gristle/fat/skin grossness
Grossness??? Grossness???
Now that's vegan-speak. Real meat is tasty because of fat, skin, vein and occasional gristle. And that lean pork looks and tastes as natural as tofurkey.
re: Yanno, the Eastern Orthodox fasting rule for Lent forbids meat (including fish), eggs, dairy, and olive oil.
"Forbids" is too strong a word here. While clergy and monastics are definitely enjoined to adhere to the fast quite strictly, laity are advised to follow it, but are not threatened with sin and hellfire if they do not. Most people give up what they can. I generally eliminate meat (of which I eat very little anyway), and try to do the full regimen on Wednesday and Fridays provided I am not traveling.
The idea behind the fast is not that some foods are spiritually bad, but that we should simplify out material lives to better concentrate on spiritual things. For long the fasting regimen worked for this, but no longer. Obsessing about what ingredients are in what can or box or menu item; or spending more money not less on dinner because you have to find the right foods* is counter to the purpose of the fast.
* Weirdly, some luxury foods like lobster are allowed in the fast. In today's world at least a Taco Bell burrito is more in tune with the purpose of the fast than a pig-out at some local four-star seafood place.
Yummy: I just had extra firm tofu wedges browned in a pan with walnut oil and Gourmet Garden mild ginger spice blend and fresh green beans (and I don't bother to pluck the ends off of them--too time-consuming).
My problem is six-fold:
- I hate cooking (especially the obligatory clean-up that ensues and food preparation is incredibly boring to me)
- Severe ulcerative colitis and IBS makes digestion a terrible battle
- I don't have a lot of money for meals each month;
- I have several kinds of allergic reactions (some death-inducing) to both shell and fresh water fish
- I’m severely lactose intolerant
- Diabetes runs in my family.
So to maintain a sense of health, I don't buy or prepare meat; I don’t eat dairy; I don’t eat a lot of sweets. I make sure that the ingredients are ultra-simple (no mono this and high fructose that or other sodiumesque names).Everyday I eat the following:
- fresh, nearly raw green vegetables (mostly beans)
- 7g or more high fiber cereal every day (increases digestion)
- a bit of fruit (apples make me nauseous; raisins bloat me; so pears, bananas and a little grapefruit are best for me)
I eat two moderate size meals and one snack a day (a cracker or fruit) and I do not spend a lot of time cooking. If I slip and order out for food I end up paying for it with days of internal pain--what do they put in the food. I avoid sweets, breads, rice, all things that experience have taught me are hard to digest. For cereal I use Almond Breeze Vanilla soy beverage. From time to time I do have coffee but I make sure to request that it be mild it this is an option.I didn’t arrive at my foodways through a cookbook or television or anything else. I arrived at my approach to consumption through trial and error and a desire to be free of debilitating pain and the things that annoy me. My foodways are therefore a reflection of my life's challenges, conditions, and growth. There's nothing ideological per se, although I agree with the awful, vile corporate nastiness of most meat and other food preparation today. Discipline is key: I love cocoanut but it disagrees with me so I avoid it; I adore Turkish Delight, especially with nuts; but if I eat too much I am like the boy in the Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe who is blitzed by the witch.
Simplicity, freshness, discipline, and avoidance are key.
Ms. McArdle, I enjoy your savvy, tart, deeply knowledgeable posts, even when I disagree. I wish you blessings in the new year.
Funnny, as soon as you said : "If you really want anonymous grade-z vegetable matter pulverized into tiny pieces, assaulted with various chemicals, and then processed into something that at leas superficially resembles..." Tofurky immediately came to mind.. then, lo and behold~
No kidding, those faux 'meats' need to be put to pasture.
This: "Personally, I just think it's more important where you're mind is when you sacrifice, rather than what it is... after all, how can we compare a food sacrifice to allowing ourselves to be murdered?" though, has, to me, the right meta-physical ring to it..
Going vegan for Lent would be in keeping with the season: like the Orthodox still do, Catholics once kept a "black fast" that forbade eating meat at any time during Lent. That gave rise to the great Eastern European tradition of blessing Easter baskets full of meat, butter, and cheese on Holy Saturday and eating them on Easter Sunday (which is the only part of the tradition that I observe). Keeping that traditional Eastern European or even Irish Lenten diet would certainly be a sacrifice, as you wouldn't be able to "cheat" by eating the tasty vegetarian fare that people in warmer places (like Greece and India) enjoyed.
It may be true that the traditional Lenten fast was developed because nobody had any meat or cheese to eat anyway at that time of year, and Lent allowed people to spiritualize an unfortunate fact of winter life in the days before refrigeration and quick global transport.
