4. I'm a little troubled about how soy is produced in the U.S., from Monsanto's patented soybean seeds. Long subject, but it keeps me from overdosing on soybeans. Why not treat them as just another legume?
Monsanto's bioengineered tomato is what originally got me going organic, years ago - I'm a big tomato eater, especially since adopting a more Western diet over the years. I have no idea what they've done with the soybean, but I can only imagine .
Tomatoes factor into many veg*n recipes; buy organic.
[..a quiet hushes across the auditorium. Some clown rolls a jaffa down isle 3 & is ejected under protest]
Guys i dont really understand your fears of bio-engineered foods. Dont get me wrong here...im not thinking that you fear them without due cause (hell no-one distrusts research that is targeting serious money more than me) but more that you are fearing the wrong target of what is slowly killing us & clearly proven to be doing so.
I grew up on a farm growing foods & also studied & worked as an agronomist in australias prime food growing belt. There is nothing what-so-ever that is of a mass produced food that is not engineered in some way.
Bio-engineering is a massive & interesting field and can cover many things from cotton plants that has bacillus thuringiensis (gut bug) engineered into it to combat caterpillars to synthesizing funnel web spider venom as a form of insecticide. It cant be painted with one brush as harmfull to humans simply because of the vastness of varying degrees of engineering ... so much of it simply cant hurt us. I think sometimes it can be likened to a fear of drowning but one never gets in the water.
I think i would , myself target fear towards what we know & is proved to be carcinogenic ...Benzene. That garbage is constantly around us..we breath it continuously as we walk down the street, our children breath it. We work & visit shops that have one entrance at the front & are subject to a constant supply of benzenes that are pumped in from passing traffic. We go for a run after work & in the still air from the days trafic ..we are running/breathing in a soup of the filth. I went to put grocerys in the car yesterday & the bloke next to me have some big 4x4 running...i was gassed in seconds. That toxic bomb he put out filled my little car & i had to sit in it.
Sometimes i imagine the reaction from the medical world if the combustion engine had not been invented & you walked into a patent office with it & said..this is what its by-product is & everyone is going to breath this known carcinogen.. like it or not.
I am far from being an expert but I was talking to one of the sales guys at Wild Oats over a year agao about the powders and other soy supplements and he was saying that in the US it is processed in 2 primary methods, one of which is more like the whole bean, but many people of European descent have a hard time digesting it (non-asians).
Then you have the isolated protein powders - easier to digest, but how much nutritional value do they really provide. Add in the cancer stuff ....
Again I'm not expert and may even have some of the specifics wrong, but the conclusion was there were trade-offs, and doubt as to whether a mid-40s male really needed protein supplements if you can get it from a balanced diet. Which is why I just decided to eat a lot more black beans and skip both the soy and whey.
"Don't ask me what I think of you, I might not give the answer that you want me to. Oh well."
-Fleetwood Mac
0
Options
BaldyRegistered Users, Super ModeratorsPosts: 2,853moderator
Guys i dont really understand your fears of bio-engineered foods.
I think i would , myself target fear towards what we know & is proved to be carcinogenic ...Benzene.
Hey Gus,
I had a depressing job once upon a time as vp of research for an environmental testing laboratory back in my earth science days. We had dozens of labs around the world that tested for nastiness in the water table. It was terribly sad to be called into areas where the population was stricken by childhood cancers and find carcinogens like Benzene, and worse.
When a company like Monsanto genetically modifies soy to be resistant to high doses of Glyphosate (Roundup), it makes it so convenient for farmers. They just spray their fields with Glyphosate and everything dies but the soy plants. It's so convenient that we spray 500 million pounds of herbicides, led by Glyphosate, on US soil each year.
The EPA regulates the levels of Glyphosate that are considered acceptable in drinking water so that susceptible members of the population like children ages 1-6 who the EPA says are susceptible to kidney failure from Glyphosate won't be at risk. By 1995, 29 cities in the US exceeded those levels.
Monsanto also likes to genetically engineer pesticides into the plants themselves so that plant-eating bugs die. It's great for farmers because they don't have to spray for bugs. It's good for food-company marketing because they can market foods that have not been sprayed by pesticides.
The trouble is you can't wash those pesticides off your produce. Nor do they degenerate in the sun after a spraying and decompose with the insects they killed.
Is eating them harmful? Some very respected scientists at the Salk institute think they could be, but no one knows for sure. We didn't think benzene was harmful for years. Or mercury. Or asbestos. Or tobacco.
No one knows why allergies are so dramatically rising. This is a personal observation I haven't read anywhere, but I notice the big allergens are the mass-produced foods: wheat, soy, dairy, peanuts. The same foods that are so mass-produced. If I were a scientist researching allergens, I'd be curious about why those foods that were not such potent allergens 30 years ago are now.
I messed with a LOT glyphosate. The monsanto spec sheets always pointed out that it had a similar LD rating to that of table salt. But as you said...they have no 40 year study.
Really its not the stuff that can be washed that concerns me as much as stuff like Dimethoate (which is not really bio-engineered as such but what you were mentioning)...its a systemic organophosphate & it absords into the foods cells itself. Systemic meaning it joins the plants water system.
We sprayed with a lot of DDT on the farms (that should turn a light on for you ). As kids ..we were given a white pillow case each & sent out along the edges of the crops to step out the crop dusters wingspan & signal him in for each pass. He would clear our heads by just feet. At least we didnt have any flies to worry us on spray days. We came home reeking of the sprays.
It's a scary world we live in, and you're right - in today's world there IS no total escaping from bio-engineered foods. Even the seeds I buy to grow in my garden have as strong a likelihood to be genetically engineered as the foods for sale in the grocery stores.
