In WaldenHenry David Thoreau writes how he baked bread from a mixture of rye and “Indian meal” (I assume that this would be cornmeal), according to an old Latin recipe from Marcus Porcius Cato, without yeast or leavening:
"Panem depsticium sic facito. Manus mortariumque bene lavato. Farinam in mortarium indito, aquae paulatim addito, subigitoque pulchre. Ubi bene subegeris, defingito, coquitoque sub testu." Which I take to mean, -- "Make kneaded bread thus. Wash your hands and trough well. Put the meal into the trough, add water gradually, and knead it thoroughly. When you have kneaded it well, mould it, and bake it under a cover," that is, in a baking kettle.
Even back then, grains were fed to farm animals and farmers bought their grains:
Every New Englander might easily raise all his own breadstuffs in this land of rye and Indian corn, and not depend on distant and fluctuating markets for them. Yet so far are we from simplicity and independence that, in Concord, fresh and sweet meal is rarely sold in the shops, and hominy and corn in a still coarser form are hardly used by any. For the most part the farmer gives to his cattle and hogs the grain of his own producing, and buys flour, which is at least no more wholesome, at a greater cost, at the store.
Photo by pablo.sanchez
After two weeks of avoiding dairy, I will avoid white flour for two weeks. I think that if I can avoid pizza, I will be pretty ok with avoiding white flour. Then I will not eat white, refined sugar for two weeks.
A recent study found that fructose is evil, at least compared to glucose in sweetened drinks. Stay away from sweetened drinks and processed, packaged foods.
The article recommended that we should stay away from sugar, especially sweetened drinks like sodas and processed, packaged foods, but for your sugar NEEDS, the best 3 sweeteners are:
1. The herb stevia (this is the best and safest sweetener, although illegal to use as a food additive, according to the FDA) 2. Organic cane sugar 3. Raw, organic honey
In preparation of my two weeks of white sugar freedom, I will see how I can substitute these into my life, but I have no idea where to find this stuff in the US, much less in Germany...Good thing that my two weeks of sugar freedom starts in 2 and a half weeks!
I always knew to think of processed soy products as evil, and here is one specific reason why: whole soybeans are bathed in the chemical solvent hexane to concentrate high-protein isolate. Usually, you can find soy-protein isolate in a lot of fake meats. But hexane is neurotoxic and, thus, "poses serious occupational hazards to workers, is an environmental air pollutant, and can contaminate food". Yes, it can be found on your soy food products if you don't buy organic. Luckily, in the US hexane is prohibited in organic products.
But the whole point of the article I read is that many of our 'organic' soybeans come from China, where organic oversight is so slack...
Process your own soy with mold, my friends. Let our microfloral allies do the work for us. Because mold ferments soybeans to make tempeh, it is actually more digestible than tofu.
I made my own tempeh again this past weekend! Since making it is a 2-3 day affair, it gave my weekend a nice rhythm.
Friday night: soak the soybeans Upon waking Saturday morning: remove soybean skins + cut up the beans into smaller pieces Saturday morning: cook the soybeans while making brunch Saturday early afternoon: spread almost fully-cooked soybeans on baking sheet double lined with flat-woven towels to dry them Saturday early evening: after mixing with some apple cider vinegar and powdered tempeh spores, spread the skin dry beans into baking dishes, then pop into oven with only the light on Sunday morning: check to make sure some white mold is evident Sunday late afternoon/early evening: remove tempeh from incubator when solid
Cut into pieces to be wrapped in plastic wrap to freeze for later consumption.
The first time I made tempeh, I had to incubate for 36 hours or so. And everything turned black! At least on the side that was exposed to the air.
Last night, I had my first taste from my second batch. It was more firm than my first batch, and I didn't cut the soybeans as much, so I could taste each individual bean. For the first time, I baked it in the oven and then added it to my Thai-ish whole-grain noodle dish, which I improvised with lots of caramelized onions, half a reconstituted ancho chile, some broccoli florets, one tomato, three mushrooms, soy sauce, peanut butter, homemade mango chutney with sesame oil drizzled on top. Delicious!
