Summer Candy

Want a nutritious snack on a hot summer day? I took some frozen strawberries and blueberries, plus a banana and threw them all in the blender. Voila-homemade popsicles! I also added some orange juice for a little kick. Mix and match and make some of your own summer popsicles. I like knowing that when I’m grabbing one of these, I’m also getting my servings of fruit.
How refreshing! :)

Quick Food Fixes...

So far, my vegan adventure has been a successful one. I find the one thing I have to do is prepare, prepare, prepare. I went home again last weekend, and you’ll learn quickly that not a lot of places have vegan options. Vegetarian is pretty easy (stir fry, salad, quesadilla, or pasta)…but milk will sneak in where you least expect it to.

For example, I went out to eat with my parents and the only thing on the menu I could eat were the onion rings. So, I had some greasy (but yummy) onion rings with a side of tomato. There was a salad option, but who wants to eat a salad every time they go out to eat?! Plus, all the salads there had creamy sauces.

Here are some quick snack/ lunch ideas that I love and that I have tried so far. Please feel free to share some more!

Quick Lunch ideas:

-Vegetable hummus wrap
Topped with lettuce, tomatoes, bean sprouts, match stick carrots and cheese…the possibilities are endless!
- BBQ pitas
Using BBQ sauce, top pita with fake chicken strips, red onion, mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, cheese and spices. Bake until cheese melts. - Chickpea sandwich
Mash up chickpeas and add vegan mayo, along with chopped green onion-or other vegetables…and salt and pepper. It has a tuna sandwich texture.
-The versatile salad
Throw in a different green each time and throw in some sliced almonds, carrots, chickpeas or other beans, tomatoes, strawberries or other fruit. I really like Renée’s chilled dressings; a lot of them are vegan.
- The versatile sandwich
Use some fake sliced meat, piled high with veggies, pickles, mustard or mayo—any way you like it! I like toasting my bread for any sandwich because it makes it taste that much better!
-Burritos
Buy them frozen and take them out for lunch.
- Meat free burgers with any topping you like
- I’ve been making big batches of things like soup and putting them into individualized containers. There are also tons of yummy vegetable and bean soups out there. I like the Amy’s brand.
- Salsa bean cakes (see previous post)
- Make a pizza with your favorite toppings. There’s even fake pepperoni out there if you’re craving it. Freeze some to have for later.
- Nachos with salsa, green onion and peppers. Use some veggie ground and top with cheese—yumm!
- Spring rolls and rice
- Fake chicken nuggets and fries
- Bagel with Tofutti cream cheese, topped with fruit or eat with some veggies.
- And don’t forget the classic PB&J sandwich…or some toast with PB and banana

Snacks:
-Air popped popcorn with vegan butter and sea salt
- Celery with peanut butter and raisins
- Granola bars
- Trail mix
- Fruit salad
- Any baked goods, frozen and taken out whenever you desire them
My favorites are chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter bars, banana bread and cupcakes
- Tofutti ice cream treats
- Nacho chips with salsa and hummus
- Chopped up veggies with vegan dip (I like Renée’s Caesar dressing)
- Almonds or any other type of nuts
- Raisins or Craisins
- Soy yogurt with oatmeal and fresh fruit
- Banana with peanut butter

The list goes on and on! I am still venturing out and trying some new, more difficult main dishes…I will be posting along the way!

Jenna :)

This Little Piggy...

Since becoming vegan, I have a new favorite animal: the PIG!
The more I learn about them...the more I fall in love. I would LOVE to own a potbellied pig. They are adorable and VERY intelligent. Whenever I watch a video on animal abuse, I can't take their screaming; I just want to save them all...if only I owned a farm! Well, we can all help save them by becoming vegetarian :)
I really liked this page from http://www.goveg.com/:

Here are our top 10 reasons to keep pork off your fork and put delicious Babe-free alternatives on your shopping list instead.

