It’s peaceful; has stoop-tastic brownstones; wide, tree-lined cobbled streets; amazing street art; cool restaurants – MANY of which are vegan; and a great atmosphere.
You don’t need to be in hipster Williamsburg to get the great vegan food either. We have three vegan places (two entirely vegan and one vegetarian/vegan place) within twenty minutes walk of where we are staying in Park Slope.
As I have limited time, and as I’ve written about New York restaurants before, both here and here; if it’s OK with you, for this week I’m just gonna leave you with a few pics from where we ate today. In Brooklyn.
Hightail it to both of these joints if you get the chance.
Fried avocado in breadcrumbs with spicy mayo and lime wedge. As delicious as it sounds
Jamaican wrap with collards, onions, vegan cheese, vegan chicken, Caribbean brown rice and peas. Spicy and scrumptiousChilaquiles & tofu scramble topped with vegan cheese. This did not touch the sides of my partner’s mouth.Lightly fried plantain with a thin curry sauce. Because if there’s plantain on the menu, I’m having it
For dessert, we ambled a few blocks to the Park Slope branch of Van Leeuwens Artisanal Ice Creamery. These pics are actually from the branch in the West Village in NYC, because they were better than my pics from today.
Van Leeuwens is not a wholly vegan place, but has a decent vegan menu, and the ice-creams are artisanal, with quality ingredients (the vegan ones at least 🙂 ).
The base of the vegan ice-cream is coconut milk, almond and cashew milk. I was a little disappointed that they’d run out of the pistachio flavour AND the coconut whipped cream on both of our visits, but whatever. The ice-cream we had was still very, very good.
Behold these beauties:
One mint choc chip/cookie dough, one banana nut/matcha. Bliss.
I’m hearing so often from people that they have limited time to spend cooking in the kitchen.
I get it. We’re all so busy working long hours; commuting; ferrying kids around; and just plain exhausted when we ARE home.
The thing is; eating; not just in terms of WHAT we eat, but HOW we eat, is so important to our wellbeing.
Obviously there’s going to be times when we just can’t (for whatever reason), but I believe it’s worth making damn sure that most days in the week we devote a certain amount of time to preparing at least one of our daily meals (ideally the main meal) in the kitchen.
No matter whether it’s a fancy schmancy dish, or you’re just whacking a spud in the oven to bake and heating up some baked beans; time spent in the kitchen is time well spent.
Maybe this is easy for me to say and I’m not being understanding of people’s lifestyles, but if you are so busy that you don’t have enough time to invest in self-care (of which cooking for yourself definitely is), I feel like this is not a sustainable situation.
If you’re a gazillionaire and can afford a vegan meal delivery service bringing fresh meals to your door every day – more power to you.
But even if you WERE a gazillionaire who could afford a vegan meal delivery service – this still isn’t ideal, because you’ll have little connection to the food you’re eating.
You won’t have gone through the creative (and oftentimes meditative) process of preparing and cooking your meal, which would’ve invested you with an emotional connection to it.
And I KNOW you guys are better than this but just in case anyone is about to utter these words; please stop with the ‘but I can’t cook‘ BS.
Can you read? Well then you can cook.
Yes you can.
Stop it.
No-one knew how to cook before they tried it. They just bothered their arse to read a recipe and follow the instructions. The more you do it the more you’ll learn what goes with what and get creative about adding and adjusting ingredients. Just DO IT. Because you CAN!
Here are my 4 sneaky ways of guilting encouraging you to get yo’ ass into the kitch! 🙂
1. Make kitchen time non-negotiable
Reframe kitchen time in your mind as something that is not up for negotiation. See it in the same light as cleaning your teeth; washing your clothes; wiping your butt…uh…sorry for that last one, but you get the point. Lots of people currently see it as something they can choose to do or not do.
You can choose to spend an hour cooking yourself a delicious meal, or watching a couple of eps from your current favourite box set and dialling some grub in. Let’s take the choice out of kitchen time and make it something we do automatically on most days.
2. Make your kitchen a place where you want to hang out!
‘But I have a crappy kitchen’ I hear you say.
Yup, me too.
Doesn’t matter how swanky or downmarket your kitchen is. Mine is a small kitchen in a London flat. It has old-fashioned units and laminate counter tops. However, I feel warm towards the space as I’ve spent many hours there cooking great food. I’m happy to be there as long as it’s clean and somewhat ordered.
