For those of you who thought being vegan was a doddle - here's a list that a 'real' vegan compiled for us of drinks we can and can't have!
IN GENERAL:
Anything from Arjuna is ok; anything from the co-op is labelled as being vegan-friendly or containing animal products; Bacchanalia has a wide range of unfiltered ales, ask at the counter. Wine - pretty much russian roulette unless bought from Arjuna or Co-op. Good to ask companies what they do, keeps them on their toes... :-)
NOT VEGAN:
Belgian: Leffe
Lager: Fosters, Stella, Carling.
Beer: Newcastle Brown. Pretty much anything in a keg - some bottles ok, see below, except London Pride which is apparently. Good on them. Anything made by Guinness. Tetleys, John Smiths. Caffreys.
Cider: Magners, Strongbow
VEGAN:
Pretty much all spirits, obviously except liqueurs containing cream, or Advocaat which has egg in it.
Belgian: Duvel, Heineken, anything advertised as unfiltered (also includes some American bottled ales)
Lager: Budvar, most German lager/bier, Budweiser, Carlsberg, Becks, Heineken, Kingfisher, Cobra, Lal Toofan
Beer: Sam Smiths beers, Shepherd Neame beers like Bishops Finger, Spitfire etc. - but only in bottles. Badger ales. London Pride.
Cider - Westons is all ok, including Stowford Press, Old Rosie etc. Aspalls.
NOT SURE:
Grolsch - conflicting information... Red Stripe. New Polish beers like Lech, Tyskie. Anything by Bulmers apart from Strongbow e.g. Woodpecker, Bulmers Original etc. is now in doubt - all used to be ok but they've recently screwed up Strongbow so I don't trust them any more. Again, good to pester.
P.S. I've noticed that Marks and Spencer have also started labelling vegan wines properly - last year when I did this, they only marked them as vegetarian...
Sunday, 31 January 2010
Losing my blogger cherry
Hello World,
So this is my first ever blog post and it seems I am the only one who thought contributing to a blog meant you had to have a cool pseudonym. I think I failed at the cool part and I missed the fact that internet anonymity was so the 00's.
It is perhaps useful if we start off this endeavor by examining our motivations. I think it will be good for me to look back to assess the difference between expectation and reality; the humor of foresight with the benefit of hindsight.
First: the name. I hope it means something to the effect of Food with Borders (although sufficiently vague enough to seem faux artsy and wise---another unspoken rule I thought applied to blogging titles/handles). My intention really is to think differently (honestly, think at all) about the food I eat in terms of it's "sustainability". I hate that word. Don't tell anyone in our course at Cambridge. But what that means to me is to begin to look at the impact (in terms of carbon, water, livelihoods for instance) of what I consume. It will be in no way complete or definitive or very good frankly....more like the brain storm before the clearing of clouds and revealing of some rays of insight. Mostly it will be for me.
Two: I hope to focus on myself because that is really another goal/change I'd like to experience. I always discount the impact of individuals. I focus on the big picture. I am much more interested in policy and economic incentive design or funding for technology implementation...I see people promoting "un-plugging your cell-phone charger" as doing "your bit" as completed deluded and ridiculous. I think I am right about that. But in general I need to change my first instincts; I need to examine the value of personal changes in habit and appreciate them. Little personal changes driven by desire may never seem like a solution to me compared to something like pricing and taxes, but I hope to better understand the difficulty of personal change, its impacts, and quit using "I am just one person" as my own excuse for inaction.
Three: I hope to read some good books and find some good websites about food, food policy, food impacts, and what individuals can do. I know there is a lot out there. I will start by reading Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan and move on from there. I hope to receive suggestions!
Cheers,
CpO
So this is my first ever blog post and it seems I am the only one who thought contributing to a blog meant you had to have a cool pseudonym. I think I failed at the cool part and I missed the fact that internet anonymity was so the 00's.
It is perhaps useful if we start off this endeavor by examining our motivations. I think it will be good for me to look back to assess the difference between expectation and reality; the humor of foresight with the benefit of hindsight.