‘Meet Your Meat’: Pigs

1) Porking You Up
It’s a fact—ham, sausage, and bacon strips will go right to your hips. Eating pork products, which are loaded with artery-clogging cholesterol and saturated fat, is a good way to increase your waistline and increase your chances of developing deadly diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, arthritis, osteoporosis, Alzheimer’s, asthma, and impotence. Research has shown that vegetarians are 50 percent less likely to develop heart disease, and they have 40 percent of the cancer rate of meat-eaters. Plus, meat-eaters are nine times more likely to be obese than pure vegetarians are. Learn more about animal products and your health.

2) Pigs Have Feelings Too
Ninety-seven percent of pigs in the United States today are raised in factory farms, where they will never run across sprawling pastures, bask in the sun, breathe fresh air, or do anything else that comes naturally to them. Crowded into warehouses with nothing to do and nowhere to go, they are kept on a steady diet of drugs to keep them alive and make them grow faster, but the drugs cause many of the animals to become crippled under their own bulk. Learn more about cruelty to pigs. Check out these videos from pig farms in Oklahoma, North Carolina, Nebraska, and South Dakota.

3) Pigs and Playstations
Think that you can outplay a pig on your Playstation? You may be surprised. According to research, pigs are much smarter than dogs, and they even do better at video games than some primates. In fact, pigs are extremely clever animals who form complex social networks and have excellent memories. Eating a pig is like eating your dog! As actor Cameron Diaz put it after hearing that pigs have the mental capacities of a 3-year-old human: "[Eating bacon is] like eating my niece!" Learn more about pigs.

4) Pigs Prefer Mud, Not Crud
Pigs are actually very clean animals. If they are given sufficient space, pigs are careful not to soil the areas where they sleep or eat. And forget the silly saying “sweating like a pig”—pigs can’t even sweat! That’s why they bathe in water or mud to cool off. But in factory farms, they’re forced to live in their own feces and vomit and even amid the corpses of other pigs. Conditions are so filthy that at any given time, more than one-quarter of pigs suffer from mange—think of your worst case of poison ivy, and imagine having to suffer from it for the rest of your life. Learn more about what happens to pigs in factory farms. Check out the mange-ridden pigs on these South Dakota and Nebraska pig farms.

5) Farming Family Values
Factory farms are pure hell for pigs and their babies. Mother pigs spend most of their lives in tiny “gestation” crates, which are so small that the animals are unable to turn around or even lie down comfortably. They are repeatedly impregnated until they are slaughtered. Piglets, who are taken away from their distraught mothers after just a few weeks, have their tails chopped off, their teeth are clipped off with pliers, and the males are castrated—all without painkillers. Learn more about cruelty to pigs.

6) The Manure Is Blowing in the Wind …
A pig farm with 5,000 animals produces as much fecal waste as a city of 50,000 people. In 1995, 25 million gallons of putrid hog urine and feces spilled into a North Carolina river, immediately killing between 10 and 14 million fish. To get around water pollution limits, factory farms will frequently take the tons of urine and feces that are stored in cesspools and turn them into liquid waste that they spray into the air. This manure-filled mist is carried away by the wind and inhaled by the people who live nearby. Learn more about how factory farming damages the environment.

7) Bacteria-Laden Bacon and Harmful Ham
Extremely crowded conditions, poor ventilation, and filth in factory farms cause such rampant disease in pigs that 70 percent of them have pneumonia by the time they’re sent to the slaughterhouse. In order to keep pigs alive in conditions that would otherwise kill them and to promote unnaturally fast growth, the industry keeps pigs on a steady diet of the antibiotics that we depend on to treat human illnesses. This overuse of antibiotics has led to the development of “superbacteria,” or antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains. The ham, bacon, and sausage that you’re eating may make the drugs that your doctor prescribes the next time you get sick completely ineffective. Learn more about the effect of eating meat from sick, diseased, and drugged animals.

