Tag: Vegan
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Aggressive vegans
Apparently 26% of British meat-eaters claim the attitude of vegetarians and vegans has put them off considering a plant-based diet. I think that’s a bit silly. I’m sure there are some aggressive vegans with a bad attitude just as there are some aggressive motorists with a bad attitude and some aggressive police officers with a…
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Vegan ice cream for dummies
I adapted this recipe from one I saw in the August edition of Britain’s Vegan Food & Living magazine. It is possibly the easiest, quickest, healthiest, and yummiest vegan ice-cream you will ever eat. Ingredients 3 large bananas 300g frozen black currents (or berries of your choice) 1 tbsp maple syrup 100ml soya milk Two…
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Is there anything kale can’t do?
The author of the book, How not to die, has some terrific lectures online. He’s very entertaining to listen to and knows his stuff. This particular talk is about the best way to avoid death. It goes through the leading causes of death starting from heart disease and by analysing the latest research demonstrates how…
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Bonobo Café
A couple of weeks ago Aberdeen welcomed its very first vegan café, Bonobo, and today I got to check it out. It’s the result of a kick-starter campaign which I, along with hundreds of others, donated to. All our names are on the wall inside. The food was delicious and the service, perfect. They have done…
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Okja – Film Review
A soulless multinational company develops a giant pig which poops less and eats less than regular pigs while providing a greater volume of meat. The company sends a number of these super pigs to farmers all over the world to raise for ten years. One of them is sent to South Korea where the farmer’s…
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Meat allergy tick is spreading thanks to climate change
I thought this story was a hoax at first but I Googled it and found reputable sources like the New Yorker, ABC Science, BBC, and Science Daily. There’s a nice symmetry to the thought that one of the causes of climate change – livestock farming – could also bring about its demise. Livestock farming produces…
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Tell lions not to eat dogs
This post is for my vegan friends who I’m sure will enjoy this Facebook article that appeared in my feed this week. I had a good laugh because every single one of those points has been said to me in the 15 years that I have been vegan. If you click the “See More” link…
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Kia Kaha
I’ve had one glass of wine and I’m really pissed. I don’t want everyone to think I’m an alcoholic or anything because alcohol is best avoided. I don’t drink very often but I bought a half case of sulphur-free wine recently and I’ve really enjoyed it drinking it, especially the red wine. The broccoli in my…
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The Handmade Burger Company
We went for dinner to The Handmade Burger Company this week. It’s a chain store which sells – no prizes for guessing what – burgers! I nearly fell off my chair and had a heart attack when I saw the menu because there were six vegetarian options and four of them vegan. Usually there’s just one thing for…
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“Does that elephant need its face more than some guy in Asia needs a tusk on his desk?”
Theresa May plans to lift the ban on ivory trading. Why would anyone want to do that? The reason is because people who sell antiques are required to prove that any ivory in their products was worked before 1947 and this is apparently difficult and expensive to do. She is putting what is a minor inconvenience for antique dealers…
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Sainsbury’s vegan mac and cheese
Sainsbury’s reported earlier this year that sales of their newly launched vegan cheese exceeded expectations by 300%. This is not bad at all considering the vegan market has always been viewed as small and somewhat niche. I decided to give their vegan macaroni cheese a try. It’s a ready-made meal for one which you heat for…
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The future of food
Aberdeen had its first ever vegan festival today and we went to check it out. Despite being vegan for more than a decade, this was the first vegan festival I’ve ever been to. I’ve never lived anywhere that had such a thing. It seems ironic that my first vegan festival should be in the home…
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International Festival
I have spent most of this weekend hard at work in the kitchen. The school had an international festival today and the mum organising it asked me whether I’d like to bring some vegan food. I was delighted to be asked and felt I had to put on a good spread as a representative of plant-based…
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Do animal rights activists care more for animals than humans?
Some people think that those who advocate for animal rights care more about non-human animals than human animals. That’s not true at all. The ethicist, Peter Singer, who wrote Animal Liberation back in 1975 thinks we rich people ought to donate 10% of our salary to the world’s poor. He gives around a quarter of his own…
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Cultural blindness
The following excerpt is from an article in The Times this week, Richard Dawkins: ‘When I see cattle lorries, I think of the railway wagons to Auschwitz‘. Is this what it was like, Richard Dawkins wonders, for ordinary people in Nazi Germany? “There’s a kind of laziness if you live in a society where things…
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The inconsistency of eating meat while objecting to abortion
For any woman having an abortion is a serious decision that she will only do if she has something quite important at stake. Whereas people who are prepared to go into the supermarket and buy some ham don’t need to do that at all. They could easily eat something else. They are supporting the pain…
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Hodmedod’s
Recently I discovered lentils and soya beans are grown in the UK and in the process I stumbled upon Hodmedod’s, an online store selling British grown beans and other products. I decided to give it a try and bought the big vegan box: Apparently carlin peas make a good replacement for chickpeas. I will whip…
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Stick insect abortions
I’m a murderer. I killed dozens of our pet stick insects yesterday with my bare hands, squishing them into green slime. I felt pretty awful about this and had nightmares last night about mistreating pets. I realise this self-imposed guilt is irrational because I frequently squish insects in my greenhouse. Why do I feel guilty…
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Vegan menus, radio programs, and strip clubs
Last night we went out for a pub meal at The Justice Mill on Union St in Aberdeen. It’s part of a pub chain in the UK called Wetherspoon; I like it because there are several options for me to eat and it’s cheap. They even have a menu especially for vegans and vegetarians – eat…
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Ethics into Action
I’m reading this terrific book about the life of Henry Spira, a New Yorker who challenged large corporations over their abuse of animals, and he did so effectively, without money and with no large organisation behind him. The book is not so much a biography but a book about Henry’s strategy and why he was so successful.…
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