What happens when a girl from Miami and a guy from Chicago move to a 118-year old house in small-town North Carolina and care for our rescued chickens.
If these images aren't enough to convince you that dairy (all forms) is evil...
Maybe this will help...
For years, we’ve been told that milk does a body good. But does it really? Though touted as the healthier option at home and in restaurants, milk has roughly the same calorie count as soda and 2% milk contains the same amount of saturated fat as french fries. Given these two facts, the correlation between high milk consumption and high rates of Type 1 diabetes and heart disease makes sense. Even though one-third of Americans are lactose intolerant, the U.S. still consumes nearly 9 times the amount of milk that China does. So why do we drink so much milk? Because cows are making more of it. With the introduction of growth hormones like rBST, milk cows are producing nearly twice as much as they did in 1970.
One of the concerns that I had when we were making the switch to veganism was butter. I love to bake and I love toast, especially toast slathered with butter and jam or cinnamon sugar. So more than anything this was an ingredient that I worried about a bit. But we are very luck to be vegan in a time when this is a total non-issue.
Because there is EarthBalance!
EarthBalance is the greatest food product I know. It comes in sticks and several spreadable varieties and because of it, I've never given the switch from dairy butter a moment's thought or concern.
The sticks are perfect for baking and sauteing, just like dairy butter sticks. It melts, separates and softens just like dairy butter and makes perfect flaky biscuits and pie crust too.
I've used this when making heavily butter-based cookies, like shortbread or the Mexican Wedding Cakes/Russian Tea Cakes shown below, with no change in the texture or flavor. I've made rouxs and risotto and sauteed mushrooms too.
Here I've creamed two sticks with sugar when making the Tea Cake cookies. Looks just the same, right?
with the added flour...
baked and nicely browned...
Done!
EarthBalance tastes and acts just like dairy butter but with out all the cruelty and cholesterol. In fact, I don't know why more bakeries and chef's don't use it exclusively. You open up your menu to more people and reduce the negative elements.
So, if you are ready to make some cookies (or want to make me some!) grab some EarthBalance and you are good to go!
There are days when it all gets so overwhelming that I'm not sure I can feel such despair and still go on. Knowing that abuses like these happen to innocents multiplied literally billions of times every hour of every day is appalling.
I know how seductive it can be to avoid looking at these videos. To avoid "knowing". How much we want to keep the thought that we fund this away and disconnected from us. Frankly, there is a part of me that would rather not live sometimes than feel the helplessness and deep sadness that I feel when I see images like this. I can't fathom the type of person who can do this and what they have had to experience to be so numbed and disconnected from the suffering and pain they are creating in another living thing.
Besides living in as compassionate way possible, supporting the organizations that expose these crimes and by sharing this information, I feel that I have to do more than just sit here, remotely, crying from what I see. I want to shout it from the roof tops. I want to take these practices - industry standards that encourage violence and pain - and bring them into the light and show them to everyone.
Why?
Because I have trust and faith that my friends, family and fellow humans really do want to do what is right. That they would never, if they just knew, keep perpetuating this system just for some ice cream or a burger or any other food item. That they want to also be healthier. That they want to see the world be better off too. And that they are empowered to do so every single day just by choosing a different food to eat. Just by being vegan.
So, I don't stop looking. I try to wipe my tears and look again. I keep breathing. I keep shouting and sharing. Some days I can guide and smile, speaking with joy. Some days I am so filled with rage that I shake and speak out harshly. Some days I sit in my car and bawl until I'm spent. I know I may not always be popular but I have to try.
If I don't speak out I may not be to speak at all.
A new Mercy For Animals undercover investigation provides a horrifying look into E6 Cattle Co. in Hart, Texas.
E6 Cattle rears calves for use on dairy farms, confining approximately 10,000 calves and subjecting them to lives of prolonged neglect and misery. For over two weeks in March of 2011, an MFA undercover investigator documented the operation's deplorable conditions and brutal mistreatment of animals.
Due to an outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease, South Korea began "culling" pigs in late December. To date, it is reported that as many as 3 million pigs have been buried alive. The cost of the cull is estimated around 230m pounds, whereas a mass vaccination program would've cost only 63m pounds, been far more humane, compassionate, and conscious of our fellow beings.
I get an eNewsletter from my Insurance provider at least once a week. I am always amazed at the contents, or at least one element in the newsletter, each time. Whether it's pushing a new pharmaceutical or giving insufficient food advice, I don't really feel they are telling the full truth.
In this post they (and most of the rest of the online press) have picked up the news that a compound, trans-palmitoleic acid, in full-fat dairy products may help to reduce Type 2 Diabetes risk (per the Harvard School of Public Health scientists).
I felt I had to do more research as this "news" brought up many questions.
1. Who funds the Harvard School of Public Health?
2. Was this finding because the participants had eaten a diet filled with non-fat and therefore more concentrated diary and by eating the full-fat version the risk is less?
3. Why are so many news outlets picking up the story without doing further research.
It seems as if the news and sites are not giving the full story. They position trans-palmitoleic acid as "not produced by the body" but they fail to note that there are other non-animal based ways to obtain this compound. They also don't note that this study was a single study based on a single survey.
