Vegetarian vs. Vegan

Let’s talk eggs, milk and cheese, shall we?

We’ve all heard the speech about how we are the only species to drink the milk of another mammal blah blah blah. Yes, it’s true. Up until recently I thought that we were kind of doing dairy cows a favor. They eat thier grass and hay, they get full of milk and we milk them. They eat more grass and hay, produce more milk, and we milk them some more. It turns out there is more to this story.

Dairy cows do not just produce milk. Sure, thier name would insinuate that is what they do, just like laying hens lay eggs. (More on the eggs later) No, it turns out that dairy cows are not a specially bred type of cow that produce milk. Dairy cows, much like people, have to be pregnant to produce milk. So, the farmers who own the dairy cows have to make sure that, yup, you guessed it, the dairy cows stay pregnant. When the mommy cow finally has her calf, she does not get put in a nice little stall with her baby to nurse it. The baby gets taken away. They are fed by machines until they are old enough to either a) get turned into dairy cows (the girls) or b) get turned into veal (the boys) There was a story in a paper a while back where a mother cow broke out of it’s pen and travelled something like 3 miles to find her baby.

The mother cow is then milked. Not by nice warm hands that are gentle on her udders, but by a machine. The machine is attached to the cow and goes to work. This is done day after day. For those of you who have been pregnant, I’m sure you are well aware of what happens to the nipples after you’ve been nursing for a while. For those of you who haven’t been pregnant, I’m sure you have heard about it from your pregnant friends. The nipples get sore. They get dry. They crack. In some cases they may bleed a little. Cows experience the exact same thing. While we are lucky to be able to go to the drug store and buy a cream or salve to put on for this, cows don’t get that. Instead, day after day, they are hooked up to a machine and milked and any blood goes into that milk. This continues until mommy cow is ready to be pregnant again.

Consider that this milk is what your cheese is made out of. And ice cream. Each carton of milk, cream cheese, cheddar or ice cream is probably made the same way, with the same milk from these mass-produced dairys. With those cows, who don’t ever really get a break.

What kind of a sucky life is that? I have never been a huge fan of dairy, the odd ice cream in the summer, some cream cheese on my bagel, but I pay for it dearly as dairy is not my friend. Recently I switched to soy milk and it’s much easier on my tummy as well as my concience.

Onto the eggs. We all have the idea that our chickens are running around on a farm, they have a nice little henhouse where they each have thier own nest, and every day a nice farmer goes out to the henhouse while the chickens are out running around and gathers the eggs. It’s a nice thought, but not necessarily always true.

Imagine the inside of your stove. Now imagine 4 chickens in it. Now stack the inside of that stove with the 4 chickens 5 or 6 stoves high. That is where the majority of your eggs come from. The chickens are crammed in a small cage, fed crap food, and all they do is lay eggs. They have nowhere to sit or lay down, they have no dirt to go scratch in, no space to strech thier wings. They never get let out of the cage, and there are hundreds of these cages packed in a facility. This is why your grocery store can charge you only $1.99 for eggs.

Free run eggs are quite a bit different. Free run means that the chickens are not cooped up in cages. Normally they are kept in a big barn, they are able to run around, but there are also tons of other chickens in that same barn. It’s overcrowded, it smells bad, they ususally don’t get to go outside, but it’s a lot better than what is described above. These eggs cost a bit more than the $1.99 grocery store eggs.

Free range eggs are by far the best. Those chickens lead the good life. Especially if they are organic. They are fed good, whole grain. They have thier henhouse. They get to run outside and scratch in the dirt. Those are the eggs that cost the most. If you are lucky to have a local farmer’s market you can ususally get them for $4 or $5. Now, I know a lot of you will say that $5 is a lot to spend on eggs, but buy purchasing the $1.99 eggs, you are simply supporting the farms that cage thier chickens up 6 cages tall and 4 birds per cage. Not a good life.

Vegans have nothing to do with any animal product. No eggs, no dairy, no honey. No leather. Nothing. While I do still indulge in the above things, I am more careful with my choice. I only buy my eggs from my local market. I have never been a huge cheese fan, but try to buy that locally also, from the smaller farms that are able to hand milk thier cows and treat them well. 

I completely support those who have chosen a vegan lifestyle.  While I do not follow that lifestyle I am very aware of where the products I buy come from, and even though it’s not entirely cutting certain things out of my life, I feel that it’s important to be aware of where things come from, and then making the decisions that suit you and your lifestyle best.

It’s all in the choices that you make. Not everyone is able to get farm fresh eggs, not everyone can afford to buy small dairy farm milk and cheese. I get that. But being aware of what you are purchasing can make a world of difference. What if everyone refused to buy milk or eggs until the way the animals producing these things get changed? What if we all wanted our chickens to live the happy life with the farmhouse and the garden? What if we all took a stand and said that until our dairy cows are allowed to roam in a pasture of grass, get taken care of for thier sore udders and keep their babies beside them? It’s a small step, but money talks. By making decisions as to what and where you buy these things, gives you the power. The power to take the money away from the mass produced market that doesn’t care about the animal’s well being, and the power to support the people that do.