For lunch last week, I ate cucumbers, tomatoes, red bell peppers, mushrooms and almonds with a mustard vinaigrette.
For dinner last week, I used some crusty old bread to make a creamy tomato soup. I swirled in some homemade soy yogurt, even though it was quite thick and 'creamy' enough.
To accompany the tomato bread soup, I marinated some radishes with equal amounts vinegar and jam, according to a Japanese-inspired pickling recipe. Delicious!
This new vocabulary should help me stop liking products of tortured cow secretions.
Originally, I had planned to write about the things I have eaten since starting my two weeks of no cow torture that may have been made from the secretions of tortured cows. But being vegan is not about being perfect or being pure. I don’t need to be 100% dairy free. Animals don’t care about purity. Animals care about suffering less and not dying.
This 14-day experiment helps me see how much power I have to decrease suffering.
In these 14 days:
I break through my belief barriers and live my truth rather than live my excuses.
I take full pleasure in eating and pay closer attention to life rather than sleepwalking through the suffering around me.
I open my heart and take responsibility for my power to end suffering, so as to live large and fully.
In that spirit, I will NOT focus on what I ate that may have had crossed the line. Knowing what they are and why they tempt me will help me avoid them in the future, however. Mostly, I need to think before putting something in my mouth—that is the tagline of this blog: eat consciously! Don’t eat accidents!
I already ate dairy on Day 1 of my 14-day experiment without eating dairy.
This morning I completely forgot as I spread some butter on my morning bread.
And then there were cookies at the office. Dutch stroopwafels! Unfortunately, I ate them without thinking and then fished the plastic bag out of the kitchen trash can. Under the tea leaf, I found out that the cookies were made with glucose syrup and butter as the first two ingredients.
Otherwise, I was so happy to know that the cinnamon bread I get at Beumer & Lutum every morning is made with margarine. It is vegan!
And my lunch was a raw vegan salad, as always: 1 cucumber, 1 yellow bell pepper, 2 tomatoes, a few brown button mushrooms, and a handful of almonds.
Depite the setbacks, I am not at all disappointed in myself. These bumps on the road are keys to staying vegan. Now I know my barriers to eating vegan: butter and free sweets lying around. Why do I love butter on good bread? And why do I love eating sweets, especially free sweets? When I figure these answers out, I can release them.
I found a pretty good tasting soy 'yogurt' yesterday, and I am trying to duplicate it at home.
Usually soy yogurts are full of stabilizers and other such junk that I can't pronounce. For example, plain Silk soy yogurt in the US is made of: Organic soymilk (filtered water, whole organic soybeans), rice starch, dextrose, organic evaporated cane juice, tricalcium phosphate, natural flavors, cultured glucose syrup solids, pectin, locust bean gum, ascorbic acid (vitamin C), yogurt cultures (L. bulgaricus, S. thermophilus, L. acidophilus, B. bifidum, L. casei, L. rhamnosus).
But Sojade is just "soya drink (natural spring water, whole soya beans 8%), and selected live cultures of which Bifidus and Acidophilus". And the taste is pretty good! And since I have cultured milk with yogurt cultures successfully before by following directions for making Greek yogurt from Bean Sprouts, it can't be that hard to culture soy milk with soy yogurt cultures. Basically, boil soy milk, let it cool to body temperature, add the live cultures, put in thermos for a few hours while the bacteria get it on--then yogurt!
So we will see what happens after 8-14 hours...
EDITED: When I made the yogurt and wrote this post, I forgot about this thing called the internet. I googled a bit and found some soy yogurt resources from soy milk makers.
I found out some cool facts. Apparently, the bacteria produces lactic acid faster if you add sugar to the soy milk! And that I could buy live non-dairy acidophilus (the Solgar brand is vegan) to make soy yogurt...which means that I could use it to culture nut milk to make nut cheese. And acidolphilus breeds roughly between 100 - 105F (40 - 45C), a little warmer than tempeh culture.
Vegan Pesto made with bärlauch, radish greens, and ancho chile
Last night I improvised a pesto. Improvisations are great ways to learn what works and what doesn’t.