Make the effort to always have clear and clean counter space. If you haven’t already, organise your pots and pans and cooking stuff so you know where everything is.
Your kitchen doesn’t have to be all shiny stainless-steel and granite surfaces; it just has to be a clean, pleasant space that you want to spend time in.
To that end…..
3. Cooking time is podcast or music time!!
Some may say ‘no, you must put your entire focus on the food you are preparing.’ I say pish! I’ve made a ton of meals to the accompaniment of my fave podcast or album and in my opinion it does NOT detract from the focus you give the meal you’re making or affect the end result.
Anything that makes you enjoy kitchen time and associate it with fun and relaxation is cool with me.
4. See kitchen time as an investment in your wellbeing
As much as exercise, meditation or any other self-care activity you partake in; time spent in the kitchen is an investment in your wellbeing.
If you can make it a habit as much as these other things are, you’ll feel the benefits both physically and mentally.
These benefits include:
You’ll be eating much better quality food than if you eat out or take out.
Restaurant and take-out food often contains way more oil than it needs to. If heart disease or weight loss is an area of concern to you, the best thing you can do is to cook your own meals.
The processes of chopping, stirring, mixing etc (depending on what you’re making!) can be surprisingly relaxing and meditative.
Even if you’ve done bugger-all else all day – by making a delicious meal you’ll get that sense of achievement and feeling that you’ve done something super productive.
You’ll be constantly learning about food. The more you cook, the better your food will get!
I see so many people trying to lose weight (especially now it’s nearly summer and all the hideous ‘get your bikini bod so the menz on the beach don’t find you disgusting‘ ads are everywhere) and my heart goes out to them.
Seemingly each month a new diet trend comes out. Each frickin’ day there is this green smoothie weight loss challenge or that juicing weight loss challenge.
Even if people want to lose weight because THEY want to – rather than because society is pressuring them to; so much contradictory information is out there about weight loss it can be hard to know which route to take.
How is anyone meant to know what is effective and what’s not? And even if it’s effective – is it healthy? Is it sustainable? Will the weight just pack all back on at the end of the challenge or will the weight loss last this time?
I personally couldn’t give a crap what someone looks like – but in terms of health, wellness and longevity; a weight that suits our frame is ideal.
I’ve been overweight – not massively so, but enough that I know what it is to feel heavy, unfit and lethargic. The joy I get now in moving my body and having it work optimally for me is priceless (I do handstands every day, and love hiking and climbing), and it’s worth it for me to maintain a healthy weight.
The good news is that this is easier than we’re led to believe.
I’ve already written about how a whole foods, plant-based diet is the healthiest and most sustainable way to lose weight. But, just to recap, this means 100% plant-based (no animal products); whole foods (no refined foods like sugar, white flour, white rice etc, but the whole versions); minimal added oils (because these are processed, extracted fats); and minimal processed foods.
To get an idea of what whole food, plant-based meals look like – I highly recommend the Forks Over Knives Recipe resource.
Exercise is also part of any weight loss plan obvs, but I’m gonna stick to talking about the food here, as that’s my bag.
Here are my FIVE KEY components for successful weight loss:
1. Enjoyment of your food
For the love of all that’s holy, you NEED to enjoy your meals…I was gonna say even if you’re losing weight, but you need to enjoy your food ESPECIALLY if you are losing weight. How else will your new habits be sustainable?
If you delight in your food you won’t feel deprived and like you’re being punished. If you see what you’re doing as a delicious permanent lifestyle shift rather than as a temporary diet, you’re more likely to be successful.
If you’re on a diet where you’re drinking shakes or smoothies instead of having meals; I mean, really? Even if the shake tastes ok, you really want one for every meal?
If you are used to eating refined or greasy foods, you may notice a difference in taste eating whole food plant-based – but you’ll lose NONE of the flavour. And, after a while your taste buds will adjust and PREFER the whole, lower fat food.
If you’ve made the change from omnivore to vegan, you’ve already experienced your taste buds acclimating to plant foods from animal foods – it’s the same thing here but you’re adjusting to whole foods.
Get cooking and get creative.
