Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Sunday, March 2, 2008
See our new organized space! Lots of pictures!
I took some pictures for another organizing/decluttering website, so I'll post them here too. we've been working in the garden all weekend. If these giant 10" long worms aren't evidence of amazingly healthy soil, i don't know what is. We got some crops in the ground today. The weather has been amazingly warm and sunny these past couple of weeks.
I wanted to embed this slideshow into my blog, but i'm too stupid to figure it out today and i'm annoyed now, so you'll just have to click this link.
http://www.flickr.com/gp/24328696@N04/fRR293
I really feel like our space is totally organized. We have cleared out so much stuff. It takes a lot less time to clean up now. It's great. Spring has the effect of making me see how depressed i've been all winter. I feel so great right now, like everything is going to work out and be fine.
Jay's homemade laundry soap turned out amazing. we are trying to figure out how many more things we can do ourselves...its almost like a challenge. jay is wanting to buy a table saw because he loves working with wood and he wants to build things like children's furniture out of used scrap wood.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Quick update and last post for a long while (probably)
I just wanted to give a quick update about our family and what's going on (in case anyone is still reading this). Below are some pictures of our garden today. we just picked about 10 lbs of tomatoes and are making sauce today. we are also putting in our fall crops today including kale, collards, beets, broccoli, spinach and a few others.
I am started teaching 8th grade science full time last week. i will be teaching through Christmas, then the woman whose maternity leave I'm taking comes back.
Its hard knowing that my kids are in daycare all day, but we found a wonderful person who is watching only 4 children to take care of them, and they are adjusting well to be being gone during the day.
Most of our environmental stuff continues, and has become habit at this point. Other things just kind of fell by the wayside and we've stopped. In general, we continue to reduce our waste and don't use disposable products, although not buying anything with non-recyclable packaging has proved impossible for us for the time being. Driving to work has become a necessity with dropping off and picking up the kids. Making stuff from scratch is pretty much out the window. We are saving water as much as possible and conserving energy by not using the dryer and things like that.
When December rolls around, we will re-evaluate how things are going...if we aren't enjoying this arrangement, i'll stop working at that point or just sub a few days a week possibly. Its nice that i can get my feet wet teaching, but know that its only 3.5 months and then i can stop if i want. Its kind of overwhelming teaching and being mom to 2 young kids, but i have a lot of lessons planned out for me already by the woman whose leave i'm taking, so that is much easier. I have a lot of support at the school also because I student taught there, and I have a lot of mentor teachers to draw from.
I am enjoying my students and looking forward to doing fun stuff with them this year. I do have a lot of mother-guilt about leaving my kids, but in many ways i'm feeling really happy to have my own thing separate from them. Elsie still has her school 2 days a week, so she can see her old friends. Emmett is eating a lot of food, and not relying very heavily on nursing right now (in fact, i struggle to get him to nurse most days because he's so interested in crawling around, exploring and trying to walk) so that takes a lot of pressure off of me. He is a very happy, easy going guy who takes well to people, and doesn't seem at all upset that I leave him during the day. I think it helps that his big sister is there to help with him. They really love each other.
So that's about it. Life is going to be very crazy for the next few months.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Why vegan?
Why did I decide to be vegan in the first place? Why would anybody want to be vegan? I've been thinking about this a lot, because after a one-year period during which I was not vegan at all, I have a new appreciation for the reasons behind being vegan, and why most people aren't.
I have a friend whose boyfriend started this website called "Vegan Represent". His whole philosophy is basically that a vegan who "reprazents" is a happy, healthy, whole, fun, interesting, normal person, and is a good representative for veganism. People would be drawn to this person, and want to ask, through the course of normal human interactions, "why are you vegan anyway?" or, as happened to me recently "what does it mean when you order your burrito vegan?" Then you explain to that person, and quite possibly that causes the person to consider what you have to say. This is in contrast to the often-represented stereotype of a vegan who is in-your-face, angry and sullen--and easy to dismiss. People also think vegan food is boring and gross, which could not be further from the truth. But I'll save that for a later date.
I have to admit that I used to be more akin to the latter rather than the "vegan represent" variety. I have seen a lot of things through the course of educating myself, and then working for Farm Sanctuary, that made me want to yell "HOW CAN YOU NOT BE VEGAN, YOU SELFISH JERK?!" Usually, when you yell something like that at someone, they tend to want to ignore you or make fun of you.
After spending a year eating dairy, eggs and even fish, I grew accustomed to these things. I stopped feeling guilty about it. I started thinking things along these lines: After all, everyone around me eats these things, and they are Good People, so it can't be totally evil. And besides, I'm sick of feeling deprived, left-out, etc. I like eating these things.
After a few months, I just stopped thinking about it. I just ate what I wanted, and what everyone else was eating (except beef, chicken, pork, etc.)
Contrary to what most people think, vegans are actually a very compassionate and forgiving bunch, on the whole. Most of my vegan friends were like "I understand. It's hard." I don't think anybody gave me a hard time. I think if they would have, I would have only become more entrenched in my non-vegandom. A vegan friend (the same one whose boyfriend runs Vegan Represent) finally called me out on it. "So, on your blog it says you are eating half-and-half. What's up with that?" I explained to her my feelings (I like eating these things, etc.) and a conversation ensued over email that I was going to post here, but she wanted to edit. It finally just got edited, but is really long and full of potty language. It's so long that very few people will probably read it, so I won't post it. Suffice to say, it hit very near the mark and snapped me out of it. I had been vegan for nearly 7 years when I stopped, so it wasn't some passing fancy on my part. It was really a part of who I was. Being a non-vegan never did stop feeling strange, like I was impersonating something I wasn't.