I'll admit that my bias is that of a purist, perhaps even an extremist. I avoid where I can, and accept that I can't avoid anything totally. Shoot, I don't even use a microwave because of what it does to food beyond warming/cooking it. My brother is a biomedical engineer, which I know is different from what we're discussing, but he and I have lengthy discussions ad naseum about our differing views on this. His view being that his field is helping people; my view being that yes, but at what ultimate cost in the grand scheme of things. It seems the same, here.
And to address your original comment, I'll also admit that initial fear was completely irrational - more along the lines of, "ICK they're using genes from a fly to make a better tomato???" but the more I researched, the more my irrational fear became rationalized through what I learned. The more I learn about the things in my world, the more I consider becoming a hermit!
I also come from a farming background, though by the sounds of it - not as big a farm as you grew up on. I have friends in the grainbelt whose brains I've picked mercilessly trying to understand the logistics of a large, working farm (as opposed to the smaller co-op style farm of my own familiarity) and the benefits of bioengineering. I definitely see and understand the advantages from their own POV; but again, for me it boils down to: at what ultimate cost are we doing this? I'd be interested in hearing more from your POV, as well.
Benzene is bad (that's an understatement). So are so many chemicals and things that are constantly around us, things found in particle board and MDF, cleaning supplies, hygiene products, mattreses, plastics, new carpeting, anything with a "new" smell ... all things we expose ourselves to on a regular, habitual practice with little thought to what we're breathing in. It's depressing, as you mentioned, that there is no full escaping it ... but we have to escape it where we can, and avoiding bio-engineered foods is one area I have the control to do so. Rational or irrational
Thanks for chiming in. And if your post didn't completely clear the room, I'm sure this one may have cleared it the rest of the way lol.
Guys i dont really understand your fears of bio-engineered foods. Dont get me wrong here...im not thinking that you fear them without due cause (hell no-one distrusts research that is targeting serious money more than me) but more that you are fearing the wrong target of what is slowly killing us & clearly proven to be doing so.
I grew up on a farm growing foods & also studied & worked as an agronomist in australias prime food growing belt. There is nothing what-so-ever that is of a mass produced food that is not engineered in some way.
Bio-engineering is a massive & interesting field and can cover many things from cotton plants that has bacillus thuringiensis (gut bug) engineered into it to combat caterpillars to synthesizing funnel web spider venom as a form of insecticide. It cant be painted with one brush as harmfull to humans simply because of the vastness of varying degrees of engineering ... so much of it simply cant hurt us. I think sometimes it can be likened to a fear of drowning but one never gets in the water.
I think i would , myself target fear towards what we know & is proved to be carcinogenic ...Benzene. That garbage is constantly around us..we breath it continuously as we walk down the street, our children breath it. We work & visit shops that have one entrance at the front & are subject to a constant supply of benzenes that are pumped in from passing traffic. We go for a run after work & in the still air from the days trafic ..we are running/breathing in a soup of the filth. I went to put grocerys in the car yesterday & the bloke next to me have some big 4x4 running...i was gassed in seconds. That toxic bomb he put out filled my little car & i had to sit in it.
Sometimes i imagine the reaction from the medical world if the combustion engine had not been invented & you walked into a patent office with it & said..this is what its by-product is & everyone is going to breath this known carcinogen.. like it or not.
I'm always in the mood for new muffin recipes off to check out yours - thanks!
You and I were on the same wavelength. I just now caught up on the last month of this thread and noticed you posted about your love of muffins recently.
I should mention that the recipe isn't actually vegan because it has honey. But it is close to "whole plant food" as I've been able to come thus far and have an edible end product. Each muffin ends up having 1 tsp of honey in it.
And, I'm looking forward to making your muffins. Although I'd like to avoid the soy milk. I may make some almond milk with water and almond butter to replace?
Also, can we add that to the Tastebook?
Sure, add it to the Tastebook. I've got a nice camera now so hopefully the food photography will improve for future creations.
I've never cooked with almond milk, and I've definitely never made my own from almond butter! How do you do it? Can you straight substitute for cow's milk?
FWIW, I always substitute unsweetened soy milk for cow's milk 1:1 and never have any problems. I also use soy milk + lemon juice in place of buttermilk with success.
-Anne
EDITED TO ADD: I made these again and took a better photo.
Thank you (and everyone else who replied). We are quite smitten with her.
I've revisited parts of this thread now that I am looking ahead to when Mackenzie will be starting solids. I'm glad Mike (and a few of my sibs) have paved the way for feeding kids whole plant foods... it's definitely not the "norm" out here in Ohio. But we're hoping Mackenzie will love veggies etc. because she'll be getting them from early on.
Sure, add it to the Tastebook. I've got a nice camera now so hopefully the food photography will improve for future creations.
I've never cooked with almond milk, and I've definitely never made my own from almond butter! How do you do it? Can you straight substitute for cow's milk?
FWIW, I always substitute unsweetened soy milk for cow's milk 1:1 and never have any problems. I also use soy milk + lemon juice in place of buttermilk with success.
-Anne
Well, I'm sure there are more involved ways of making it, but I bought some hoity-toity almond butter from a Berkeley coop at Whole Foods, and on the label they suggested making almond milk with a tablespoon (I think) of almond butter in a quart (I think) of water. Something like that, and just blend well. I figure it'll be fine for recipes, and I never drink the stuff, so I can make what I need as I need it.
Think this would hold together in a crockpot rather than stovetop?
Sorry for the laggage, I just saw this.
I did a quick search online and it looks like slow-cooker chili recipes run the gamut. Some are just 1 hour on high, and others are "up to 10" hours on low. Probably longer than that and the beans will start to fall apart on you...