2. Satiety
If you are like me, you need to feel satisfied at the end of a meal. I like my stomach to KNOW it’s been fed, not in a ‘aaarrrrghhhh I feel so gross and bloated’ kind of a way; just in a warm, cosy, pleasantly satiated kind of a way. A green smoothie for dinner ain’t gonna cut it. Don’t kid yourself. Even if you do this for a few days, it’s not sustainable.
Foods that fill you up (like whole grains and beans) will STOP you reaching for crap later, or stop you dreaming of crap. And who’s got time to dream of crap food all day long?
If you’re full of beans and grains – there just ain’t room for anything else! Your belly and your brain are content!
3. Stop counting stuff
I don’t believe food and its components should ever be counted (unless you have a condition where your doctor has recommended you count measurements of foods etc).
Some people think vegans are no fun – but don’t seem to question the funlessness of counting calories, ‘syns,’ fat content etc etc.
On a whole food, plant-based diet (and if you’re conservative with the ol’ added oils) NO COUNTING IS NEEDED.
4. Consistency in the day to day is key (rather than sporadic detoxes, crash diets, or ‘challenges’)
Forget the detox and the challenges. What’s the point of a detox or a challenge, only to go back to old habits and have to do another detox a few weeks or months down the line?
No one is suggesting you should never eat vegan junk food again as long as you live; but on a daily basis consistently choosing tasty, whole food dishes will stop you wanting the junk regularly.
Make the junk an occasional treat. Junk always tastes better if you feel it’s a cheeky treat 🙂
5. Preparation
If you’re a busy bee, prepare as much as you can in advance. It’s all about putting measures in place to prevent making less than great food choices.
Slow cookers are great for having a meal ready when you walk in the door; you can make extra soup and stews and freeze what you don’t eat for later in the week.
Even if you can’t prep a whole meal in advance you can chop veg once you’ve bought it and keep it in the veg box or freezer.
I hope with this post I’m giving you help in responding to this comment when you hear it.
Or that I’m responding to YOU if you if this comment is aligned with your sentiments.
This one always drives me crazy because it feels so short-sighted.
Which comment am I talking about?
This one. I hear it often when talking about the health benefits of a whole food, vegan diet:
‘..What’s the point in restricting yourself? You have to die of something anyway.’
Uh…well, this is true I guess (not the part about restricting yourself – I’ve written lots on how a plant-based diet is actually the opposite of restrictive), but, and I know it’s a cliche, it’s not about the years in your life, it’s about the life in your years.
Whether we die at 40, 90 or 110, isn’t it better that we lived as many of those days as possible in vibrant health?
Yes we all have to die of something, but how about that ‘something’ just being your heart stopping at the end of a long, well-lived, fully enjoyed life; where you’ve been independent, fit and capable, and a contributing member of society right up until the absolute end? What if you were pain, discomfort and niggle-free right up to the last minute? What if you kept every single one of your faculties and marbles; your spring in your step and your memory right up until that final second?
What if you also never lost your passion, purpose and zest for life EVER; and food tasted good, autumn smelled like heaven, and music made you get up and dance until your last day on this earth?
Doesn’t this sound better than getting to the point where you feel so crap you don’t really want to go on, but the doctors keep giving you pills to keep you alive, because it’s unethical to do otherwise?
Doesn’t it sound better than being immobile and not having a life outside of four walls, or of living somewhere you’re not happy, because it’s the only place they can take care of your needs, and having to rely on other people to do everything for you? Or worse, having to depend on family members to take care of your personal hygiene?
What if you contract dementia and can’t even recognise and be grateful to the family members who are tending to your needs? (Yes, a plant-based diet can help stave of dementia, too)
And how awful if, due to a sedentary lifestyle where you’re not seeing the sun from one day to the next, you become depressed? Nothing is less fun than living life under a big black cloud – it’s not living in fact. It’s existing.
How different this all could be.
A whole food, vegan lifestyle gives you the best chance at an entirely different scenario.
One where your family and friends would have to worry about you very little, how you’d not be a drain on society but a gift and an example to it – but also, just how much more time you’d have to be in the moment enjoying your damn self and all the people around you?
Why waste time and money suffering and being ill if it’s at all avoidable?
Life is too short (even if it’s long!) and time with others; food; music; sex; nature; art etc is way too fun to lose any time to unnecessary sickliness.