Another wise vegan friend of mine, in an earlier conversation, after assuring me that she understood my lapse, told me about her thinking. She said that she can completely understand why people aren't vegan. Its easy, it tastes good, and its not exactly like meat and dairy producers are trying to tell you where the food comes from. You have to seek out information about the problems with it. Most people just don't do that. She said that there are two ways of thinking about something. The first is "should" thinking, the second is "is" thinking. For example, everybody should be vegan. People shouldn't shop at Wal-Mart. VS "people aren't vegan, they do eat lots of animal products." "People DO shop at walmart". The "is" way of thinking recognizes things as the way they are. And it causes the thinker to accept reality: You can only control what YOU do. You cannot control anybody else. This kind of thinking helps with not being angry. Because if you are going around talking about "people should be vegan" all the time, you are bound to notice the reality that people aren't. They "should" but they don't. Can you see how that would make somebody mad all the time? To think that way? It certainly did for me. My motto now is "I can only control my own actions (and through my actions, I might cause others to follow suit.)"
These days, it feels good to go back to being vegan. I have stopped feeling like it is a deprivation because it is a choice. I don't say "I can't eat that." I say "I choose not to eat that." One sounds like i'm being prevented from doing something I want to do. The other sounds like I am making a decision, and have power. I can actually picture where the food came from, and then I don't even want it anymore. For example, my biggest weakness would always be some kind of sweet, like brownies at a party that have eggs in them. I would want them, and would try to justify eating them. Now, I just picture the chickens that had to endure horrible conditions to lay those eggs, and ask myself if I NEED that brownie. Of course the answer is no, I don't need it. And when I think about the animal cruelty involved, I can say that I honestly don't want it anymore, either.
I would like to think that most people just don't have the facts about their food, and if given the information they would choose not to support those practices. It is true that some people don't want to know, and hope that through willful ignorance, they can just keep eating what they like without facing the fact that they are contributing to some pretty horrible suffering in the process. I know that is how it was with my thinking: If I don't think about it, then it doesn't exist.
In the spirit of dispelling some of this ignorance, for those who would choose to know, I am going to include the following information. I know that many people won't read this, or won't click on the links. I can only say that just because you don't look at it, doesn't mean its not happening. If you feel like knowledge might make you "have" to stop drinking milk, for example, and you are afraid of that, maybe you should think about it. If, on the other hand, you educate yourself about where cheese comes from, and you are still ok with eating it, then you are doing better than most people who have no idea why someone would choose to not eat cheese. I say these things truly in the spirit of non-judgment, but with the hope that people can use this information to make informed choices, and make the world a better place.
Eggs: Come from chickens who are de-beaked, force-molted and live in battery cages. "Free range" and "cage free" are terms that have no legal meaning (unlike Organic, which has strict standards that need to be met and certified to be labeled as such), and thus can be applied to eggs that are produced in extremely inhumane conditions.
Dairy: The only way to get a mammal, like a cow or goat, to lactate is to get that animal pregnant. You then have to take the baby away from the mother, (IF YOU ONLY CLICK ONE LINK HERE, MAKE IT THIS ONE) so it doesn't drink that milk. The dairy industry thus has a huge surplus of baby cows that they needed something to do with. That thing became veal. Thus, veal farming, a practice so cruel that most people won't eat it, couldn't exist without dairy. It can logically be argued that you would do more to alleviate animal suffering if you stopped drinking cow dairy than if you stopped eating meat. The same is true for organic dairy.
Meat: This issue is more varied. In some cases, animals like beef cows, have a much better, more normal life, than a battery cage hen or a dairy cow. They are still killed, of course, but generally aren't packed into tiny cages until the final feedlot stage of their life. Pork is another matter. The sows that produce the piglets are living in tiny cages called gestation crates and it is a pathetically miserable existence. Pig factory farms are some of the worst kinds of animal farming. Chickens and turkeys raised for meat are usually housed in huge warehouses. They are "debeaked" and don't have much room to move around. Its a filthy, uncomfortable and sad life.
There really isn't any way to eat an animal product without giving money to somebody to do something (that I hope) most people couldn't do themselves because it would be too sad and awful. If you rescue a chicken and that chicken lays eggs and you eat them, that's pretty much the only humane animal product. Otherwise, where animal's bodies are used to make a profit, those animals get turned into things. We all know that animals feel pain. So when they get treated like a thing, rather than a being that can experience suffering (sometimes intense, incomprehensibly awful suffering), it is incredibly tragic. People, like vegans, who have found out about this, are understandably angry and sad about it because they feel alone and mad that nobody but them cares about the pain these animals endure.
I hope you can take the time to examine your habits, and ask yourself if you need cheese, eggs or meat. Or if you are making an informed choice about it. I'd be interested in your comments on what i've posted here, if you'd like to add them.
I have a friend whose boyfriend started this website called "Vegan Represent". His whole philosophy is basically that a vegan who "reprazents" is a happy, healthy, whole, fun, interesting, normal person, and is a good representative for veganism. People would be drawn to this person, and want to ask, through the course of normal human interactions, "why are you vegan anyway?" or, as happened to me recently "what does it mean when you order your burrito vegan?" Then you explain to that person, and quite possibly that causes the person to consider what you have to say. This is in contrast to the often-represented stereotype of a vegan who is in-your-face, angry and sullen--and easy to dismiss. People also think vegan food is boring and gross, which could not be further from the truth. But I'll save that for a later date.