8) Hell on Wheels
More than 170,000 pigs die in transport each year, and more than 420,000 are crippled by the time they arrive at the slaughterhouse. Transport trucks, which carry pigs hundreds of miles through all weather extremes with no food or water, regularly flip over, throwing injured and dying animals onto the road. These terrified and injured animals are rarely offered veterinary care, and most languish in pain for hours; some even bleed to death on the side of the road. After an accident in April 2005, Smithfield spokesperson Jerry Hostetter told one reporter, “I hate to admit it, but it happens all the time.” Learn more about cruelty to pigs during transport.

9) Killing Them Without Kindness
A typical slaughterhouse kills up to 1,100 pigs every hour, which makes it impossible for them to be given humane, painless deaths. The U.S. Department of Agriculture documented 14 humane slaughter violations at one processing plant, where inspectors found hogs who “were walking and squealing after being stunned [with a stun gun] as many as four times.” Because of improper stunning methods and extremely fast line speeds, many pigs are still alive when they are dumped into scalding-hot hair-removal tanks—they literally drown in scalding-hot water. Learn more about what happens to pigs at slaughter.

10) Ditch the Bacon and Get Fakin’
Save pigs from hell and yourself from bad health by feasting on faux pork products instead. Stuff a sandwich full of Yves brand veggie ham slices, or throw some Lightlife Smart Bacon into a sizzling skillet—the freezer and “health food” sections of your local grocery or health food stores are packed full of these and other tasty substitutes. Check out VegCooking.com for hundreds of recipes, product recommendations, vegan meal plans, and a shopping guide.

Think before you eat another sausage link—order a free vegetarian starter kit full of delicious recipes and celebrity features today!

I will never eat one of these playful and intelligent creatures again! I know it might sound lame, but I love watching videos on YouTube of cute pigs, playing around and being free!
Here's a cute video....they actually remind me of my dog Dexter because he also runs around with SO much energy and love for life :)

The Skinny on Milk

We are the only species that drinks another animal’s milk. Cow’s milk is meant for making calves strong….into a 400lb cow! So why are we drinking it?
“It’s true that cow’s milk does contain calcium, which is necessary for strong bones, but that’s not the whole picture. Although milk offers calcium, it causes the body to release even more of it. It’s like someone giving you $1,000 but driving away in your car! So no matter how much you’re getting, you’re actually losing” -The Kind Diet
I’m sure we all think drinking milk is something we need to do. It’s what they advertise…it’s what they recommend. There are billion dollar industries behind this. Did you know that you can get more calcium from leafy greens, sea vegetables, sesame seeds and beans (and it is more readily absorbed into the body)? Also, soy milk is fortified with calcium.

Cows only lactate when they are pregnant. So, these cows that should have a life span of 25 years are only living for 7-9 years. They can get mastitis, infections and are crowded in small spaces. When they are no longer producing milk, they are sent off to slaughter.

Their babies are also taken away from them with much separation anxiety. Male calves are not needed for milk so they are stripped from their mothers, then pumped full of fat so they can be slaughtered for veal shortly after. So if you consume dairy products, you are also supporting the veal industry. Mother cows on dairy farms can often be seen searching and calling for their calves long after they have been separated. Author Oliver Sacks, M.D., wrote of a visit that he and cattle expert Dr. Temple Grandin made to a dairy farm and of the great tumult of bellowing that they heard when they arrived: “‘They must have separated the calves from the cows this morning,’ Temple said, and, indeed, this was what had happened. We saw one cow outside the stockade, roaming, looking for her calf, and bellowing. ‘That’s not a happy cow,’ Temple said. ‘That’s one sad, unhappy, upset cow. She wants her baby. Bellowing for it, hunting for it. She’ll forget for a while, then start again. It’s like grieving, mourning—not much written about it. People don’t like to allow them thoughts or feelings.’”
-Excerpt from www.goveg.com

Milk is also full of hormones. Cows are pumped with hormones so they will produce more milk. These hormones go into the milk. Some think this may be the cause of early puberty and hormone irregularity. Dairy is also linked to cancer.
“The medical world acknowledges that some of the biggest factors in breast cancer are fat, animal protein and excess estrogen…Did you know that in countries where dairy is not consumed the incidence of breast caner is so low it is almost non-existent? Once women from those countries begin eating Western diets, however, their breast caner rates increase eight-fold” -The Kind Diet.
Milk can also be related to allergies and asthmas. After giving up dairy, many people find relief with their problems.