I take the market demand for fake meat as a fundamental admission that people are meat eaters. I mean, if vegan is the natural way, why are people will to buy tofurkey? It speaks to a longing for meat that can only be sated with culinary equivalent to methadone.
Toxicroach - Speaking as a vegetarian, I agree, people are naturally meat eaters. Or at least, fish eaters. Anything else is propaganda from overly zealous veggies. Historically, though, most populations probably didn't eat meat or even calories in general at the levels we do today.
Whether it's good to raise and eat meat that's been factory farmed and loaded up with antibiotics and antibiotic resistant bacteria is something else entirely.
I love me some cheese.
I have to ask... did you just come up with that or did you actually quote Joss Wheadon from the "Serenity" commentary? Such a thing would be beyond geek.
Also, this: "I've had a slightly horrified reaction to the notion that I would flirt with veganism.", should, probably, tell you more about them, then it would anything else.
It'd be interesting, rhetorically, to understand the consumption habits of the, said, 'horrified'.
I think it, too, goes back to the ol'adage: "People would rather be Wrong in groups, then, Right, alone."
"Historically, though, most populations probably didn't eat meat or even calories in general at the levels we do today."
I agree, but the problem is that high-calorie and high-fat food is the cheapest and easiest way to eat good tasting food. Eating good food that's healthy usually requires time spent in the kitchen, and money spent on more expensive ingredients. I feel for overeaters because I have to deal with it as well. The only way I know to do it is to add a lot of bulk to my meals with fruits, veggies and beans. That way I can still eat the volume of food I like to, without consuming so many calories.
The other thing is that we use little calories in the production of our food. It's not big deal to gorge down 2000 calories worth of meat if you had to track it over 5-miles, shoot it and then drag it back 5-miles to eat it.
Semolina pasta is undoubtedly a fine food, but one does have to wonder about the name, which translates roughly to "bran paste". Bran paste? Chalk that one up with such gems as "ethylene glycol", "Thunderbird", and "I found these bright red mushrooms in the woods" as one of the many phrases that fails to inspire hunger phrase.
How can someone so smart have such crazy eating habits?
Btw, I wonder how vegans eat spaghetti, since it's made with eggs.
I seem to recall hearing that at one time Catholics, my religion, gave up eggs and dairy during Lent. I'm not sure if that's true, but I do know that as strict as what my parents generation had was it was once far stricter.
I guess I kind of cut back on giving up foods as well. Lately I alternate between giving up television and giving up the Internet. I don't entirely succeed at either though.
I'm confused: I've been reading our blogs for a while and I seem to recall two things about you, other than your height: despite your Irish name, you're not Catholic. And I think you have said that you are an agnostic, which leaves me wondering: why would you give up anything for Lent?
I'm not being snarky -- I'm just respectfully curious. When I read "It's just that every year, I try to give up some major dietary group for lent," I double-checked to make sure that I wasn't a Ross Douthat's blog.
I think there's a difference among "fake meat", between American vegetarian fake meat and traditional products that are vaguely meat-like. I'd much much rather eat tofu in Asian cooking, or Indian bean patties, than some factory marvel of a meat substitute. I'd put tempeh in the first category, not the second.
I always try to give up stimulants for Lent (coffee, tea, tobacco when I smoked socially.)
I have found one line of good fake chicken patties that taste pretty much the same and almost have the same texture, but that is only one product from only one company. Some soy dogs are ok, but that's because hot dogs suck in general (unlike the sausages sold at Fenway Park). I really don't get why so many companies still haven't realized that making burgers out of beans that bring out the taste of the beans is better than trying to convince your customers that something with the wrong texture tastes like beef.
"I take the market demand for fake meat as a fundamental admission that people are meat eaters. I mean, if vegan is the natural way, why are people will to buy tofurkey? It speaks to a longing for meat that can only be sated with culinary equivalent to methadone.
Posted by Toxicroach | January 2, 2008 9:57 PM"
I agree with you despite being a vegetarian, but just to play Devil's advocate, most Americans today are raised to eat turkey on Thanksgiving, thus causing us to associating it with home, family, etc. We weren't necessarily meant to ever take cocaine, yet people who do cocaine end up craving it and demanding the good stuff.
* Weirdly, some luxury foods like lobster are allowed in the fast.
Religions change slowly. Lobsters used to be a poor man's food. The rich man bought the choicest fish in the catch while the poor man got stuck with those giant, clawed bugs that got stuck in the nets.
On another note, if the sacrifice is what's important, could someone who really enjoys being a holier-than-thou type give up self-righteousness for lent?
I agree that you have to think of meat substitutes as unique foods in their own right, not actual meat.
I think seitan is pretty good, if you cook it right, and I enjoy Morningstar farms "bacon" and mini corn dogs quite a bit. They're not about to make me give up pork or beef, but they're good additions to the menu once in a while.