I have to admit that I used to be more akin to the latter rather than the "vegan represent" variety. I have seen a lot of things through the course of educating myself, and then working for Farm Sanctuary, that made me want to yell "HOW CAN YOU NOT BE VEGAN, YOU SELFISH JERK?!" Usually, when you yell something like that at someone, they tend to want to ignore you or make fun of you.
After spending a year eating dairy, eggs and even fish, I grew accustomed to these things. I stopped feeling guilty about it. I started thinking things along these lines: After all, everyone around me eats these things, and they are Good People, so it can't be totally evil. And besides, I'm sick of feeling deprived, left-out, etc. I like eating these things.
After a few months, I just stopped thinking about it. I just ate what I wanted, and what everyone else was eating (except beef, chicken, pork, etc.)
Contrary to what most people think, vegans are actually a very compassionate and forgiving bunch, on the whole. Most of my vegan friends were like "I understand. It's hard." I don't think anybody gave me a hard time. I think if they would have, I would have only become more entrenched in my non-vegandom. A vegan friend (the same one whose boyfriend runs Vegan Represent) finally called me out on it. "So, on your blog it says you are eating half-and-half. What's up with that?" I explained to her my feelings (I like eating these things, etc.) and a conversation ensued over email that I was going to post here, but she wanted to edit. It finally just got edited, but is really long and full of potty language. It's so long that very few people will probably read it, so I won't post it. Suffice to say, it hit very near the mark and snapped me out of it. I had been vegan for nearly 7 years when I stopped, so it wasn't some passing fancy on my part. It was really a part of who I was. Being a non-vegan never did stop feeling strange, like I was impersonating something I wasn't.
Another wise vegan friend of mine, in an earlier conversation, after assuring me that she understood my lapse, told me about her thinking. She said that she can completely understand why people aren't vegan. Its easy, it tastes good, and its not exactly like meat and dairy producers are trying to tell you where the food comes from. You have to seek out information about the problems with it. Most people just don't do that. She said that there are two ways of thinking about something. The first is "should" thinking, the second is "is" thinking. For example, everybody should be vegan. People shouldn't shop at Wal-Mart. VS "people aren't vegan, they do eat lots of animal products." "People DO shop at walmart". The "is" way of thinking recognizes things as the way they are. And it causes the thinker to accept reality: You can only control what YOU do. You cannot control anybody else. This kind of thinking helps with not being angry. Because if you are going around talking about "people should be vegan" all the time, you are bound to notice the reality that people aren't. They "should" but they don't. Can you see how that would make somebody mad all the time? To think that way? It certainly did for me. My motto now is "I can only control my own actions (and through my actions, I might cause others to follow suit.)"
These days, it feels good to go back to being vegan. I have stopped feeling like it is a deprivation because it is a choice. I don't say "I can't eat that." I say "I choose not to eat that." One sounds like i'm being prevented from doing something I want to do. The other sounds like I am making a decision, and have power. I can actually picture where the food came from, and then I don't even want it anymore. For example, my biggest weakness would always be some kind of sweet, like brownies at a party that have eggs in them. I would want them, and would try to justify eating them. Now, I just picture the chickens that had to endure horrible conditions to lay those eggs, and ask myself if I NEED that brownie. Of course the answer is no, I don't need it. And when I think about the animal cruelty involved, I can say that I honestly don't want it anymore, either.
I would like to think that most people just don't have the facts about their food, and if given the information they would choose not to support those practices. It is true that some people don't want to know, and hope that through willful ignorance, they can just keep eating what they like without facing the fact that they are contributing to some pretty horrible suffering in the process. I know that is how it was with my thinking: If I don't think about it, then it doesn't exist.
In the spirit of dispelling some of this ignorance, for those who would choose to know, I am going to include the following information. I know that many people won't read this, or won't click on the links. I can only say that just because you don't look at it, doesn't mean its not happening. If you feel like knowledge might make you "have" to stop drinking milk, for example, and you are afraid of that, maybe you should think about it. If, on the other hand, you educate yourself about where cheese comes from, and you are still ok with eating it, then you are doing better than most people who have no idea why someone would choose to not eat cheese. I say these things truly in the spirit of non-judgment, but with the hope that people can use this information to make informed choices, and make the world a better place.
Eggs: Come from chickens who are de-beaked, force-molted and live in battery cages. "Free range" and "cage free" are terms that have no legal meaning (unlike Organic, which has strict standards that need to be met and certified to be labeled as such), and thus can be applied to eggs that are produced in extremely inhumane conditions.
Dairy: The only way to get a mammal, like a cow or goat, to lactate is to get that animal pregnant. You then have to take the baby away from the mother, (IF YOU ONLY CLICK ONE LINK HERE, MAKE IT THIS ONE) so it doesn't drink that milk. The dairy industry thus has a huge surplus of baby cows that they needed something to do with. That thing became veal. Thus, veal farming, a practice so cruel that most people won't eat it, couldn't exist without dairy. It can logically be argued that you would do more to alleviate animal suffering if you stopped drinking cow dairy than if you stopped eating meat. The same is true for organic dairy.
Meat: This issue is more varied. In some cases, animals like beef cows, have a much better, more normal life, than a battery cage hen or a dairy cow. They are still killed, of course, but generally aren't packed into tiny cages until the final feedlot stage of their life. Pork is another matter. The sows that produce the piglets are living in tiny cages called gestation crates and it is a pathetically miserable existence. Pig factory farms are some of the worst kinds of animal farming. Chickens and turkeys raised for meat are usually housed in huge warehouses. They are "debeaked" and don't have much room to move around. Its a filthy, uncomfortable and sad life.