If you try it, let me know how it goes! My dad loves his slow-cooker so if I can tell him to dump everything in there and hit "go", he's more likely to try the recipe.
I'm glad Mike (and a few of my sibs) have paved the way for feeding kids whole plant foods... it's definitely not the "norm" out here in Ohio.
-Anne
The typical whole plant food here is fair roasted corn on cob. Even then it is lathered in butter & salt.
Oh, and there are the whole plants they grow in Meigs County.
"Don't ask me what I think of you, I might not give the answer that you want me to. Oh well."
-Fleetwood Mac
0
Options
BaldyRegistered Users, Super ModeratorsPosts: 2,853moderator
edited January 20, 2008
I listened to Michael Pollan's new book on my long bike ride today:
I loved the first 2/3 of The Omnivore's Dilemma, a book I'd rate 5 stars. This one was interesting, a good book, but there wasn't much in it Ominvore's Dilemma didn't already cover. Here are a few highlights:
- Our foodchain itself is on a fast food diet. The plants get basic fertilizer, which lacks the diversity of nutrients that make the plants contain a diversity of nutrients, so the nutritive value of plants is decreasing. And we know how animals are raised in the U.S. now.
- Plants are bred for shelf life, which is at odds with nutrient content. The bacteria, oxygen, and bugs that decompose food all prefer high nutrient-density food.
- Processed foods are much more profitable for the food companies because they can come up with their own proprietary formulas and they can be made to last forever. They pour $35 billion into marketing them per year. Produce gets hardly any marketing dollars.
- Important ingredients like Omega 3s can't survive in most processed foods.
- Over the past century nutrition and health scientists have proven there is only one point upon which they can agree: whole plants, especially fruit & vegetables, are by far the healthiest foods and diets based on them are by far the healthiest.
- Leaves are far healthier than seeds.
- 70% of our current intake of plants are mass-produced and refined seeds (corn, wheat, and soy).
- The diversity of our plants is seriously declining. 50% of the broccoli we consume is the Marathon variety, chosen for its productivity.
- The same breed of plants grown in your garden or on organic farms contains more nutrients than when they're grown on an industrial farm.
- The healthiest diet comes from locally grown whole plants, a diversity of leaves and fruits from the farmer's market and your own back yard.
I listened to Michael Pollan's new book on my long bike ride today:
- The same breed of plants grown in your garden or on organic farms contains more nutrients than when they're grown on an industrial farm.
- The healthiest diet comes from locally grown whole plants, a diversity of leaves and fruits from the farmer's market and your own back yard.
All the more reason for me to make sure I get my act together and make myself a garden again. I used to grow my own veggies, and miss the whole process. Out here I will need to make sure I plant lots because my yard visitors will probably expect a share - one for me, one for the porupine!
Thanks for the overview, Baldy. And, if you've never tasted produce fresh from your own yard, you don't know what you are missing. Sadly, our season is 100 days! So I won't be growing anything that doesn't grow quickly.
I did a quick search online and it looks like slow-cooker chili recipes run the gamut. Some are just 1 hour on high, and others are "up to 10" hours on low. Probably longer than that and the beans will start to fall apart on you...
If you try it, let me know how it goes! My dad loves his slow-cooker so if I can tell him to dump everything in there and hit "go", he's more likely to try the recipe.
-Anne
Anne, congratulations! And thank you for taking all the time to catch up on this thread
I haven't tried your chili in the crockpot, though we've made it several times and it's a staple in our household now. Yum! True, if you use canned beans I think they'd fall apart but I heard from a friend a ETL-friendly bean soup recipe that works well with dry b eans. So I might try that with your chili, too.
Good luck and I'm glad that you've taken the time to chime in again!
No photo... and not even a recipe to share... but I thought I'd tell you about my lunch today.
I ate "Spaghetti Squash Spaghetti" and it was delicious (as it always is).
Basically, you bake a spaghetti squash until it's "al dente" and then you shred the inside with a fork to give you "noodles".
I make a homemade spaghetti sauce with onion, celery, carrot, peppers, and tomatoes and I eat it on top of the spaghetti squash. Delish and the leftovers last for several meals. (We are all about stretching dishes over multiple meals around here.)
I prick my spaghetti squash with a fork and then bake it whole at 375 F until a fork goes through it pretty easily. This takes around 30-40 minutes I think? After it cools, I cut it in half, remove the seeds, and get my "noodles".
I do like whole wheat spaghetti quite a bit, but any time I can get more veggie in my day and mix things up a bit, I will!
No photo... and not even a recipe to share... but I thought I'd tell you about my lunch today.
I ate "Spaghetti Squash Spaghetti" and it was delicious (as it always is).
-Anne
Yum! I love spaghetti squash we're actually making that for dinner tonight also, and it dawned on me that I hadn't seen anyone mention it here yet. We're on the same wavelength lol. Some recipes suggest cutting it in half before baking it, but I have the best luck preparing it just as you suggested: baking it whole, and THEN halving it.
I eat a lot of spaghetti sqaush, in part because it makes a good base outside of the more predictable rice and grains; plus, one squash will get me a number of meals. With the kids all doing extracurriculars and always on the move, we're all about warm-eat-go else we'd be living at fast food joints like their peers.
What have you got me doing?
I just added mushrooms to the spaghetti sauce. I do not have a taste for mushrooms and (previous to now) avoid them at all costs. But, they are in there, along with the onions, carrots and red peppers, plain tomato sauce.
I justified it like this - I don't have a taste for broccoli either, but have been eating broccoli salad for 6 months or so, so why not mushrooms?
I have a question - what is the vegans/ETL followers answer to an iron source?