I leave you with the words of romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), who wrote an essay called ‘A Vindication of a Natural Diet’
On a natural system of diet [a plant-based diet], old age would be our last and our only malady; the term of our existence would be protracted; we should enjoy life, and no longer preclude others from the enjoyment of it. All sensational delights would be infinitely more exquisite and perfect. The very sense of being would then be a continued pleasure, such as we now feel it in some few and favoured moments of our youth.
When you first go vegan, it’s easy to get tripped up by a few sneaky animal ingredients in some food and household products.
If this happens to you, don’t sweat it – it happens; if you haven’t had a reason to look for these before, how could you know? And most of these ingredients don’t even sound like they came from an animal. It can be confusing.
So here I am with a handy guide to spotting the main culprits that lurk sneakily in groceries, so you can look out for and avoid them in the future.
It has to be said that these ingredients are mostly in processed foods; so the more whole foods, plant-based we can go the better, in terms of avoiding them as much as possible.
It may seem like a hassle, always reading ingredients; but I promise you, after a few shops you will know exactly which products contain this stuff and which don’t.
It will be second nature before you know it.
Here are the devious little blighters!
Gelatin
You’ve no doubt heard of this one. Gelatin is a gelling agent used in food, photography, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals (I’m absolutely not suggesting you stop taking any meds that contain gelatin – I’m just imparting info!). It can be derived from the skin, bones, and connective tissues of animals such as cows, pigs, horses, chickens and fish, so is thus not very vegan!
If you are cooking and the recipe requires gelatin, don’t panic! Simply use agar agar, carrageenan, or check out kosher gelatins, which are often vegan.
Lactose
Lactose is milk sugar. Though it isn’t added to many foods, it is often added to pharmaceuticals as a stabiliser. It can also be found in body care products and baby formula.
It had recently been added to the ingredients of my favourite hand cream – I am NOT amused!
Skimmed Milk Powder
I include skimmed milk powder because I got caught out with this a couple of times. It is often the last on a long list of ingredients, and so you may see the main bunch of ingredients and assume the product is vegan. It’s honestly always worth checking the end of the list to see if this stuff is included.
I got caught out with chai. Please know that there is skimmed milk powder in most powdered chai! Liquid chai however, is almost always vegan, thank goodness!
Albumin/Albumen
Albumin or albumen is a fancy name for dried egg white. It is often used in pastries, baked goods and other processed food items. It can also be used to clarify and stabilise wine.
I’m so allergic to eggs it’s super important I avoid this goop!
Casein
Casein is the protein found in milk, and is thus in all dairy products.
Believe it or not, casein can be found in products that you would think were vegan, like soy or rice cheese, so unless you see the ‘vegan’ sign on the packaging of these cheeses, DO check the ingredients.
Also, check for any ingredient that contains the word ‘casein’ like calcium caseinate. As you would guess, this contains casein.
Glycerine/Glycerin/Glycerol
This ‘sugar alcohol’ is used as a humectant, solvent, sweetener and a shelf life extender in foods. It is also found in pharmaceuticals and body care products.
This one can be confusing because it can either derive from animals OR plants.
It seems that the default ‘glycerine’ as a food ingredient is usually from an animal source – if it is of vegetable origin it will normally be specified as such. So unless it is marked ‘vegetable glycerine’, personally, I’d leave it.
Shellac
This is a resin secreted by a bug.
I remember it being an ingredient in Smarties when I was a kid. Ick! I must have eaten a whole crap-ton of it!
It’s used on fruit, candy and pharmaceutical pills, as a glaze.
Cochineal/carmine
In actual fact, carmine is the red dye used to colour lots of things including food, and comes from the dried bodies of cochineal beetles, but you may see either of these words on a product label. Whichever word you see, it means beetle!
It’s used in a ton of things including candy, confectionary, juices, ice-creams and puddings.
Tallow
I was so grossed out when I learned what tallow was. And it’s in so many things.
Tallow is fat from cows or sheep that has undergone process called rendering. Seriously, you need to read about rendering. It seems it came about as a way to monetise meat industry by-products. The job of ‘renderer’ has been deemed ‘one of the dirtiest jobs’ – I’ll say!
Anyways, tallow (I even find the word a bit sinister!) can be found in shortening, cooking oil, cake mix, biodiesel, aviation fuel (obviously this one is difficut to avoid in modern life) and as ‘sodium tallowate’ in soap.