First: the name. I hope it means something to the effect of Food with Borders (although sufficiently vague enough to seem faux artsy and wise---another unspoken rule I thought applied to blogging titles/handles). My intention really is to think differently (honestly, think at all) about the food I eat in terms of it's "sustainability". I hate that word. Don't tell anyone in our course at Cambridge. But what that means to me is to begin to look at the impact (in terms of carbon, water, livelihoods for instance) of what I consume. It will be in no way complete or definitive or very good frankly....more like the brain storm before the clearing of clouds and revealing of some rays of insight. Mostly it will be for me.
Two: I hope to focus on myself because that is really another goal/change I'd like to experience. I always discount the impact of individuals. I focus on the big picture. I am much more interested in policy and economic incentive design or funding for technology implementation...I see people promoting "un-plugging your cell-phone charger" as doing "your bit" as completed deluded and ridiculous. I think I am right about that. But in general I need to change my first instincts; I need to examine the value of personal changes in habit and appreciate them. Little personal changes driven by desire may never seem like a solution to me compared to something like pricing and taxes, but I hope to better understand the difficulty of personal change, its impacts, and quit using "I am just one person" as my own excuse for inaction.
Three: I hope to read some good books and find some good websites about food, food policy, food impacts, and what individuals can do. I know there is a lot out there. I will start by reading Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan and move on from there. I hope to receive suggestions!
Cheers,
CpO
1 day to go
So, after emailing around quite a few people have signed up to play along with this. Its amazing the different responses you get from people. I think there should be about 20, plus stragglers. Will post organised list of participants tomorrow, maybe with exciting graphs.
Have been looking up suitable recipes, everything that looks nice under "vegetarian" seems to have a large fish content, or failing that, eggs. Vegan stuff may be alright though. There's a lot of Indian recipes that look yummy, and this "Tempeh Bacon wrap" seems intruiging.
Tomorrow night (Monday): kick-off party at Hayley's house, from 7.30pm. Email me if you want to check where that is. Its a potluck - so everyone brings a dish that people can try some. Any kind is fine, but it would be lovely if its vegan ;-)
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
Let's Make Some Sweeping Statements
I thought it would be easy to create a sweeping statement first blog post:
..."Going Vegan Will Cut CO2 Levels by 62.3% and Save The World"...
but early research attempts have already confounded me slightly.
I suspect there are two main issues I'll try and consider, though others will have different priorities:
1) the environmental impact of food production, and subsequent affects - mainly through greenhouse gases and water resources
2) the issues of simply creating enough food for the growing population with changing diets over the next few decades.
(...and the ethics of eating little cows and sheep, battery farming, GM crops, agricultural subsidies, fisheries...this is fairly complex.)
But measuring the environmental impacts of different foods is tricky. Do you consider transport? The resources that grew the grain that fed the cow? What about packaging? Making overview statements about food security and the impacts of diet is difficult. Yes, all other things being equal, creating a steak will have required more water and have a higher carbon dioxide footprint than the equivalent weight of potato or wheat. Its easy to find statements on the internet from environmental groups and vegan societies saying exactly what you'd like them to say - but finding recent and reliable sources that back these quotes up is difficult. There's a lot of assumptions and a lot of subtleties. And that's one of the areas we'll be exploring during February.
But just to create food for thought, and squeeze in one little sweeping and debatable statement:
“The world must create five billion vegans in the next several decades, or triple its total farm output without using more land.” Dennis Avery, Center for Global Food Issues
Opinions?
..."Going Vegan Will Cut CO2 Levels by 62.3% and Save The World"...
but early research attempts have already confounded me slightly.
I suspect there are two main issues I'll try and consider, though others will have different priorities:
1) the environmental impact of food production, and subsequent affects - mainly through greenhouse gases and water resources
2) the issues of simply creating enough food for the growing population with changing diets over the next few decades.
(...and the ethics of eating little cows and sheep, battery farming, GM crops, agricultural subsidies, fisheries...this is fairly complex.)
But measuring the environmental impacts of different foods is tricky. Do you consider transport? The resources that grew the grain that fed the cow? What about packaging? Making overview statements about food security and the impacts of diet is difficult. Yes, all other things being equal, creating a steak will have required more water and have a higher carbon dioxide footprint than the equivalent weight of potato or wheat. Its easy to find statements on the internet from environmental groups and vegan societies saying exactly what you'd like them to say - but finding recent and reliable sources that back these quotes up is difficult. There's a lot of assumptions and a lot of subtleties. And that's one of the areas we'll be exploring during February.