And, I am still suffering the not so nice affects from a veggie chili laden with multiple varieties of beans! All that fibre has not been well recieved by my gut. Where is that avatar Andy used?
I just added mushrooms to the spaghetti sauce. I do not have a taste for mushrooms and (previous to now) avoid them at all costs. But, they are in there, along with the onions, carrots and red peppers, plain tomato sauce.
I justified it like this - I don't have a taste for broccoli either, but have been eating broccoli salad for 6 months or so, so why not mushrooms?
I have a question - what is the vegans/ETL followers answer to an iron source?
And, I am still suffering the not so nice affects from a veggie chili laden with multiple varieties of beans! All that fibre has not been well recieved by my gut. Where is that avatar Andy used?
I'm with you on the mushrooms! It's the one thing I have really had to force myself to start eating but they aren't bad and I'm definitely getting used to the little buggers.
I have a question - what is the vegans/ETL followers answer to an iron source?
Actually, dried beans and leafy greens tend to have a good amount of iron - especially spinach, broccoli, lentils, and kidney beans. Not only that, but vitamin C helps with the absorption of iron which means that foods like spinach and broccoli (high in vitamin C *and* iron) are like little powerhouses, and are great sources of iron.
So are most grains, which means many cereals (hot, and some cold) will provide decent iron, and even baked goods like muffins can be loaded to have a fair amount of iron. A healthy, well-rounded diet won't need much for supplemental iron, veg*n or otherwise.
Also, I almost exclusively use cast iron cookware. LOVE IT. Not only does some iron leach into the foods during cooking, but it greatly reduces or eliminates the need for most oils because cast iron becomes naturally nonstick with use. Over time this means less need for oil.
And, I am still suffering the not so nice affects from a veggie chili laden with multiple varieties of beans! All that fibre has not been well recieved by my gut. Where is that avatar Andy used?
Egads ; nothing is worse! I have a few tips I can share on how to reduce the likelihood of gassiness from dried beans that were prepared and cooked at home ... were those what you used, or did you use canned beans?
PS - a few other good things to try in your spaghetti sauce are diced zucchini and yellow squash. I don't particularly care for either plain, but like with mushrooms, both seem more palatable to me when tossed in a marinara! Aubergine, too, but I've found that to be a more acquired taste. At least for me lol.
Actually, dried beans and leafy greens tend to have a good amount of iron - especially spinach, broccoli, lentils, and kidney beans. Not only that, but vitamin C helps with the absorption of iron which means that foods like spinach and broccoli (high in vitamin C *and* iron) are like little powerhouses, and are great sources of iron.
Egads ; nothing is worse! I have a few tips I can share on how to reduce the likelihood of gassiness from dried beans that were prepared and cooked at home ... were those what you used, or did you use canned beans?
Yes, for some reason hubby had this HUGE bag of dried beans. We decided that we would cook a big pot of chili Sunday so he soaked the beans ON - all 4 or more pounds of them.Well, then there was nothing to do but cook them up Sunday, so one huge pot of veggie chili, one pot with meat for the carnivores and one pot of baked beans that suffered an unfortunate demise when the oven was turned to broil instead of to off.
Absolutely delicious, but not to be eaten for successive meals, I have learned........
PS - a few other good things to try in your spaghetti sauce are diced zucchini and yellow squash. I don't particularly care for either plain, but like with mushrooms, both seem more palatable to me when tossed in a marinara! Aubergine, too, but I've found that to be a more acquired taste. At least for me lol.
I, and two of the children, have now ingested the rogue fungi in a delicious veggie sauce, and I can say it was truely delicious. I might have been a bit heavy on the dried chili, but it was gooood. Zucchini can be hidden anywhere - I used to plant it in my garden and it never under performs! I really like butternut squash - roasted, mashed, added. But I really do not care for eggplant. Sadly, tonight, my kitchen was completely devoid of anything of the green veggie variety.
I was checking the pasta nutritional info and found one variety that I had on hand had way more iron than another. So I looked closer - and it has more iron because it has been fortified with it. So I chose to cook the 'certified organically grown and processed' despie it being the one with lower iron content.
I have a question - what is the vegans/ETL followers answer to an iron source?
+1 to what stirfry said about lots of good sources in whole plant foods.
It's true that "heme" iron found in animal foods is much more readily absorbed than the "non-heme" iron in plant foods, but the vitamin C does help some and because lots of plant foods contain iron, it adds up!
My understanding is that the vast majority of men get more iron than they need because their bodies don't have a good way to get rid of excess iron. However, pre-menopausal women need to be careful with iron to avoid anemia.
Personally, I have had my blood tested for iron (hemoglobin) lots of times in my life (because I gave blood regularly) and I was frequently borderline anemic on a non-vegan diet. I saw similar levels after being vegan for ~6 months. So I took iron supplements all through my pregnancy and I'm still taking them as I breastfeed. I also took supplemental folic acid and B-12 during pregnancy and I'm continuing with the B-12. Ideally I'd just get iron from a whole plant foods diet, but a little extra insurance gives me peace of mind.
Iron is a hot topic among nutritionists and they've been pulling it from vitamins and fortified foods like cereal over the last few years.
One problem is that it's not water soluble like many anti-oxidants are so the body has trouble reducing iron levels, and too much is toxic.
Unlike anti-oxidants, it's an oxidant linked to aging. There is some fairly convincing but not conclusive evidence that lower iron levels correlate with longevity, and it's one of the theories about why men don't live as long as women.
The iron content in beef, poultry, and foul is 40% heme iron. The body doesn't regulate its uptake of heme iron and that's where toxic levels come in. The body only absorbs the amount it needs if it's given non-heme iron. Plants only have non-heme iron.