On another note, if the sacrifice is what's important, could someone who really enjoys being a holier-than-thou type give up self-righteousness for lent?
That's a great idea (LOL, as they say), but isn't pride one of the seven deadlies? You might be well advised to give it up permanently.
Fake meats differ enormously in quality, and Tofuturkey is among the worst. As a vegetarian for many years, I'd agree that fake meat should not be the mainstay of a vegetarian diet.
However, if you want to try a little, Morningstar Farms is by far the best. I like their fake "steak strips", microwaved with chopped green onions and fresh tomatos, drizzled with olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, and paprika.
However, if you want to try a little, Morningstar Farms is by far the best.
I (non-vegetarian who likes some of those products as foods, not substitutes) recommend Boca Burgers and the "ground beef" from Lightlife. (Lightlife's Smart Dogs, however, are simply repulsive.) Morningstar I don't like as much, and Gardenburger even less so.
I suggest giving up guilt for lent....
Matt: The fat and skin are the best part. And then there's delicious organ meats.
More vegans means two things: More meat left for me, and less competition when civilization collapses.
Fake meat is disgusting. I love tofu, but hate it when it's been subverted into some fake hot dogs.
The best meat substutute is beans, since you get the quality protein at a cheap price, and with tons of culinary versitility.
By the way, my husband is reading The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan right now and really enjoying it. You might find it worthwhile reading for Lent, since, I assume, you won't be studying Bible verses.
Rob Lyman wrote: LOL, as they say
I think I just sprained forty ganglions trying to interpret that juxtaposition.
Reality Man wrote: just to play Devil's advocate...We weren't necessarily meant to ever take cocaine, yet people who do cocaine end up craving it and demanding the good stuff.
Your client just called, you're fired ;-)
Cocaine is merely an HDTV that latches onto opiate receptors. Life continues normally (much more normally, in fact) if one never becomes rabidly dependent upon its comforting presence.
Variety in food, OTOH, is essential to good nutrition. Although a man can live healthfully without eating meat on anything at all like the modern west eats it, pure veganism is a worse distortion because it deprives the body of vital nutrients that it needs in order to grow and maintain. Without adding dairy products (at a minimum) and preferably ocassional fish consumption to a vegetable diet, it's nearly impossible to consume enough quantities of certain vitamins and proteins that the body requires.
Re: It may be true that the traditional Lenten fast was developed because nobody had any meat or cheese to eat anyway at that time of year
Not really true. Rich people certainly could afford meat year round. And from the early centuries of legalized official Christianity in Rome and Byzantium we read of efforts to get the government to shut down the butcher shops so people couldn't eat meat in Lent, indicating it was available.
Moreover a similar fast was enjoined during Advent before Christmas, and shorter fasts at other times of the year. Indeed, meatless cheeseless fasting was the rule on all Wednesdays and Fridays (the meatless Fridays lasted until quite recently) except during explicit feast periods, as now in the Twelve Days of Christmas.
Remember too that Christianity developed in the Mediterranean region where winter is less fierce a season than in northern Europe.
This is one of the drawbacks of my aforementioned vegetable and fruit-rich foodways.
Which vitamins are missing from a vegetarian diet?
B vitamins and carnitine, maybe. And perhaps a little DHA and other fish oils (which can be obtained from algal extracts, if they aren't gotten from fish. It's not cheap, but it's doable.) Variety of fruits and vegetables is important because people use the micronutrients, nutrients and pigments from various plants. Variety of meats does not offer the same benefit. Once a few specific nutrients are supplimented, a vegetarian diet is superior to one which relies on red meat and pork for protein.
Fasting may be good for the soul, but extended fasting is definitely NOT good for the body. Short duration fasts are helpful, but eliminating major nutrients for an extended period of time (let's say more than a couple of days) forces your body to start scavenging itself. Eventually it gets to something essential for further growth, and you've just eaten the seed corn. Why do you think that vegan-raised children are, as a group, shorter and less robust?
All interesting stuff. A couple of things:
I wouldn't eat chicken noodle soup either if it had pieces of decomposing, rotting carcass in it -- I try to make sure the soup is made before the carcass begins to rot.
Spaghetti doesn't have eggs in it -- I think it's just semolina and water.
As an Italian born and bred (though currently a resident of California), I find the idea of "giving up" on olive oil and/or REAL pasta (made from durum wheat, which I suspect is what you Americans mean by "semolina" in this context) absolutely risible.
Just about any other food (including coffee, if I didn't HAVE to be awake and alert;-) I could see "giving up" (though [real] bread, lentils, rice, garlic, onions, and red peppers, might be a challenge), but [real] pasta and olive oil are like air and water -- one can't just "give them up" and still survive!!!