I don’t know about you but I don’t wanna be washing my bits with animal fat!
I’m away for the week discovering Santa Fe, New Mexico; so I bring you this guest post by a company called Mantis, fine purveyors of garden tools and composters.
Now I don’t currently garden; but I’d love to. I used to garden, and I remember that there’s nothing like working in the fresh air and getting your hands covered in earth to make you feel grounded and part of nature.
We all know the best fruits and veggies are the ones you grow yourself. I don’t need to be an active gardener to know this. Look, don’t be a ninny like me; if you have some garden space; get out there and start sowin’ them seeds. And yes, it’s definitely a case of do as I suggest, not as I do – what of it? I live in London; my soil is nuclear waste; nothing would grow; I don’t have the time; blah blah blah. Ok I know, I know; I need to get my excuse-laden-ass out there and start tilling that soil!
While I’m away don’t forget to check my Instagram and Twitter for pics of yummy South Western food – all of it animal, planet and people-friendly; and possibly some shots of desert, mountains and forest.
If you’re not already doing so, follow me on Periscope (the new-ish live-streaming App from Twitter). You’ll need to download the Periscope App (don’t panic it’s totally FREE!), then it’s pretty self-explanatory from there. My handle is @karencottenden and I ‘scope’ several times a week on all things vegan and plant-based. I hope to do a couple of Scopes while in Santa Fe to share my vegan finds and I’d LOVE for you to join me! The best feature of Periscope is that it’s interactive so you get to comment; question me; show me love: show me hate (though please don’t!) and be a fully equal participant.
(Disclaimer: I am not receiving money for the placement of this post. To the best of my knowledge, Mantis do not sell anything out of alignment with my vegan values!)
Starting Your Own Allotment In 3 Easy Steps
A healthy nutritious plant-based diet obviously includes a ton of colourful vegetables.
They can be incorporated into all styles of cooking, and their high-energy value but low calorie content makes them a fantastic slimming food. The problem is that many supermarket vegetables are, to an extent, unnatural — they have been grown using artificial chemical enhancers and GMOs, which detract from the nutritional value of the vegetable.
The alternative to this is to buy organic food, which can be quite expensive if you’re purchasing it regularly. One way to ensure a regular supply of healthy, natural vegetables is to grow your own — and this can actually be much easier than you might think. All you need is a dedicated patch of land, detailed planning and the right growing techniques to have you eating home-grown vegetables in no time. Here is a three-step guide to starting your own allotment.
Find a suitable space
While you may be tempted to start a vegetable patch in your garden, unless you have plenty of space you will not produce a yield that can sustain your diet. You need a large, dedicated space for growing vegetables — an allotment is the perfect option. If you’re already aware of an allotment close to you then start making enquiries into how you can rent, otherwise you can contact your local council to identify and rent your allotment space. If your allotment is overgrown, you need to clear it out before you can start cultivating. Remove all traces of plants and weeds to give yourself a clean slate, but don’t dispose of your garden waste yet, as it will come in handy later.
Enrich your soil
A patch of soil may as well be a patch of sand if you don’t nourish the earth before planting. You should start by digging and turning the soil, using either a spade or a tiller, to ensure there are no weeds or rocks under the surface, as these will inhibit the growth of any produce. When you are satisfied that the soil is free from pest plants and debris, you should think about adding an enriching agent, such as compost, to fill the soil with growth-promoting nutrients.
While you can buy compost from a garden centre, you should stay in theme with your completely home-grown allotment and produce your own compost. The process to do so is quite simple and merely involves stockpiling garden waste, which eventually decomposes into compost. The best way to do so is by purchasing a compost tumbler. This will enable you to store your compost, as well as turn it and add/take away as you please. Gardening specialists Mantis stock a selection of composters and tillers that will aid you greatly in establishing your allotment — these are both available with a long guarantee, to assure quality.
Plan your produce
Growing produce isn’t as simple as planting a seed and watching it grow. You should do research into which type of plant grows best in different seasons, and allow your growth plan to reflect this. For a quick-start allotment: tomatoes, beetroot and spring onions are among the easiest vegetables to grow, while salad leaves and herbs can be grown in pots, as opposed to in the ground. Eat Seasonably has a great guide on which vegetables to plant based on the season, as well as instructions on how to grow them.