There is a lot of talk about why women are less prone to heart disease than men until menopause, when they quickly catch up, and one of the leading theories is they have suppressed iron levels before menopause. Iron, especially heme iron, is linked to heart disease.
The % RDA for iron, just to give this some context, is calculated on packaged foods as being out of 18mg . However, the actual RDA varies widely based on gender and age group, with 18mg only being recommended for women 19-50 years old. They say pregnant women should get 27 mg/day. For other groups, it's close to 8 mg.
That means when you take a mulit-vitamin or eat breakfast cereal with "100%" of your daily need for iron, you're actually getting 2.25 times as much as you need total for the day (unless you're a 19-50 yo woman).
Iron, especially heme iron, is linked to heart disease.
There goes my peace of mind. I think for me, I'll just need to keep an eye on my blood tests and make sure they're in a good range.
From Harvard's website:
"Heme iron (the iron from meat, poultry, and fish) is absorbed into your body more readily than non-heme iron. Depending on how much you already have stored, anywhere from 15 to 35 percent of heme iron gets absorbed. Non-heme iron is a different story. Only 2 to 20 percent of non-heme iron gets absorbed."
One great thing about iron is that as your need for it increases, so does your absorption of it. The body is amazing!
Yes, for some reason hubby had this HUGE bag of dried beans. We decided that we would cook a big pot of chili Sunday so he soaked the beans ON - all 4 or more pounds of them.Well, then there was nothing to do but cook them up Sunday, so one huge pot of veggie chili, one pot with meat for the carnivores and one pot of baked beans that suffered an unfortunate demise when the oven was turned to broil instead of to off.
Absolutely delicious, but not to be eaten for successive meals, I have learned........
Sounds like adventures from my own kitchen I hope your gastrointestional activity has calmed down some lol that's a whole lot of bean action!!
I've always eaten a fair amount of beans, but when I started cooking for my husband I learned through trial and error that some beans are more gas-inducing than others (unfortunately, these were often my favorite beans!). Kidney beans in particular seem to be harder to digest, especially if your body isn't accustomed to eating larger amounts. Growing up, I saw the women in my family use the soaking water to also cook the beans - I think it's supposed to make it more frothy or robust or something, I'm not exactly sure.
Cooking for my husband, who was newer to daily bean intake ... I learned to do SUPER LONG soaks whether the beans "required" it or not (softer beans don't need to soak as long). 12+ hour/overnight types of soaks, which unfortunately means you have to plan ahead. (Or have freezer space lol.) Rather than re-use the soaking water in cooking, I was told to dump the soaking water and then do a good rinse of the beans prior to cooking them in fresh water. I guess whatever causes the gas gets released into the cooking water, so long soaks and good rinsing are important.
When cooking the beans, avoid boiling -- the key is to simmer (not only for flavor, but slower cooking is supposed to reduce the gas thing, too.) It's better to cook at lower temperatures for longer periods, than a quick cooking time at a higher temperature. Think slow-cooker vs. pressure cooker.
And finally, I usually add an herb (bay leaf, cumin) or a piece of kombu (japanese seaweed) to any bean dish I cook. This will help reduce the gas, too. The kombu isn't a strong independent flavor, rather it enhances the beans and lends a sort of mushroom-y or meat-y taste. I use kombu like a bay leaf; whatever hasn't dissipated into the beans, I remove prior to serving ... but cooked long enough, a bean dish will absorb a piece of kombu which is fine because it's totally edible. Kombu also makes a good bathtub soak, FANTASTIC .. again because of the minerals (and it doesn't even smell like seaweed, I promise!) Just in case anyone decides to buy some to cook with, hates it, and doesn't know what else to do with the leftovers
Adzuki beans are easy to digest; soft and yummy, my favoritest of all. Can be used for everything from appetizers to main meals to dessert!
Comments
Monsanto's bioengineered tomato is what originally got me going organic, years ago - I'm a big tomato eater, especially since adopting a more Western diet over the years. I have no idea what they've done with the soybean, but I can only imagine
Tomatoes factor into many veg*n recipes; buy organic.
She's absolutely precious
I'm always in the mood for new muffin recipes
[..a quiet hushes across the auditorium. Some clown rolls a jaffa down isle 3 & is ejected under protest]
Guys i dont really understand your fears of bio-engineered foods. Dont get me wrong here...im not thinking that you fear them without due cause (hell no-one distrusts research that is targeting serious money more than me) but more that you are fearing the wrong target of what is slowly killing us & clearly proven to be doing so.
I grew up on a farm growing foods & also studied & worked as an agronomist in australias prime food growing belt. There is nothing what-so-ever that is of a mass produced food that is not engineered in some way.
Bio-engineering is a massive & interesting field and can cover many things from cotton plants that has bacillus thuringiensis (gut bug) engineered into it to combat caterpillars to synthesizing funnel web spider venom as a form of insecticide. It cant be painted with one brush as harmfull to humans simply because of the vastness of varying degrees of engineering ... so much of it simply cant hurt us. I think sometimes it can be likened to a fear of drowning but one never gets in the water.
I think i would , myself target fear towards what we know & is proved to be carcinogenic ...Benzene. That garbage is constantly around us..we breath it continuously as we walk down the street, our children breath it. We work & visit shops that have one entrance at the front & are subject to a constant supply of benzenes that are pumped in from passing traffic. We go for a run after work & in the still air from the days trafic ..we are running/breathing in a soup of the filth. I went to put grocerys in the car yesterday & the bloke next to me have some big 4x4 running...i was gassed in seconds. That toxic bomb he put out filled my little car & i had to sit in it.
Sometimes i imagine the reaction from the medical world if the combustion engine had not been invented & you walked into a patent office with it & said..this is what its by-product is & everyone is going to breath this known carcinogen.. like it or not.