There really isn't any way to eat an animal product without giving money to somebody to do something (that I hope) most people couldn't do themselves because it would be too sad and awful. If you rescue a chicken and that chicken lays eggs and you eat them, that's pretty much the only humane animal product. Otherwise, where animal's bodies are used to make a profit, those animals get turned into things. We all know that animals feel pain. So when they get treated like a thing, rather than a being that can experience suffering (sometimes intense, incomprehensibly awful suffering), it is incredibly tragic. People, like vegans, who have found out about this, are understandably angry and sad about it because they feel alone and mad that nobody but them cares about the pain these animals endure.
I hope you can take the time to examine your habits, and ask yourself if you need cheese, eggs or meat. Or if you are making an informed choice about it. I'd be interested in your comments on what i've posted here, if you'd like to add them.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Breaking news! Fast food = really cheap, gross crap!
This may not be a surprise to some of you, but it was to me. Today I committed a simple-living sin and decided to eat fast-food. From the drive-through. Bless me father, for I have sinned. Its been my entire life since I last confessed. I partook of the environment-killing fast food industry. My penance is to eat nothing but organic brown rice and broccoli for 3 days, after which time I must sacrifice a small plastic item made in China.
Ok, so it was Burgerville. For those of you outside the pacific NW, its a smallish fast-food chain that prides itself on being of a higher quality than the Mcdonald's and burger kings out there. It uses local ingredients, wherever possible, which is pretty commendable. For example, they use only Oregon and Washington animal products, and local in-season fruits and veggies. Their food comes packaged in all-recyclable, unbleached looking stuff. I'm not saying they are part of the solution, by any stretch, but they are way better than Mcdonald's.
Anyway, I have eaten there before, and i SWEAR it wasn't that bad. Today it was so nasty, I was kind of amazed. How do they stay in business? I got the gardenburger black bean burger because its vegan, as opposed to the regular gardenburger. I got the local, walla-walla (Washington) onion rings. And a raspberry lemonaid (with actual local whole raspberries right in there). sounds pretty decent, eh? the burger bun looked like somebody sat on it prior to microwaving it or however they made it limp and yet also somewhat crunchy. the lettuce was basically cooked right onto the patty. the tomato looked very, very sad indeed. Although the onion rings and lemonaid were pretty good, I was forced to ask myself how on earth this sad-little microwaved-tasting thing cost $10 and change? Do people know that fast food is very expensive? Because I kind of thought that the whole point was that it was cheap? Maybe i'm missing something?
I'm sure you are all (yes, all 3 of you) wondering why I would assume a vegan burger from Burgerville would taste good. I guess I have high expectations. Actually, no, i just had AN expectation, and it was terribly misguided. How sad for me and my limp, limp, elephant-trodden burger. Its a frugal/simple living mistake I won't be repeating.
Ok, so it was Burgerville. For those of you outside the pacific NW, its a smallish fast-food chain that prides itself on being of a higher quality than the Mcdonald's and burger kings out there. It uses local ingredients, wherever possible, which is pretty commendable. For example, they use only Oregon and Washington animal products, and local in-season fruits and veggies. Their food comes packaged in all-recyclable, unbleached looking stuff. I'm not saying they are part of the solution, by any stretch, but they are way better than Mcdonald's.
Anyway, I have eaten there before, and i SWEAR it wasn't that bad. Today it was so nasty, I was kind of amazed. How do they stay in business? I got the gardenburger black bean burger because its vegan, as opposed to the regular gardenburger. I got the local, walla-walla (Washington) onion rings. And a raspberry lemonaid (with actual local whole raspberries right in there). sounds pretty decent, eh? the burger bun looked like somebody sat on it prior to microwaving it or however they made it limp and yet also somewhat crunchy. the lettuce was basically cooked right onto the patty. the tomato looked very, very sad indeed. Although the onion rings and lemonaid were pretty good, I was forced to ask myself how on earth this sad-little microwaved-tasting thing cost $10 and change? Do people know that fast food is very expensive? Because I kind of thought that the whole point was that it was cheap? Maybe i'm missing something?
I'm sure you are all (yes, all 3 of you) wondering why I would assume a vegan burger from Burgerville would taste good. I guess I have high expectations. Actually, no, i just had AN expectation, and it was terribly misguided. How sad for me and my limp, limp, elephant-trodden burger. Its a frugal/simple living mistake I won't be repeating.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Garden update
Our garden is doing awesome. We ate the first salad from our garden last night and it was so good. In the picture on the left you can see from front to back: spinach, swiss chard, lettuce, herbs (dill, parsley, cilantro), sweet basil, peppers, jalepeno peppers, peas. In the picture on the right from back to front: tomatoes and sunflowers on the right hand side, then broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts (if you think you hate them, you have never had them fresh--they are so good!), peas, carrots, strawberries (we got to eat 3 before the crows got to them), more tomatoes (romas, slicing, cherry), butternut squash, pumpkins, yellow summer squash, cantalope and the giant monstrosity there would be zukes. Oh, and a very sad, very tiny little eggplant next to the squashes. I've been told eggplant isn't very easy to grow around here, so I wasn't surprised when it didn't grow too well. Not bad for people who have no idea what they are doing, right? The only thing we don't have, but probably need to get in there right away is cukes. Elsie loves to help weed and plant. And a big secret is that kids love to eat veggies they helped grow.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Eating out...
In response to my brother Jason's question re: eating out and waste:
I think eating out produces a lot of waste, but that totally depends on where you are eating. Remember in "Supersize Me" when he showed how much garbage is made from a fast food meal? fast food and other highly packaged stuff is obviously very wasteful. There are ways to minimize your waste. for example, if you go to a burrito place, just have it wrapped in tin foil (which can be recycled). forgo the paper napkins, paper bag, plastic cutlery, plastic tub of salsa, etc.