The important thing to remember with vegetable growth is to be patient, especially with your first yield. Over time, your soil will become more fertile and adapted to growing, but nourishing it will take time. Like everything, cultivating is a learning curve, and the more you do it the better you will get — and the tastier your vegetables will be.
It’s tempting to automatically take a multivitamin when we go vegan.
We’ve made big changes to our diet; changes that most people don’t understand – changes that most doctors don’t understand.
We get asked questions about what our new protein, calcium and iron sources are going to be; where our vitamin B12 is going to come from; and what about vitamins D and K?
It can be enough to scare the bejesus out of you!
Isn’t it ironic that the omnivores that ask us these questions often aren’t the pictures of health themselves? And how are they so sure that they have all the correct levels of vitamins and minerals?
One thing you need to know as a vegan is that vitamin and mineral deficiencies are not just a potential problem for vegans. Nope, not even a vitamin B12 deficiency is this.
But it’s still vegans that most people believe are more susceptible to malnutrition, and no-one would blame you for feeling fearful after hearing these beliefs vocalised ad nauseum.
I’ve personally been told that it’s impossible to live without eggs; and that not eating protein from meat will make me weak.
Well, here I am all strong and living and s**t.
But after so much fear-mongering it seems logical, doesn’t it, to invest in a multivitamin to cover all bases?
So what SHOULD you do?
I very much lean towards the advice of the doctors that have been teaching (and living) a plant-based diet for decades. They base their decisions on independent, non-reductionist, peer-reviewed scientific evidence.
These guys – Dr John McDougall, Dr Tom Campbell (son of Dr T Colin Campbell), Dr Michael Greger, Dr Caldwell Esselstyn and Dr Neal Barnard all say taking a multivitamin is unnecessary (in every single link you’ll find each doctor saying this somewhere). They advise that taking a multivitamin can distract from us trying to eat a healthy whole food, plant-based diet; and that it’s best to get all our nutrients in dietary form – excluding vitamin B12 of course, for which we need to supplement.
Dr Greger in particular points out all the studies that have been done on multivitamins; some show that they’re beneficial; some show that they are harmful. Ultimately, the most comprehensive studies show that they don’t make any difference, and that they’re a huge waste of money.
All this said….
Dr Barnard says in one article that a multivitamin can play a role if you know you are not eating enough whole plant food. And both he and Dr Esselstyn say that you MAY need to supplement with vitamin D, for example if you live somewhere that doesn’t have much sunshine – as sunshine is the best source of vitamin D for vegans.
What do I do?
I do not take a multivitamin, but as I’ve said before, I DO supplement with vitamin D, and sometimes with zinc and iodine, because through one thing and another (long-ass story), I’ve learned that my body needs help with these nutrients, seemingly regardless of my healthy diet.
The best advice, if you feel you may be short on any nutrients, is to go to your doctor and have a comprehensive blood test for all vitamins and minerals. These tests can tell you if you are low or deficient in any particular nutrient.
It’s important to identify this exactly. If, for example, you are feeling fatigued – there could be any one of several reasons for this. So it would not be prudent to assume you have an iron deficiency and take iron supplements, as iron can be harmful in excess. Thus, I urge you to get your blood tested and not self-diagnose.
Once you’ve been tested; should you be found to be low in any nutrient, firstly try and improve your levels with diet. This will always be the best way to regain optimal nutrient levels.
Should this not work sufficiently – and I know that for me, I need help with vitamin D (not much sun here), and zinc in the winter (immune system compromised over the years), THEN it may be worth supplementing with small doses of whatever it is you need.
Conclusion
It seems from everything I’ve learned with my studies; from my experience; and from researching the advice of the plant-based doctors, that the best advice is this:
You do NOT automatically need a multivitamin just because you are vegan. This could lead to overload of certain nutrients that are harmful in excess; or just be a plain waste of money
If you feel you may have a deficiency, or if you know you are not eating a varied plant-based diet, have your blood levels checked at the doctors
If you ARE low in anything, try and eat foods that contain this nutrient, and the ones that help absorption of it. I can help with this!