As you were.
** A huge congratulations Anne !! very cute.
.
I am far from being an expert but I was talking to one of the sales guys at Wild Oats over a year agao about the powders and other soy supplements and he was saying that in the US it is processed in 2 primary methods, one of which is more like the whole bean, but many people of European descent have a hard time digesting it (non-asians).
Then you have the isolated protein powders - easier to digest, but how much nutritional value do they really provide. Add in the cancer stuff ....
Again I'm not expert and may even have some of the specifics wrong, but the conclusion was there were trade-offs, and doubt as to whether a mid-40s male really needed protein supplements if you can get it from a balanced diet. Which is why I just decided to eat a lot more black beans and skip both the soy and whey.
-Fleetwood Mac
I had a depressing job once upon a time as vp of research for an environmental testing laboratory back in my earth science days. We had dozens of labs around the world that tested for nastiness in the water table. It was terribly sad to be called into areas where the population was stricken by childhood cancers and find carcinogens like Benzene, and worse.
When a company like Monsanto genetically modifies soy to be resistant to high doses of Glyphosate (Roundup), it makes it so convenient for farmers. They just spray their fields with Glyphosate and everything dies but the soy plants. It's so convenient that we spray 500 million pounds of herbicides, led by Glyphosate, on US soil each year.
The EPA regulates the levels of Glyphosate that are considered acceptable in drinking water so that susceptible members of the population like children ages 1-6 who the EPA says are susceptible to kidney failure from Glyphosate won't be at risk. By 1995, 29 cities in the US exceeded those levels.
Monsanto also likes to genetically engineer pesticides into the plants themselves so that plant-eating bugs die. It's great for farmers because they don't have to spray for bugs. It's good for food-company marketing because they can market foods that have not been sprayed by pesticides.
The trouble is you can't wash those pesticides off your produce. Nor do they degenerate in the sun after a spraying and decompose with the insects they killed.
Is eating them harmful? Some very respected scientists at the Salk institute think they could be, but no one knows for sure. We didn't think benzene was harmful for years. Or mercury. Or asbestos. Or tobacco.
No one knows why allergies are so dramatically rising. This is a personal observation I haven't read anywhere, but I notice the big allergens are the mass-produced foods: wheat, soy, dairy, peanuts. The same foods that are so mass-produced. If I were a scientist researching allergens, I'd be curious about why those foods that were not such potent allergens 30 years ago are now.
Really its not the stuff that can be washed that concerns me as much as stuff like Dimethoate (which is not really bio-engineered as such but what you were mentioning)...its a systemic organophosphate & it absords into the foods cells itself. Systemic meaning it joins the plants water system.
We sprayed with a lot of DDT on the farms (that should turn a light on for you
I'll admit that my bias is that of a purist, perhaps even an extremist. I avoid where I can, and accept that I can't avoid anything totally. Shoot, I don't even use a microwave because of what it does to food beyond warming/cooking it. My brother is a biomedical engineer, which I know is different from what we're discussing, but he and I have lengthy discussions ad naseum about our differing views on this. His view being that his field is helping people; my view being that yes, but at what ultimate cost in the grand scheme of things. It seems the same, here.
And to address your original comment, I'll also admit that initial fear was completely irrational - more along the lines of, "ICK they're using genes from a fly to make a better tomato???" but the more I researched, the more my irrational fear became rationalized through what I learned. The more I learn about the things in my world, the more I consider becoming a hermit!
I also come from a farming background, though by the sounds of it - not as big a farm as you grew up on. I have friends in the grainbelt whose brains I've picked mercilessly trying to understand the logistics of a large, working farm (as opposed to the smaller co-op style farm of my own familiarity) and the benefits of bioengineering. I definitely see and understand the advantages from their own POV; but again, for me it boils down to: at what ultimate cost are we doing this? I'd be interested in hearing more from your POV, as well.
Benzene is bad (that's an understatement). So are so many chemicals and things that are constantly around us, things found in particle board and MDF, cleaning supplies, hygiene products, mattreses, plastics, new carpeting, anything with a "new" smell ... all things we expose ourselves to on a regular, habitual practice with little thought to what we're breathing in. It's depressing, as you mentioned, that there is no full escaping it ... but we have to escape it where we can, and avoiding bio-engineered foods is one area I have the control to do so. Rational or irrational
Thanks for chiming in. And if your post didn't completely clear the room, I'm sure this one may have cleared it the rest of the way lol.
You and I were on the same wavelength. I just now caught up on the last month of this thread and noticed you posted about your love of muffins recently.
I should mention that the recipe isn't actually vegan because it has honey. But it is close to "whole plant food" as I've been able to come thus far and have an edible end product. Each muffin ends up having 1 tsp of honey in it.
-Anne
Sure, add it to the Tastebook. I've got a nice camera now so hopefully the food photography will improve for future creations.
I've never cooked with almond milk, and I've definitely never made my own from almond butter! How do you do it? Can you straight substitute for cow's milk?
FWIW, I always substitute unsweetened soy milk for cow's milk 1:1 and never have any problems. I also use soy milk + lemon juice in place of buttermilk with success.
-Anne
EDITED TO ADD: I made these again and took a better photo.
Thank you (and everyone else who replied). We are quite smitten with her.
I've revisited parts of this thread now that I am looking ahead to when Mackenzie will be starting solids. I'm glad Mike (and a few of my sibs) have paved the way for feeding kids whole plant foods... it's definitely not the "norm" out here in Ohio. But we're hoping Mackenzie will love veggies etc. because she'll be getting them from early on.