The worst kind of eating-out containers are those big plastic boxes that can't be recycled. Ask for an "asian" style take out box. you can recycle the paper, just not the metal handle. As for eating-in a restaurant, it depends on the restaurant. Many restaurants are pretty efficient: they buy 50 lb bags of rice, 5 gallon jars of tomatoes, etc. They aren't (usually) opening like 50 16 oz cans a night. If you are eating off of normal plates, forks, knives, etc. Then you are probably not generating too much waste. The food, however, is probably (definitely, unless they specifically say it is) not organic, not local. Its mass-produced food from giants like ADM, etc.
Some places, like Burgerville, really try to get local ingredients. This doesn't necessarily translate into sustainable (ie, "local" beef, is still a huge waste of resources). You can always ask where the food comes from. You know, vote with your dollars.
I think eating out produces a lot of waste, but that totally depends on where you are eating. Remember in "Supersize Me" when he showed how much garbage is made from a fast food meal? fast food and other highly packaged stuff is obviously very wasteful. There are ways to minimize your waste. for example, if you go to a burrito place, just have it wrapped in tin foil (which can be recycled). forgo the paper napkins, paper bag, plastic cutlery, plastic tub of salsa, etc.
The worst kind of eating-out containers are those big plastic boxes that can't be recycled. Ask for an "asian" style take out box. you can recycle the paper, just not the metal handle. As for eating-in a restaurant, it depends on the restaurant. Many restaurants are pretty efficient: they buy 50 lb bags of rice, 5 gallon jars of tomatoes, etc. They aren't (usually) opening like 50 16 oz cans a night. If you are eating off of normal plates, forks, knives, etc. Then you are probably not generating too much waste. The food, however, is probably (definitely, unless they specifically say it is) not organic, not local. Its mass-produced food from giants like ADM, etc.
Some places, like Burgerville, really try to get local ingredients. This doesn't necessarily translate into sustainable (ie, "local" beef, is still a huge waste of resources). You can always ask where the food comes from. You know, vote with your dollars.
Saturday, June 2, 2007
I'm also a bread-machine
So I made bread on Friday. I've always thought that bread must be pretty hard to make. But I'm a novice and I did it, and it turned out pretty well. It doesn't take very much time. It needs time to rise, but the mixing and stuff is pretty easy. I got the recipe from an old hippie 70's vegetarian cookbook called Laurel's Kitchen. Its actually a great cookbook, back from the days when there were no fake meat products and vegetarians ate foods in combination (to form complete proteins such as corn and beans, rice and beans, etc. as per Diet for A Small Planet) a practice that has been proven to be unnecessary. But it still has great recipes. The introduction to the cookbook, which I had never read until now, talks about all of the things this blog is about. It talks about the need to reduce consumption, and to live more simple, fulfilling lives. It talks about the life of a "housewife" and how it could be interesting and creative (ie, making your own bread, knitting, etc) or dull drudgery such as using a bunch of machines. I just thought it was interesting.
I tried to find a similar recipe to what I used online, but couldn't find anything. Basically, all you need is a tbsp of brown sugar in a bowl of 2.5 cups (i think...i need to double check the amount) 100 degree water. then add a tbsp of active yeast. Then when it fizzes, add 3 cups whole wheat flour (stoneground is healthiest) and mix. add a tbsp of salt. then add 3 more cups of the flour, one cup at a time. when it gets doughy, take it out and put it on a floured surface and knead it. then put it in the bowl to rise. cover it and let it sit for a few hours until it doubles in size. take it out, put it in two oiled bread pans (divide it in half) and really push it down into those pans so there isn't any air trapped. then let it rise once more. preheat oven to 375. when its all the way risen and the oven is warmed fully, bake it for 40 minutes. it should have a hollow sound when you tap it after taking it out. that's about it.
I tried to find a similar recipe to what I used online, but couldn't find anything. Basically, all you need is a tbsp of brown sugar in a bowl of 2.5 cups (i think...i need to double check the amount) 100 degree water. then add a tbsp of active yeast. Then when it fizzes, add 3 cups whole wheat flour (stoneground is healthiest) and mix. add a tbsp of salt. then add 3 more cups of the flour, one cup at a time. when it gets doughy, take it out and put it on a floured surface and knead it. then put it in the bowl to rise. cover it and let it sit for a few hours until it doubles in size. take it out, put it in two oiled bread pans (divide it in half) and really push it down into those pans so there isn't any air trapped. then let it rise once more. preheat oven to 375. when its all the way risen and the oven is warmed fully, bake it for 40 minutes. it should have a hollow sound when you tap it after taking it out. that's about it.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
I'm a soy-milk makin' machine
After our soymilk maker met an early demise (a very early demise) I stopped making it. I guess I figured you can't make soymilk without a machine. Much in the same way I figured out how to cook rice on the stove after our rice cooker broke. Oh, and it turns out you can also make bread without a bread machine. Isn't that crazy? And they all turn out great. A saucepan can't break, but rice-cookers and appliances of their ilk are so cheaply made, they break all the time. What a waste.
Anyway, today I made some and it turned out great. Here is how you do it:
Soak 1 cup dried soybeans in 3 cups water overnight in a large bowl.
put 1/3 of them (after soaking) in a blender with 3 cups BOILING hot water. Don't let it sit, take it right from the whistling kettle or rolling boil in a pan and dump it in the blender.
Blend 1-2 minutes.
strain out (you need a fine-mesh strain or muslin bag) into a small sauce pan.
