Thoughts on Hayley's Challenge

When Hayley first asked if I would participate in her vegan challenge my immediate reaction was “no, too difficult, I live with a committed carnivore who views most vegetables with suspicion and can’t face cooking two different meals”. But I decided to offer a rather pathetic two vegan meals (minimum two courses). After all, how hard could it be?

Amongst my large collection of cookery books (~ 800) I have a reasonable number on vegetarian food, but only one vegan book. And I have never cooked anything from it. A flick through its pages reminded me why. It’s full of recipes with substitute cream, substitute milk, etc. Why? I have no problem with people choosing not to eat certain foods, but real issues with those who then find a manufactured substitute for a perfectly good natural product (have you ever read the list of ingredients on a tub of magarine?). And why would you ever want to eat soya chunks?

The popular conception of vegetarian food is that it’s all “lentils and nut roasts” but actually, unless you go on an Asian route, there’s a very heavy reliance on dairy products – albeit it often in small amounts. Still I managed to find several interesting things to eat and swapping oil for butter in a couple of my favourite recipes seemed to work. Surprisingly, I found desserts the most difficult. If you want something other than fruits, then often either an egg or diary products are involved. I intended to experiment with rice pudding made with coconut milk, but ran out of time. I will do this one day, because it should work from a taste point of view.

So, final tally – I cooked four and a half vegan meals in February (the half was a main course only). I also had 5 “accidental” vegan breakfasts – days when, for example, I just decided I wanted peanut butter on my toast instead of my usual cheese.

So has it made a difference? Well it’s always good to occasionally stop and think why you do what you do. Will I go vegan? Never! Did I enjoy the vegan food I ate? Mostly! But then I was quite careful what I cooked – but filo brushed with oil is just not as good as filo brushed with butter. And it was more of a faff than just bunging a chop in the oven. Will I eat vegan again? Yes, but not deliberately. Sometimes a good meal just happens to be vegan. Will I eat less meat in the future? A tough call, but probably not (see my first sentence). Do I care about animal welfare? Of course, why wouldn’t you? We all should want our food to come from happy animals. I’m probably more concerned about eating fish than meat. After all, aside from the odd hare or pigeon, we probably rarely eat wild meat/poultry (game like pheasant is usually “managed” if not actually farmed), but we are raiding the seas in a questionable way.

Day 1/Day 29

Made it! Its March. How's everyone feeling? First day of spring (and its sunny!), plus you can go find that hamburger...

Feeling slightly confused actually, had coffee (and porridge) with soya milk this morning, mainly because its all I had in the fridge, and not quite sure what to do now. This month has shown me that, for me, its been suprisingly easy to go vegan (provided you're in an environment where you've got enough control over what you're eating - so travelling would be tricky).

I don't want to stay vegan - and I don't want to stay vegetarian either (I think). But I do want to not go back to having meat every day, and to be much more concious of where that meat comes from. I think that someone who eats occasional meat or fish alongside an environmentally consicous diet with still be roughly equivalent, environmental impact-wise, with a middle-of-the-road vegetarian. Plus for me, eating locally sourced meat or cheese products will help me to not buy imported tofu/bean burgers or other options, just because there is that much more choice available from local foods.

I've found out I like tofu, and dates and vegan sushi (and happily, haven't completely gone off hoummous), and that vegan cheese is an evil that should be shunned by all.

I hope you've all had fun this month - let me know how it went and I'll send out another survey shortly (along with the results from the last one...). I'll be still posting over the next few weeks, reporting on any new developments and whether I do honestly run to the nearest MacDonald's as soon as I leave the house.

love,
Hayley

Day 24: Take the carnivores to the veggie cafe

We had our Distingiushed Annual Lecture series lecture again on Wednesday, where all my course is strongly encouraged (well, its compulsory really) to turn up. These are usually great lectures, and also offer the opportunity, since they finish around 7.30pm after the speaker has finished getting grilled, to go out for a sociable drink or food.

So, last night we managed to persuasade around 15 of us to go to the vegetarian restuarant opposite King's College - the Rainbow Cafe. I think I mentioned it earlier (vegan cakes wonderful, vegan cheese not so good), and we had a very nice meal indeed, with even the non-veg people feeling happily full. My favourite part though was how a particular person, haven't not realised the restaurant was vegetarian until we arrived and feeling slightly dismayed at that point, then had a meal that he was very impressed with - large and colourful. As long as the food is nice enough, evidence seems to have shown that people don't miss the odd piece of meat. That's my theory.