What's needed next, says Leonid Poretsky, MD, director of the Friedman Diabetes Institute at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City, is an interventional prospective study. "In this type of study, you would give people the substance over a period of time and then observe whether there are indeed fewer cases of diabetes," he says. "This study was just an association study. It doesn't prove cause and effect."
Even Diabetes groups are coming out in opposition to how this finding is being presented:
Research reported in the 'Annals of Internal Medicine' involved 3,736 people over 20 years. They were asked once about their diet and other factors which might affect their health. Three years later they had their blood tested to measure fatty acid levels, including the amount of trans-palmitoleic acid, and after that information about their health was collected annually.
The journal draws attention to several limitations of the study. Participants were asked only once about the foods they usually eat, and dietary habits may change over time. The blood levels of trans-palmitoleic acid measured several years later may have no longer related to the types of foods the participants originally reported eating. Therefore it is not possible to conclude from this study which foods, if any, result in greater levels of trans-palmitoleic acid in the blood. In addition, this kind of study cannot say whether trans-palmitoleic acid or some other unidentified factor was the cause of the positive health effects seen.
My advice: make sure to learn more about the whole picture and not just read the headlines.
Personally, the results don't matter to me. I'm not eating dairy. Health factors are just one reason we're vegan. The other is this is a compassionate choice that I make not only for myself, but also for the environment and the animals.
Last weekend we had the amazing opportunity to go to a screening of the documentary "Forks Over Knives" and to hear Dr. Campbell speak in person.
This movie is tremendous.
It focuses on the very real and clinically proven health benefits of eating a plant-based diet. The movie came out of the work of Dr. T. Colin Campbell, a nutritional scientist from Cornell and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, a top surgeon and head of the Breast Cancer Task Force at the world-renowned Cleveland Clinic.
What is amazing about this movie - and what elicited gasps throughout from the audience - is the factual proof and connections between eating animal-based food and the major health implications they cause.
We are not talking anecdotal results, but rather proven by huge research studies, under the care of the most respected and top ranking doctors and scientists, that issues like cancer, heart disease and diabetes can be stopped and EVEN REVERSED just by switching to a plant-based diet.
This is not a movie that is showing you images of animal conditions or factory farming, although there is a bit of that, but rather it focuses on people and their evolving health and lifestyle.
For many, if not most people, in this country this is a huge concern. Their health and the health of their children are at risk from the way they are eating now. There is a lot of crappy but cheap and available food shoved at you every second of every day no matter where you go. This movie shows the connections to how this is hurting us.
Dr. Campbell spoke and answered questions after the movie. This man is in his 80s and still runs and is 110% there mentally.
He spoke to how the issue is NOT the way factory farming is done that creates the issues, because their studies were done with grass-fed animals (factory farming conditions just makes it even worse). That you can essentially "turn-on" and "turn-off" cancer production by eliminating meat, eggs, and especially dairy. That we could reduce our country's health costs by 75%-80% just by making this change.
While we switched to a vegan lifestyle for animal compassion reasons, health and environmental concerns - and benefits - were also in our minds. There is heart disease and cancer in our family backgrounds. I don't want to eat myself into a heart attack at 50-something, you know?
It was interesting to see how influenced people were by the movie. You could really tell that they were impacted by the message. I hope they were inspired to go home and really think about making a change in their lives, for their lives.
Their are screenings currently being held around the country. You can go to the site to see if there is one in your area or how to have a showing in your area. The movie is coming out in March 2011. I've very excited and hopeful to see a wave of people taking control of their health and wanting to make this positive change.
I am a hot cocoa and hot chocolate snob. See those adorable snowman mugs and pitcher? I have those just for hot cocoa. And yes, there is a difference between hot chocolate (the latter is made the French way and, ideally, drunk at Angelina's in Paris.)
Hot chocolate is made from several kinds of melted chocolate and creme, is very rich and almost like a melted ganache. Hot cocoa is what we drink here in America much more often and is lighter.
I like mine sugary and somewhat bitter from the cocoa powder.
Here's what I use for two servings. The great thing is you can totally adjust this for taste and number of people.
Ingredients:
3 Cups non-dairy milk. I prefer Almond Breeze but you can use any you prefer.
1/2 Cup ground cocoa powder
1/2 cup granulated sugar
Optional:
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 to 1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/16 tsp (just a pinch) of cayenne powder
To make:
Put granulated sugar in a medium sauce pan and sift in ground cocoa to remove any lumps. This will ensure you get an even mix.
Pour in 1/2 cup of the non-dairy milk and whisk together over medium low heat to create a slurry. A slurry is similar to creating a roux and is used to better integrate a solid (the sugar and cocoa powder) into a liquid. If you dumped all the milk in at once it would not evenly incorporate.
Then, when the cocoa, sugar and milk is well mixed, add in the remaining milk and turn the heat up to medium. Keep stirring with your whisk to combine well.
Once you have everything well stirred together, I pour in the vanilla extract and sprinkle in the cinnamon and cayenne. These are optional. You could also add in a bit of peppermint extract or even almond or nutmeg. Totally to your taste.
Once this is well warmed, pour into mugs and top with frothed milk or drop in some vegan marshmallows. You can even sprinkle on a bit more ground cinnamon.
Best enjoyed snuggled on the sofa with a puppy or kitty, of course!