Repeat this process 3 times until all of the soybeans are used. You can strain-as-you-go with the stuff from the blender. Put this saucepan inside another larger saucepan with water in it and boil it (so you don't burn the milk). Cook like this for about 30 minutes unlidded. stir occasionally.
Add malted barley or brown rice syrup. Add a pinch of salt. You can fortify with calcium carbonate or B12 if desired. Put in fridge. Makes about 10 cups soymilk.
Yummy! And cheap as heck. One cup dried soybeans costs like 30 cents or something.
Also, you can take the strained-out soybean chunks and make a thing called okara. It has a million uses. For example, mixing it with nutritional yeast and spices you can form it into patties and fry it and it makes a really yummy burger. You can also use it to fortify breads, soups, etc.
Anyway, today I made some and it turned out great. Here is how you do it:
Soak 1 cup dried soybeans in 3 cups water overnight in a large bowl.
put 1/3 of them (after soaking) in a blender with 3 cups BOILING hot water. Don't let it sit, take it right from the whistling kettle or rolling boil in a pan and dump it in the blender.
Blend 1-2 minutes.
strain out (you need a fine-mesh strain or muslin bag) into a small sauce pan.
Repeat this process 3 times until all of the soybeans are used. You can strain-as-you-go with the stuff from the blender. Put this saucepan inside another larger saucepan with water in it and boil it (so you don't burn the milk). Cook like this for about 30 minutes unlidded. stir occasionally.
Add malted barley or brown rice syrup. Add a pinch of salt. You can fortify with calcium carbonate or B12 if desired. Put in fridge. Makes about 10 cups soymilk.
Yummy! And cheap as heck. One cup dried soybeans costs like 30 cents or something.
Also, you can take the strained-out soybean chunks and make a thing called okara. It has a million uses. For example, mixing it with nutritional yeast and spices you can form it into patties and fry it and it makes a really yummy burger. You can also use it to fortify breads, soups, etc.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
To be, or not to be...vegan
This post is being currently edited by my friend "C" who is a big lameo and professes not to care what other people think, but actually does (ha ha, its ok, you know i love you anyway). i guess she doesn't want people to know that she says the "f-word" in real life. even though we all know she likes to rip the arms off of minotaurs and beat them to death with their own severed appendages.
i will re-publish this conversation about veganism after she's done censoring it in a manner akin to Stalin.
i will re-publish this conversation about veganism after she's done censoring it in a manner akin to Stalin.
Monday, May 21, 2007
"Local" is the new organic
I think it's awesome that so many people are taking a look here and getting ideas. It really helps keep me focused, and it re-inspires me when it inspires others to take action.
I have talked to several people about this, and I agree that it can't all be on the individual. Of course our society needs to make big changes. There needs to be new laws, regulations, systems in place. It is incredibly difficult to succeed without an infrastructure to support you. For example, if we want to go to Salem, how are we supposed to do that without driving? You pretty much have to drive. Yes, you can carpool, go less often, buy an efficient car or borrow a flexcar. But taking the train or bus is totally impractical. My brother rode his bike a few weeks ago, but I would probably pass out and die if I tried that. Wouldn't a real commuter train that connected all the cities in the Willamette valley be great? Of course it would. But just because society doesn't support environmentally conscious choices, that doesn't absolve us of personal responsibility. We still need to do what we can. We can't control what other people do, or what our legislators do. All we can control is what WE choose to do. Hopefully it sets an example for others. Making a mindful choice to recognize that we can only control our own actions frees us from comparing ourselves to others, guilt and saying "well, no one else does it, so i guess i won't either."
It is frustrating that our choices are so counter-intuitive. For example, it is cheaper to drive than to take Tri-met most of the time. Its cheaper to buy factory-farmed eggs than local, sustainable ones. Even though factory farming is hideously unsustainable, it is subsidized by the government, by cheap fuel, by the environmental damages that future generations will have to deal with. Still, we have to suck it up and support more expensive sustainable choices. Only by doing so will things eventually reflect their true costs.
If you don't have a CSA in your area, look for farmer's markets. If you don't have a co-op in your area, consider starting a bulk buying club with friends. Buy things in large quantities and then divy it up amongst yourselves. There have been a lot of things lately about local eating. Local is the new organic.
It is almost more important to eat locally and in-season than to eat organic. What good is organic if its shipped 3000 miles? The amount of carbon and pollution from that shipment overshadows the good of it being organic. More and more people are looking for local options.
Ok, back to our goals. Today was my first shopping trip since we have set our goals. For dinners this week I decided on: Spinach pesto from scratch (the sauce, not the pasta), greek bean/rice burritos (with spinach and kalamata olives), ethiopian food (i finally found teff to make the bread! its mostly split peas, lentils, greens and stuff to go on the bread), and nachos.
I went to the co-op. Elsie goes to school Monday AMs and i was torn about driving. Its about a mile and a half. Since Jay is working longer (10 hour) days this week, he is driving. Its sad that a 15 minute car ride takes an hour on the bus. It makes it so hard if he works late because it would mean he gets home at 8:00 instead of 7:00. Ok, so he was already driving. As I said before, I can't put Emmett in a bike trailer yet, so its either walk or drive (or bus). It takes me about 40 minutes to walk that, about 4 to drive. I reconciled this by grouping it with a shopping trip to the co-op (as i said, i'm not ready to bus to the grocery store with kids or kid in tow). I brought my cloth shopping bags, my own tupperware, my own used plastic bags (bread bags, already used produce/bulk bags, etc.). I got everything in bulk, even tofu. The thing i love about the co-op is you can buy half and half or milk in glass and then bring the glass back and they re-use it. I think its the only place in town that does that.