What’s your choice?

Italian Cibatta Bread Salad

You will need:

1/2 a loaf of ciabatta bread (use day old if you have it)

4 basil leaves sliced thinly

2 tsp parsley, chopped fine

1/2 a pint of cherry tomatoes

1 sprig rosemary

2 cloves of whole garlic

1 tbsp of oil, or butter for the bread

1/4 red onion sliced thin

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar

What You Do:

In a large skillet or frypan, heat the oil and fry the bread on both sides until golden brown and crunchy. Alternatively you can butter both sides of the bread and fry that way. Either way is good. Once the bread is golden and crunchy, take the garlic clove and rub on the top of the bread. Set bread aside.

Heat about 1 tsp of oil in another skillet and add your rosemary and tomatoes. Cook the tomatoes until they begin to lightly brown and blister. Remove from heat.

Put the red onion, parsley, and basil in a bowl. Add the tomatoes. Dice the bread into medium sized cubes and add to the bowl. Give everything a good stir and drizzle balsamic vinegar over the top, to taste.

Rustic Tomato and Basil Spaghettini

You will need:

2 tins of whole plum tomatoes, undrained

2 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced (not Scarface sliced with a razor blade, but sliced as thin as you can)

5 leaves of fresh basil, also sliced thin or torn into smaller bits. Remember, this is rustic. It doesn’t have to be perfect

1/2 an onion, diced small

1 sprig each of rosemary and thyme

About 3 tbsp sugar

3/4 package of spaghettini (or whatever pasta you like)

What You Do:

Heat up some oil in a pan. Add the sliced garlic until it begins to lightly brown, but not burn.

Add the onions and saute for about 5-6 minutes, until they are soft

Add the basil and give a quick stir, the leaves will start to wilt and turn a dark green. Add the sprigs of rosemary and thyme.

Press the lids down on the tins of tomatoes and add the liquid to the pot. Boil over a medium heat until the sauce reduces by half. Make sure to give it a good stir every now and then. This will make it so that your sauce is slightly thicker, but not watery or runny.

Add the sugar. This will take away some of the acidity

Once the sauce has reduced, add your tomatoes, crushing them by hand before putting them in the pot and give the sauce a stir to mix, and turn down to a low heat to keep warm.

While your sauce continues to meld, heat a pot of water to a boil and add your pasta. I used spaghettini because it was all I had at the time, you can use whatever you like. The spaghettini gave the meal kind of a delicateness that went really nicely with the sauce.

Once you have cooked your pasta to the desired texture, drain well. You can either let people serve thier own pasta and sauce or you can mix it all together in a big bowl and just eat. I topped mine with a few shavings of asiago cheese. **Don’t forget to remove the rosemary and thyme sprigs. It’s okay if the leaves have all fallen off!**

Good Food Fast

Does good food have to take forever to prepare? Do you really need to spend 7 hours in the kitchen and use every pot, pan and utensil you have to create an amazing meal?

I love to cook, that is no secret. For the most part I would be more than happy to spend a good portion of my day in the kitchen creating all sorts of fabulous things. That is, provided I didn’t have to go to my actual place of employment for 8 hours, battling an hour and a half of traffic into work, and an hour of traffic coming home. This means that my 8 hour day has now morphed into a ten and a half hour day.

On those days I want to come home, and have dinner magically appear before me. For the most part my husband does a great job of making something for dinner. Every now and then we resort to takeout, but ususally I have something hot and yummy waiting for me when I walk through the door. There are 2 nights during the week when I am left to fend for myself though, the first is when my husband goes golfing. He is gone long before I get home. The second is when he works a late shift. I’d be awful hungry waiting for him to come home.

Back to my point. Good food should not take forever to make!! You should be able to throw something together in about 20 minutes, eat, and get on with the rest of your evening. If you are anything like me, at the end of the day you don’t have a whole lot of time but you have a lot to do. What you make should not be some frozen cardboard thing from the freezer that has been zapped in the microwave, you should be able to make real, hot food!

This week I decided to do some research on fast, easy to make recipes that are good too. I ended up making a rustic tomato and basil spaghettini and an Italian cibatta bread salad for dinner on Tuesday, after coming home from the gym. (Okay, in all fairness I made the sauce ahead of time, but it seriously only took 10 minutes. In that time your pasta would be cooked) While the pasta cooked I made the bread salad. Yes, I am proud to say that I had them together, as one meal. Carbs with a side of carbs. Does it get any better? I think those Italians are on to something with this……