Dairy is probably one of the hardest things to give up because it is so addicting. I admit that it can be quite a challenge...but I feel good about my choices at the end of the day. And, there are some great alternatives out there! Go try some soy milk or a Tofutti treat and see how it tastes. Soy and nut milks are also great for baking.

You can click here for a milk fact sheet that dives into more information about why milk is bad for the planet, your health and for the animals producing it http://www.peta.org/mc/factsheet_display.asp?ID=98

So, not only can the milk industry be cruel to animals and their offspring…the fatty milk that we consume is also causing us problems. Try to substitute something milk-free today :)

Information was collected from "The Kind Diet", "Peta.org", "Goveg.com" and "Becoming Vegan".

Mac and Cheese

Today I was craving some Mac and Cheese. I don’t think I’ve had Kraft Dinner since I lived with Smees and we used to make it with cut-up hot dogs. Regardless, I needed some Mac and Cheese and I needed it now!
I cooked up some macaroni and put half of it in the bottom of a greased baking pan. I then put cheddar cheese (use rice or vegan), butter, sprinkled on some flour, shook on some salt and pepper and poured some almond milk on top. Then I did another layer of the same. Crushed crackers made the topping.
I was surprised this actually turned out! Maybe some spices in it next time would be good. I had it with a side Caesar salad and some chocolate soy milk (and of course...ketchup!)...Yum :)

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups

Mmmm…peanut butter cups! These are so delicious and easy to make. Okay, so maybe they’re not exactly like Reese Peanut Butter Cups...but I can't eat those! Anyways, these are pretty darn close... I like freezing these and eating them cold as well.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups

½ cup butter (I used Earth Balance)
¾ cup crunchy peanut butter
¾ cup graham cracker crumbs or 10 graham cracker squares
¼ cup maple sugar or other granulated sweetener (maple sugar is ridiculously expensive, so I used organic cane sugar from Just Us)

1 cup grain-sweetened, non-dairy chocolate chips or carob chips (most semi-sweet chocolate chips are lactose free but you have to read the label just in case)
¼ cup soy, rice or nut milk
¼ cup chopped pecans, almonds or peanuts

Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners (If You Care makes unbleached liners made from recycled paper).

Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the peanut butter, graham cracker crumbs, and sugar and mix well. Remove the mixture from the heat. Evenly divide the mixture, approximately 2 tbl per cup.

Combine the chocolate and milk in another pan. Stir over medium heat until the chocolate has melted. Spoon the chocolate evenly over the peanut butter mixture. Top with chopped nuts. Place in refrigerator to set for at least 2 hours before serving.

Recipe from The Kind Life by Alicia Silverstone Yumm! :)

The Meatrix

I found this site and these great videos. First of all, I am a huge fan of the Matrix…so I find this hilarious. But, at the same time it is extremely informative!



The Meatrix Series:
Produced by Sustainable Table and Free Range Studios, The Meatrix, The Meatrix II: Revolting, and The Meatrix II 1/2 expose the dirty truth behind today’s industrial meat and dairy production. The movies use action and humor to educate audiences, while the website offers alternatives to the problems with industrial agriculture. Join our heroes Moopheus, Leo and Chickity as they confront industrial agriculture and help them save small family farms!

www.themeatrix.com

BabyCakes...

BabyCakes is a bakery in New York City that specializes in vegan and gluten-free desserts. They’ve been voted for best cupcake in NYC (and they’re up against some big-guns). Celebrities like Madonna and Natalie Portman go there for their sweet fixes. They also opened up another bakery in California. I can’t wait to go to New York and stuff my face full of vegan treats :)
I was very excited to get the BabyCakes Recipe Book (it includes many more things than just cupcakes). My first attempt was the chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting. Sounds easy right? Well, it’s with all new ingredients I’ve never used before (and some I’ve never even heard of). These include garbanzo-bean flour, xanthan gum, coconut oil, potato flour, agave nectar, arrowroot and coconut flour. Their cupcakes aren’t only vegan and gluten-free, they’re supposed to be healthier and reduce that icky feeling in your belly after eating sugar. These recipes are bit more temperamental than the usual white sugar, eggs and flour. My cupcakes turned out decent, but I failed with the frosting. I just ended up using regular frosting for this batch.