I struggled with the local option. That is going to be the hardest, and probably going to require me to revise the goal of "nothing more than 1000 miles away". first of all, because you just don't know where some stuff comes from. The product might be made in california, or even oregon, but where was the flour or sesame seeds its made of grown? There is really no way to know that. The biggest thing that i changed my mind about was dried mangos, because they were from mexico. So i bought dried apples from washington state instead. The yogurt and half and half were local. The co-op lets you borrow or leave plastic containers for re-use, too. They even have bulk corn chips. The main dilemma was about tortillas. One was made in New York, but had more reusable packaging. The other was made in Eugene, OR. SO i went with the local. You can reuse that packaging, its just not the zip-lock kind of resealable tortilla package (know what i mean?).
The other choices I made today were taking my own coffee cup (we were out this morning, so i got some at the co-op.), also the temperature has dropped today and it was in the 50s last night so when i got up the house was 61 degrees. I was tempted to turn on the heat, which has been off for 3 weeks, but then i just put on a bunch of clothes. Its hard for me because i hate being cold. but 61 isn't TOO cold to just put on 3 layers. RIght now, while i'm changing habits, i have to think about almost every single choice i make. Should i buy this? is it sustainable? do i need the heat on? what impact does action X have? i think the longer we get into sustainable habits, it starts to require less thought and diligence.
Last thought of the day: have you noticed that things that are good for the environment, are also good for community? For example, you interact with your neighbors when you are out line-drying your clothes or gardening. You talk to people on the bus. You share supplies to help decrease waste with others at the co-op. You don't talk to people when you drive or sit in your house and watch TV.
I have talked to several people about this, and I agree that it can't all be on the individual. Of course our society needs to make big changes. There needs to be new laws, regulations, systems in place. It is incredibly difficult to succeed without an infrastructure to support you. For example, if we want to go to Salem, how are we supposed to do that without driving? You pretty much have to drive. Yes, you can carpool, go less often, buy an efficient car or borrow a flexcar. But taking the train or bus is totally impractical. My brother rode his bike a few weeks ago, but I would probably pass out and die if I tried that. Wouldn't a real commuter train that connected all the cities in the Willamette valley be great? Of course it would. But just because society doesn't support environmentally conscious choices, that doesn't absolve us of personal responsibility. We still need to do what we can. We can't control what other people do, or what our legislators do. All we can control is what WE choose to do. Hopefully it sets an example for others. Making a mindful choice to recognize that we can only control our own actions frees us from comparing ourselves to others, guilt and saying "well, no one else does it, so i guess i won't either."
It is frustrating that our choices are so counter-intuitive. For example, it is cheaper to drive than to take Tri-met most of the time. Its cheaper to buy factory-farmed eggs than local, sustainable ones. Even though factory farming is hideously unsustainable, it is subsidized by the government, by cheap fuel, by the environmental damages that future generations will have to deal with. Still, we have to suck it up and support more expensive sustainable choices. Only by doing so will things eventually reflect their true costs.
If you don't have a CSA in your area, look for farmer's markets. If you don't have a co-op in your area, consider starting a bulk buying club with friends. Buy things in large quantities and then divy it up amongst yourselves. There have been a lot of things lately about local eating. Local is the new organic.
It is almost more important to eat locally and in-season than to eat organic. What good is organic if its shipped 3000 miles? The amount of carbon and pollution from that shipment overshadows the good of it being organic. More and more people are looking for local options.
Ok, back to our goals. Today was my first shopping trip since we have set our goals. For dinners this week I decided on: Spinach pesto from scratch (the sauce, not the pasta), greek bean/rice burritos (with spinach and kalamata olives), ethiopian food (i finally found teff to make the bread! its mostly split peas, lentils, greens and stuff to go on the bread), and nachos.
I went to the co-op. Elsie goes to school Monday AMs and i was torn about driving. Its about a mile and a half. Since Jay is working longer (10 hour) days this week, he is driving. Its sad that a 15 minute car ride takes an hour on the bus. It makes it so hard if he works late because it would mean he gets home at 8:00 instead of 7:00. Ok, so he was already driving. As I said before, I can't put Emmett in a bike trailer yet, so its either walk or drive (or bus). It takes me about 40 minutes to walk that, about 4 to drive. I reconciled this by grouping it with a shopping trip to the co-op (as i said, i'm not ready to bus to the grocery store with kids or kid in tow). I brought my cloth shopping bags, my own tupperware, my own used plastic bags (bread bags, already used produce/bulk bags, etc.). I got everything in bulk, even tofu. The thing i love about the co-op is you can buy half and half or milk in glass and then bring the glass back and they re-use it. I think its the only place in town that does that.
I struggled with the local option. That is going to be the hardest, and probably going to require me to revise the goal of "nothing more than 1000 miles away". first of all, because you just don't know where some stuff comes from. The product might be made in california, or even oregon, but where was the flour or sesame seeds its made of grown? There is really no way to know that. The biggest thing that i changed my mind about was dried mangos, because they were from mexico. So i bought dried apples from washington state instead. The yogurt and half and half were local. The co-op lets you borrow or leave plastic containers for re-use, too. They even have bulk corn chips. The main dilemma was about tortillas. One was made in New York, but had more reusable packaging. The other was made in Eugene, OR. SO i went with the local. You can reuse that packaging, its just not the zip-lock kind of resealable tortilla package (know what i mean?).