If this still doesn’t work, supplement with low levels of just the SPECIFIC nutrient(s) you are lacking
When you realise that living vegan is the most environmentally-friendly; most healthy (if it’s whole-food based); most ethically sound way to live with regards human and non-human animals; most effective way to combat world hunger, and the most world-peace promoting lifestyle there is; you naturally want to share this!
And of course the person you most want to share with is your partner.
But what do you do if your partner just cannot see things the way you see them?
When YOU have understood all the reasons for why vegan (or even if there’s just one reason that influenced you), it can have such a huge impact on you that it can feel hurtful and personal if your partner, the one who knows and loves you the most, just doesn’t get it.
Here are my tip-top tipz on what to do in this situation:
1. Communication is key.
Yes I know this sounds obvious, but it really ain’t as obvious as you think.
Remember that your partner likely has an opposite personality-type to you. This is why you were attracted to each other in the first place. ‘Opposites attract’ is a cliche because it’s mostly true. THUS, you more than likely communicate in a very different way to your partner.
If YOU are the partner that is not always direct and clear when communicating – now is the time to try and be as clear as possible when expressing yourself to your partner about this subject.
If it helps, write down what you want to say before you say it. More often than not writing something down brings clarity. Be sure to explain all your reasons for your decision, and how much it would mean to you if they would also read/watch/listen to the information that you’ve just learned.
You know your partner. Speak to their interests. If you have kids, talk about the environment. If they have health issues in their family, speak to those. If you have pets or if they had a beloved pet in their childhood, explain how all animals are the same.
But above all, be clear and express how you feeland what would make you happy. Your partner is invested in making you happy. That’s why they agreed to be your partner 🙂
2. Once you’ve communicated – lead by example.
If your partner witnesses you getting healthier, happier and living life with gusto and purpose – this is contagious.
Don’t forget your partner will notice this about you more than anyone else will.
As you become more confident in your plant-based lifestyle, your relationships will likely get better too – the more you love yourself (which is what you are doing by living the healthiest, most compassionate and conscious way possible), the more you can love others, right?
When your partner sees what THEY are gaining from you being this new amazing version of yourself, chances are they’ll start to think about what effect a plant-based lifestyle could have on them too.
3. Have fun with a little bit of sneakiness and stealth!
If you don’t like the word ‘sneakiness’ just call it ‘creative strategising’!
Nothing wrong with having fun and being tricksy if it’s all for the greater good, amiright? And what’s the greater good if it’s not guiding your partner towards living in accordance with their own ethics (that you KNOW they have, deep down), improving their health and that of the planet??
Here are a few ideas:
Leave some yummy vegan treats lying around open (chocolate, cookies etc), just begging to be sampled by the next person that comes along – who just MIGHT be your partner! When you can see they’ve availed themselves of the goodies you left out, just casually mention that they were vegan!
Take your partner out to an ethnic restaurant; Ethiopian, South Indian or Middle Eastern for example; somewhere you KNOW the vegan options are plentiful, delicious, and look far more engaging than a plate of brown sludgy-looking meat and rice. Let your partner order whatever they will, then tuck into your plant-tastic lusciousness with alacrity and be sure to make all the relevant foodgasmic noises!
We all know omnivores take longer in the, er, bathroom than vegans. Leave some interesting reading material in there, like, ooh, The Food Revolution by John Robbins (lots of interesting bite-size facts in there!), or Veganist by Kathy Freston.
Dial (or go get) a pizza, and have it made with Daiya mozzarella. Make sure there are plenty of other tasty veg on there too (olives, mushrooms, red onion etc), and serve it up when your partner comes home from work hungry and you know they’ll eat whatever’s being served up. If they are a pizza lover, I can pretty much guarantee they will enjoy it, and will not believe it when you tell them (once they’ve eaten it of course) that it was vegan. Nothing like showing people that they won’t miss out on anything when stealthily nudging them towards being plant-based!
4. If it feels like you are talking to the wall; like you’ve communicated in the best way possible to your partner and tried every trick in the book – you know what? Just leave it for a while.
Yup. Just leave it alone for a time.
If you are a new vegan yourself, you are no doubt still learning and facing challenges too. It can be draining going through this and trying to get someone else on board at the same time.
Conserve your energy for a while. Focus purely on No. 2 – leading by example.