-Anne
Well, I'm sure there are more involved ways of making it, but I bought some hoity-toity almond butter from a Berkeley coop at Whole Foods, and on the label they suggested making almond milk with a tablespoon (I think) of almond butter in a quart (I think) of water. Something like that, and just blend well. I figure it'll be fine for recipes, and I never drink the stuff, so I can make what I need as I need it.
Dgrin FAQ | Me | Workshops
Sorry for the laggage, I just saw this.
I did a quick search online and it looks like slow-cooker chili recipes run the gamut. Some are just 1 hour on high, and others are "up to 10" hours on low. Probably longer than that and the beans will start to fall apart on you...
If you try it, let me know how it goes! My dad loves his slow-cooker so if I can tell him to dump everything in there and hit "go", he's more likely to try the recipe.
-Anne
The typical whole plant food here is fair roasted corn on cob. Even then it is lathered in butter & salt.
Oh, and there are the whole plants they grow in Meigs County.
-Fleetwood Mac
I loved the first 2/3 of The Omnivore's Dilemma, a book I'd rate 5 stars. This one was interesting, a good book, but there wasn't much in it Ominvore's Dilemma didn't already cover. Here are a few highlights:
- Our foodchain itself is on a fast food diet. The plants get basic fertilizer, which lacks the diversity of nutrients that make the plants contain a diversity of nutrients, so the nutritive value of plants is decreasing. And we know how animals are raised in the U.S. now.
- Plants are bred for shelf life, which is at odds with nutrient content. The bacteria, oxygen, and bugs that decompose food all prefer high nutrient-density food.
- Processed foods are much more profitable for the food companies because they can come up with their own proprietary formulas and they can be made to last forever. They pour $35 billion into marketing them per year. Produce gets hardly any marketing dollars.
- Important ingredients like Omega 3s can't survive in most processed foods.
- Over the past century nutrition and health scientists have proven there is only one point upon which they can agree: whole plants, especially fruit & vegetables, are by far the healthiest foods and diets based on them are by far the healthiest.
- Leaves are far healthier than seeds.
- 70% of our current intake of plants are mass-produced and refined seeds (corn, wheat, and soy).
- The diversity of our plants is seriously declining. 50% of the broccoli we consume is the Marathon variety, chosen for its productivity.
- The same breed of plants grown in your garden or on organic farms contains more nutrients than when they're grown on an industrial farm.
- The healthiest diet comes from locally grown whole plants, a diversity of leaves and fruits from the farmer's market and your own back yard.
All the more reason for me to make sure I get my act together and make myself a garden again. I used to grow my own veggies, and miss the whole process. Out here I will need to make sure I plant lots because my yard visitors will probably expect a share - one for me, one for the porupine!
Thanks for the overview, Baldy. And, if you've never tasted produce fresh from your own yard, you don't know what you are missing. Sadly, our season is 100 days! So I won't be growing anything that doesn't grow quickly.
ann
My Galleries My Photography BLOG
Ramblings About Me
+1
(except I liked the last 1/3, as well.
Dgrin FAQ | Me | Workshops
Anne, congratulations! And thank you for taking all the time to catch up on this thread
I haven't tried your chili in the crockpot, though we've made it several times and it's a staple in our household now. Yum! True, if you use canned beans I think they'd fall apart but I heard from a friend a ETL-friendly bean soup recipe that works well with dry b eans. So I might try that with your chili, too.
Good luck and I'm glad that you've taken the time to chime in again!
Photos that don't suck / 365 / Film & Lomography
I ate "Spaghetti Squash Spaghetti" and it was delicious (as it always is).
Basically, you bake a spaghetti squash until it's "al dente" and then you shred the inside with a fork to give you "noodles".
I make a homemade spaghetti sauce with onion, celery, carrot, peppers, and tomatoes and I eat it on top of the spaghetti squash. Delish and the leftovers last for several meals. (We are all about stretching dishes over multiple meals around here.)
I prick my spaghetti squash with a fork and then bake it whole at 375 F until a fork goes through it pretty easily. This takes around 30-40 minutes I think? After it cools, I cut it in half, remove the seeds, and get my "noodles".
I do like whole wheat spaghetti quite a bit, but any time I can get more veggie in my day and mix things up a bit, I will!
-Anne
Yum! I love spaghetti squash
I eat a lot of spaghetti sqaush, in part because it makes a good base outside of the more predictable rice and grains; plus, one squash will get me a number of meals. With the kids all doing extracurriculars and always on the move, we're all about warm-eat-go else we'd be living at fast food joints like their peers.
Tonight we're doing a bean chili with it
I just added mushrooms to the spaghetti sauce. I do not have a taste for mushrooms and (previous to now) avoid them at all costs. But, they are in there, along with the onions, carrots and red peppers, plain tomato sauce.
I justified it like this - I don't have a taste for broccoli either, but have been eating broccoli salad for 6 months or so, so why not mushrooms?
I have a question - what is the vegans/ETL followers answer to an iron source?
And, I am still suffering the not so nice affects from a veggie chili laden with multiple varieties of beans! All that fibre has not been well recieved by my gut. Where is that avatar Andy used?
My Galleries My Photography BLOG
Ramblings About Me
I'm actually off to the market to procure more beans for that veggie chili!
Photos that don't suck / 365 / Film & Lomography
Actually, dried beans and leafy greens tend to have a good amount of iron - especially spinach, broccoli, lentils, and kidney beans. Not only that, but vitamin C helps with the absorption of iron which means that foods like spinach and broccoli (high in vitamin C *and* iron) are like little powerhouses, and are great sources of iron.
So are most grains, which means many cereals (hot, and some cold) will provide decent iron, and even baked goods like muffins can be loaded to have a fair amount of iron. A healthy, well-rounded diet won't need much for supplemental iron, veg*n or otherwise.