The other choices I made today were taking my own coffee cup (we were out this morning, so i got some at the co-op.), also the temperature has dropped today and it was in the 50s last night so when i got up the house was 61 degrees. I was tempted to turn on the heat, which has been off for 3 weeks, but then i just put on a bunch of clothes. Its hard for me because i hate being cold. but 61 isn't TOO cold to just put on 3 layers. RIght now, while i'm changing habits, i have to think about almost every single choice i make. Should i buy this? is it sustainable? do i need the heat on? what impact does action X have? i think the longer we get into sustainable habits, it starts to require less thought and diligence.
Last thought of the day: have you noticed that things that are good for the environment, are also good for community? For example, you interact with your neighbors when you are out line-drying your clothes or gardening. You talk to people on the bus. You share supplies to help decrease waste with others at the co-op. You don't talk to people when you drive or sit in your house and watch TV.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Simple ways to make a difference
So last week was bike to work week. Maybe you missed it. That's ok, because you can still bike to work any day. I'm pleased to say that yesterday I biked over to a friend's house and then to the bar, whereas the week before I had driven. It didn't occur to me to bike, even though it was only like 3 miles the whole night . It just goes to show that we have to consciously make an effort to change these habits.
You can calculate your carbon impact here. The difference between driving 5000 miles per year and 8000 miles per year is a LOT. Our family apparently has a "much smaller impact" than the average. We still have an impact, of course. And find out about simple ways to save carbon emissions here, like unplugging devices when not in use. They use energy, even when they aren't on. Did you know that? I am going to turn my computer off at the power strip when not in use, unplug the coffee pot, microwave, and other things that I can unplug without moving a large piece of furniture. You can go one step further and become carbon neutral by offsetting your use.
One thing that is really awesome is CSAs: Community Supported Agriculture. This means you "subscribe" to a farm by giving your money directly to a local farmer, usually an organic, sustainable farm. Then you share in the risks, and the bumper crops, of that farm. It's a very awesome thing. We have done it for about 5 years. We aren't doing it this year because we are trying to grow most of our own produce. And I want to be able to choose our food at the farmer's market, instead of having to take what the farm is growing. But here is a list of Portland-area CSAs. We have personally done the 47th ave Farm and Pumpkin Ridge Gardens, and they are both great. If you don't live in Oregon, you can probably find a CSA near you.
Our first moral dilemma in terms of our goals comes this week because we have pledged to not buy anything new. Well, we have also pledged to make a very, very small amount of garbage. We currently use a disposable pull-up on Elsie at night because she wets a lot when she sleeps (even though she has been potty trained for a long time). I know that sounds weird, that a family with these goals would use a disposable diaper, but we have been through a lot with her (leaking cloth diapers, really smelly, morning battles over taking it off and washing the bum, etc) it was just getting to be too much. After 3 years of cloth diapering, we figured one disposable a day wasn't a big deal. Well, it still makes a pretty large amount of waste. Plus, we are obviously buying the pull-ups "new". Then they get thrown away. I have looked for a pull-up cloth nighttime diaper used, but they aren't as readily available as regular diapers. So i think we will have to buy them new. They are called Happy Heiny's (yes, all cloth diapers have stupid names having to do with butt). They are made by work-at-home-moms. I'm hoping we can just get by with two (wash them each morning, so its ready to go the next day).
Oh, and Elsie has decided after seeing them on two of her friends, that she wants flip-flops. Uhhh...i wonder if they have any at Goodwill right now? She wears size 8 or 9, if anybody out there has some laying around :)
You can calculate your carbon impact here. The difference between driving 5000 miles per year and 8000 miles per year is a LOT. Our family apparently has a "much smaller impact" than the average. We still have an impact, of course. And find out about simple ways to save carbon emissions here, like unplugging devices when not in use. They use energy, even when they aren't on. Did you know that? I am going to turn my computer off at the power strip when not in use, unplug the coffee pot, microwave, and other things that I can unplug without moving a large piece of furniture. You can go one step further and become carbon neutral by offsetting your use.
One thing that is really awesome is CSAs: Community Supported Agriculture. This means you "subscribe" to a farm by giving your money directly to a local farmer, usually an organic, sustainable farm. Then you share in the risks, and the bumper crops, of that farm. It's a very awesome thing. We have done it for about 5 years. We aren't doing it this year because we are trying to grow most of our own produce. And I want to be able to choose our food at the farmer's market, instead of having to take what the farm is growing. But here is a list of Portland-area CSAs. We have personally done the 47th ave Farm and Pumpkin Ridge Gardens, and they are both great. If you don't live in Oregon, you can probably find a CSA near you.
Our first moral dilemma in terms of our goals comes this week because we have pledged to not buy anything new. Well, we have also pledged to make a very, very small amount of garbage. We currently use a disposable pull-up on Elsie at night because she wets a lot when she sleeps (even though she has been potty trained for a long time). I know that sounds weird, that a family with these goals would use a disposable diaper, but we have been through a lot with her (leaking cloth diapers, really smelly, morning battles over taking it off and washing the bum, etc) it was just getting to be too much. After 3 years of cloth diapering, we figured one disposable a day wasn't a big deal. Well, it still makes a pretty large amount of waste. Plus, we are obviously buying the pull-ups "new". Then they get thrown away. I have looked for a pull-up cloth nighttime diaper used, but they aren't as readily available as regular diapers. So i think we will have to buy them new. They are called Happy Heiny's (yes, all cloth diapers have stupid names having to do with butt). They are made by work-at-home-moms. I'm hoping we can just get by with two (wash them each morning, so its ready to go the next day).
Oh, and Elsie has decided after seeing them on two of her friends, that she wants flip-flops. Uhhh...i wonder if they have any at Goodwill right now? She wears size 8 or 9, if anybody out there has some laying around :)
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