But just to create food for thought, and squeeze in one little sweeping and debatable statement:
“The world must create five billion vegans in the next several decades, or triple its total farm output without using more land.” Dennis Avery, Center for Global Food Issues
Opinions?
Call for Interested People to Play with Food
I'm going to become a vegan for February, attempting to change my diet alongside a collection of coursemates, friends, family and other people who've turned up along the way. They're not all becoming vegan though - the idea is to change your food habits and think about it, or at least gently muse.
So far, offerings have included:
1) Vegan!? For a month?! Nope. I'll try vegetarian for a week.
2) Ok! I'll do it. But only Monday to Friday.
3) I know - I'll only eat local food - that'll definitely be more environmentally friendly than just going vegetarian ...
(I suspect this last offering to be strongly correlated with the amount you're willing to spend. There's a rather nice local produce shop close by, and I can think off worse things than living off local veggies and "pheasant burger" for a month).
The impetus for this has been a homework assignment for a Masters class we're taking in "Implementing Change Towards Sustainability - a "Personal Change Challenge". The essence of your assignment is "your personal story...[to tell] in your own creative way". I know. Oh dear. But since we have to do this, I thought it could be a good time to do something I've been muttering about for a few years - try and alter my diet to reduce its environmental impact (as well as that fact that most animals don't have very happy lives before you eat them, I suppose, though this doesn't stop me enjoying them).
Alongside this, many others from my course have also been talking about food-related lifestyle changes. And since I'm going to be incredibly grumpy and miserable, it would be a good opportunity to make other people suffer too. Well, not exactly. But it would be cool if others also taking this opportunity to reconsider the way they eat - and if you'd like to use this forum to provide some distraction throughout the month.
We'll be running this blog from now until the end of February. It won't just be me writing (hooray!). Everyone taking part in this will be posting too, and I'm hoping that we'll be able to pull together resources, recipes, grumbles and strategies to amuse ourselves - and learn some stuff - throughout the month. We'll have a kick-off gathering Monday next week, and try and organise some real-life events throughout as well.
Let me know if you'd like to get involved. By February 1st I'll post up a list of everyone and what they're attempting to do, with the clear intention of encouraging through peer pressure. Aliases welcome if you are internet-shy.
So far, offerings have included:
1) Vegan!? For a month?! Nope. I'll try vegetarian for a week.
2) Ok! I'll do it. But only Monday to Friday.
3) I know - I'll only eat local food - that'll definitely be more environmentally friendly than just going vegetarian ...
(I suspect this last offering to be strongly correlated with the amount you're willing to spend. There's a rather nice local produce shop close by, and I can think off worse things than living off local veggies and "pheasant burger" for a month).
The impetus for this has been a homework assignment for a Masters class we're taking in "Implementing Change Towards Sustainability - a "Personal Change Challenge". The essence of your assignment is "your personal story...[to tell] in your own creative way". I know. Oh dear. But since we have to do this, I thought it could be a good time to do something I've been muttering about for a few years - try and alter my diet to reduce its environmental impact (as well as that fact that most animals don't have very happy lives before you eat them, I suppose, though this doesn't stop me enjoying them).
Alongside this, many others from my course have also been talking about food-related lifestyle changes. And since I'm going to be incredibly grumpy and miserable, it would be a good opportunity to make other people suffer too. Well, not exactly. But it would be cool if others also taking this opportunity to reconsider the way they eat - and if you'd like to use this forum to provide some distraction throughout the month.
We'll be running this blog from now until the end of February. It won't just be me writing (hooray!). Everyone taking part in this will be posting too, and I'm hoping that we'll be able to pull together resources, recipes, grumbles and strategies to amuse ourselves - and learn some stuff - throughout the month. We'll have a kick-off gathering Monday next week, and try and organise some real-life events throughout as well.
Let me know if you'd like to get involved. By February 1st I'll post up a list of everyone and what they're attempting to do, with the clear intention of encouraging through peer pressure. Aliases welcome if you are internet-shy.
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