Also, I almost exclusively use cast iron cookware. LOVE IT. Not only does some iron leach into the foods during cooking, but it greatly reduces or eliminates the need for most oils because cast iron becomes naturally nonstick with use. Over time this means less need for oil.
Egads
PS - a few other good things to try in your spaghetti sauce are diced zucchini and yellow squash. I don't particularly care for either plain, but like with mushrooms, both seem more palatable to me when tossed in a marinara! Aubergine, too, but I've found that to be a more acquired taste. At least for me lol.
My Galleries My Photography BLOG
Ramblings About Me
+1 to what stirfry said about lots of good sources in whole plant foods.
It's true that "heme" iron found in animal foods is much more readily absorbed than the "non-heme" iron in plant foods, but the vitamin C does help some and because lots of plant foods contain iron, it adds up!
My understanding is that the vast majority of men get more iron than they need because their bodies don't have a good way to get rid of excess iron. However, pre-menopausal women need to be careful with iron to avoid anemia.
Personally, I have had my blood tested for iron (hemoglobin) lots of times in my life (because I gave blood regularly) and I was frequently borderline anemic on a non-vegan diet. I saw similar levels after being vegan for ~6 months. So I took iron supplements all through my pregnancy and I'm still taking them as I breastfeed. I also took supplemental folic acid and B-12 during pregnancy and I'm continuing with the B-12. Ideally I'd just get iron from a whole plant foods diet, but a little extra insurance gives me peace of mind.
-Anne
Heheheh.....se my sig, guess I don't need to worry!:D
My Galleries My Photography BLOG
Ramblings About Me
Broccoli: 3.5 mg
Sirloin Steak: 0.7 mg
Romaine Lettuce: 7.7 mg
Kale: 5.8 mg
Spinach: 15.7 mg
Lentils: 2.3 mg
Iron is a hot topic among nutritionists and they've been pulling it from vitamins and fortified foods like cereal over the last few years.
One problem is that it's not water soluble like many anti-oxidants are so the body has trouble reducing iron levels, and too much is toxic.
Unlike anti-oxidants, it's an oxidant linked to aging. There is some fairly convincing but not conclusive evidence that lower iron levels correlate with longevity, and it's one of the theories about why men don't live as long as women.
The iron content in beef, poultry, and foul is 40% heme iron. The body doesn't regulate its uptake of heme iron and that's where toxic levels come in. The body only absorbs the amount it needs if it's given non-heme iron. Plants only have non-heme iron.
There is a lot of talk about why women are less prone to heart disease than men until menopause, when they quickly catch up, and one of the leading theories is they have suppressed iron levels before menopause. Iron, especially heme iron, is linked to heart disease.
The % RDA for iron, just to give this some context, is calculated on packaged foods as being out of 18mg . However, the actual RDA varies widely based on gender and age group, with 18mg only being recommended for women 19-50 years old. They say pregnant women should get 27 mg/day. For other groups, it's close to 8 mg.
That means when you take a mulit-vitamin or eat breakfast cereal with "100%" of your daily need for iron, you're actually getting 2.25 times as much as you need total for the day (unless you're a 19-50 yo woman).
There goes my peace of mind.
From Harvard's website:
"Heme iron (the iron from meat, poultry, and fish) is absorbed into your body more readily than non-heme iron. Depending on how much you already have stored, anywhere from 15 to 35 percent of heme iron gets absorbed. Non-heme iron is a different story. Only 2 to 20 percent of non-heme iron gets absorbed."
One great thing about iron is that as your need for it increases, so does your absorption of it. The body is amazing!
-Anne
Sounds like adventures from my own kitchen
I've always eaten a fair amount of beans, but when I started cooking for my husband I learned through trial and error that some beans are more gas-inducing than others (unfortunately, these were often my favorite beans!). Kidney beans in particular seem to be harder to digest, especially if your body isn't accustomed to eating larger amounts. Growing up, I saw the women in my family use the soaking water to also cook the beans - I think it's supposed to make it more frothy or robust or something, I'm not exactly sure.
Cooking for my husband, who was newer to daily bean intake ... I learned to do SUPER LONG soaks whether the beans "required" it or not (softer beans don't need to soak as long). 12+ hour/overnight types of soaks, which unfortunately means you have to plan ahead. (Or have freezer space lol.) Rather than re-use the soaking water in cooking, I was told to dump the soaking water and then do a good rinse of the beans prior to cooking them in fresh water. I guess whatever causes the gas gets released into the cooking water, so long soaks and good rinsing are important.
When cooking the beans, avoid boiling -- the key is to simmer (not only for flavor, but slower cooking is supposed to reduce the gas thing, too.) It's better to cook at lower temperatures for longer periods, than a quick cooking time at a higher temperature. Think slow-cooker vs. pressure cooker.
And finally, I usually add an herb (bay leaf, cumin) or a piece of kombu (japanese seaweed) to any bean dish I cook. This will help reduce the gas, too. The kombu isn't a strong independent flavor, rather it enhances the beans and lends a sort of mushroom-y or meat-y taste. I use kombu like a bay leaf; whatever hasn't dissipated into the beans, I remove prior to serving ... but cooked long enough, a bean dish will absorb a piece of kombu which is fine because it's totally edible. Kombu also makes a good bathtub soak, FANTASTIC .. again because of the minerals (and it doesn't even smell like seaweed, I promise!) Just in case anyone decides to buy some to cook with, hates it, and doesn't know what else to do with the leftovers
Adzuki beans are easy to digest; soft and yummy, my favoritest of all. Can be used for everything from appetizers to main meals to dessert!