Previously, I had made a vegan pesto inspired by delicious days’ radish green pesto. To radish greens, I added wild garlic or bear’s-paw garlic (what Germans call bärlauch), sunflower seeds, lemon juice and zest, salt, and olive oil. The radish greens give a peppery bite and a bright green to the pesto. Spring spreadable on bread!
Since I had some dried ancho chile peppers from my December trip to Mexico, I thought last night that they might be a good replacement for sun-dried tomatoes, so I added an entire rehydrated ancho chile to my pesto. Normally, smoky and sour and hot, the chile was perhaps not the best substitute for sun-dried tomatoes. In fact, it fairly overpowered the delicate spiciness of the radish greens and the delicate garlic flavor of the bear’s-paw garlic.
The pesto was still delicious last night on pumpkin seed bread under radish slices and tempeh, but restraint with the chile would work better next time.
Part of the reason I started blogging was to figure out what eating with integrity would mean to me.
At the time, I was tempted by veganism, but I wanted to play more with growing bacteria and molds. Even though bacteria and molds can be found in alcohol, tempeh and natto, bread, and other vegan goodies, I couldn't resist the idea of growing bacteria in cheese and yogurt. I didn’t want to give up expanding my repertoire of kitchen culture experiments, with an eye towards perhaps transferring those skills to vegan cultures.
And eating vegan doesn’t mean that the distributors of vegan food don’t also distribute meat. Take a look at your grocery store. Are you not voting with your dollars to support a store that makes meat consumption possible? Go backwards through the supply chain, and you will find blood on everyone’s hands. Just by bicycling and watching films, I have blood on my hands as rubber tires and film stock both use animal derivatives in their production. For a while, I was freegan, scavenging from rather than contributing to capitalist food production. But there are no simple answers there either.
Besides, vegan doesn’t automatically mean healthier. For example, fast food made from processed soy derivatives is still unhealthy!
The integrity I seek means eating for my optimal health AS WELL AS decreasing suffering for sentient beings everywhere.
In sum, I was unhappy following the label 'vegan' or 'freegan' or 'locavore' or what have you. In addition to realizing that no label was ideal, I also discovered that adhering to some label restricted my freedom to choose. That was not a freedom I wanted to give up, because I want to eat whatever makes me feel the most alive. I want to eat consciously every time I eat and not just depend on rules to which I submit.
Barry Schwartz talks about rules crippling wisdom in his talk at TED: ‘The real crisis? We stopped being wise’. Here, he abstracts to society at large my idea that labels like ‘vegan’ overrides thinking when eating.
What I took away from Schwartz: Anything we do with people requires wisdom. Practical wisdom is moral will + moral skill + improvisation depending on the situation. That means, to practice wisdom we must want to be moral, have the abilities to act morally, and respond to each situation as it demands. For this, we need time + permission + being mentored + space for experimentation, that is, the possibility of failure and learning from failures.
Current societies try to change behavior through rules and incentives, believing and acting as though more and better rules as well as more and better incentives will bring about better behavior. (This is the ultimate political question for me: how to non-coercively rearrange others’ desires) According to Schwartz, rules and incentives only lead to mediocrity, because we stop thinking about what is right. Rules atrophy moral skills; incentives destroy the desire to do the right thing.
Schwartz proposes that to become wise, we must celebrate moral exemplars and heroes. We must have examples on how to do the right thing in the right way for the right reasons. Likewise, we inspire through being good examples. As teachers, we are always teaching because someone is always watching. Schwartz makes this sound like Big Brother, but I prefer to interpret it as that people reflect back to you what you give out. Someone is always learning from you through your actions. Just pay attention to what we do, how we do it, and in what organized structure we work to develop wisdom. We must practice wisdom to serve, not manipulate, others.
In the end, Schwartz is talking about virtue. I haven’t heard that word in public discourse in a very long time. These days I read a lot about happiness and people’s quest for happiness. Unfathomably even to myself, I find myself less and less concerned with happiness and thinking more and more about how to do right—how to live virtuously. And since living and eating are intertwined, living virtuously means eating with integrity.