This was my first time using coconut oil, which is solid but has to be melted at room temperature before using it. I thought I melted it all the way, but one chunk of the solid stuff got in the mix. Instantly it all changed. I thought maybe it would get better after being refrigerated for the 6 hours it recommended…but it didn’t. I’ll know for next time!

Also, the recipe said to put the cupcakes in the refrigerator, but when I did they turned into dry rocks. SO, overall, not the best cupcake experience…but I will keep on keeping on. Who got anywhere by giving up? I am determined to get a moist, flavorful vegan BabyCakes cupcake!

http://www.babycakesnyc.com/

Take Action!

Animal Transportation

“Current legislation allows ruminants (cows, sheep & goats) to be transported for 52 hours without water, food and rest. Horses, chickens and pigs may be transported for 36 hours. The new legislation proposes that horses, pigs or other monogastric animals be transported for no longer than 8 hours and cattle, sheep, goats or other ruminants for no longer than 12 hours”.
-Canadian Coalition for Farm Animals

These times do not include the pre and post fasting times before and after transportation. Can you imagine a truckload of pigs in the heat and humidity we have now…going 52 hours without water! These numbers are outrageous, and they are among the longest in the industrialized world.

As Canadians, we have to come together and show we want these travel times to be reduced and animal transportation to be revised.

Please take 2 minutes to fill out the petition below and send to your MP. I have already received a response from my MP in the mail, saying he will take my letter into consideration. That’s just from ONE letter. Imagine if we all signed it.

If you want to take some action, click now.

http://www.humanefood.ca/mpcontact.html

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy".

—Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968)

The Truth Hurts...

Here comes the tough stuff. I am posting these videos because it is what made me become vegan. Yes, they are extremely hard to watch…but we can’t ignore the truth any longer. There’s no reason why these farm animals have to suffer. I think we all have that image of happy farmers and green pastures, and we try to ignore the facts. For example: Think about how many hamburgers the McDonalds closest to you would sell each day. Now think about all the other McDonalds in your area. Multiple that by thousands. Meat is in high demand. It needs to be produced quickly for a profit. I can’t stop thinking about all the chickens that must die each day for food cooperation’s like Swiss Chalet or KFC. Every time you eat, you are voting. You are increasing the demand for meat, and the farmers have to produce it. It’s one of the biggest industries on this planet.

“Earthlings”, narrated by Joaquin Phoenix, is an in depth film about where our food comes from- but it also dives into seafood, animal experimentation and the selling of fur. Watching this was honestly one of the hardest things I have done…I couldn’t watch it all in one sitting because it was so overwhelming. But, after watching these movies, the images stay with me and keep me strong about my decisions. NO animal ever deserves to be treated inhumanely. I am posting part 3 of this movie because it demonstrates what our cows and pigs go through for your food-so if you can at least watch that, I think it will make a big impact on your decisions. The links to the other parts can be found on YouTube.
Warning: Viewer discretion is advised for these films. So do not watch unless you are over 18 years old.


Below is a short film called “Meet Your Meat”. It’s narrated by Alec Baldwin. It gives you, the consumer, a quicker overview on where your meat is coming from (if you are unable to watch “Earthlings”). If you can get all the nutrients you need from a vegetarian diet-then why wouldn’t you choose a diet that creates no harm to a living creature? We all love animals...so, why are we eating them? Is it because you don’t want to give up the taste of meat? Is it because you don’t want to change your lifestyle? Think about your meat and where it comes from next time you sit down to eat. I urge you to at least become informed and THEN make your decision.