And remember, it’s often in the silence; the quiet; the spaces between; (meaning, in the times when you are NOT actively encouraging your partner to go vegan) that information can settle, and register.
5. Know where you end and another person begins.
This is the title of a podcast episode by Colleen Patrick Goudreau. If you want to listen to the relevant portion it’s at around 30 minutes in. The caller is talking about her family, but it’s relevant to anyone you are close with.
Ultimately, you CAN’T change your partner. They have to have their own realisations and their own, in Oprah parlance, ‘AHA moments.’
All you can do is share information, lead the way, and make it easy for them to transition to a vegan lifestyle as and when these revelatory moments happen.
Again, it’s often in moments when you are least expecting it that dots get joined and consciousness shifts. Be patient.
6. Never give up hope
No, never!
You never know what’s down the line.
Even if right now, your partner is chowing down on a big bacon sandwich and gurgling ‘…ooh, yummy, yummy flesh’ – I can promise you that far more unlikely people have gone vegan.
John Robbins (author of The Food Revolution) was heir to the Baskin-Robbins ice-cream legacy, but went vegan and walked away from it – how unlikely is that? Dr T Colin Campbell (author of The China Study) was raised on a dairy farm and actually started his career trying to prove that animal protein was the optimal protein for humans. Again, he is NOT the person you would have expected to go plant-based.
There’s plenty more examples where that came from.
Your partner will never be the most unlikely plant-based candidate, so stay optimistic!
Disclaimer: This review is my honest opinion; I am not being financially compensated for it (though even if I was, it would STILL be my honest opinion). I received the food samples free, with no brief from the More Than Meat company other than to taste test and review them.
I have to admit, when I tweeted Barry responding to his request for vegan bloggers to review his More Than Meat meat-alternative products, my primary motivation was to get my greedy mitts on some yummy free food.
Then I remembered I’m not really a huge fan of meat-alternatives.
THEN I remembered that most meat-alternatives often contain not-so healthy ingredients, like white flour breadcrumbs, sugar etc.
As I’m all about the healthy, I started panicking and wondered if I could make my husband eat all the food and just TELL me how it tasted so I could write the review? Hee.
I checked out Barry’s website, plantalicious.com and breathed a sigh of relief. I could see that one of his main motivations for going plant-based was to improve his health, and I realised he wouldn’t be making products that were full of crapola…phew!
A few days later I received a hyyuuuuge bag of More Than Meat frozen goodies. Barry had thoughtfully included cooking instructions for each product, and each one was marked with the date it was made.
As a 26 year vegan, it’s been a long time since I’ve had a casserole with these particular flavours. I thought that this kind of dish only worked with meat, so I’d never tried to re-create or ‘veganise’ it.
The ‘lamb’ is made with wheat gluten – I’m assuming it’s similar to ‘seitan,’ but it’s marked in the ingredients list as wheat gluten. All the More Than Meat products contain gluten, so are not suitable for celiacs.
I was delighted to see huge butter beans (I’m a bean freak), and celery, carrots and leeks rounded out the mix.
Check out the rest of the ingredients for the healthiest and kindest lamb casserole you’ve ever seen!
It was VERY easy to prepare. I forgot to take it out of the freezer earlier in the day, and had to cook it from frozen. The instructions say you can microwave it OR heat it on the hob. I don’t have a microwave so I went with the hob option. It didn’t take long for the frozen block of casserole to break down on a gentle heat; then I simmered it for a few minutes to heat the ‘meat’ pieces all the way through.
The picture on the packaging gave me the idea to serve it with mash, and as I had a sweet potato and a white potato left in the fridge I went for a white/sweet potato mash combo, and steamed some greens to serve alongside.
This wasn’t a bad idea, but now I’ve tasted the dish I would advise going completely trad-ish and sticking to white potato mash, which would be a more perfect foil for the flavours of the casserole.
AND WHAT FLAVOURS THEY ARE! I’d completely forgotten about this kind of dish; about how ingredients like wine, redcurrant jelly, and herbs and spices can make a savoury dish taste so rich and warming. And very British! As a vegan that is very happy eating mostly ethnic dishes it was a pleasant change to taste flavours of my childhood and teen years but without the cruelty, cholesterol and planet-warping products those types of meals would usually contain.
I loved:
The balance of the flavours, the richness, the fruitiness, and that it had just the right amount of ‘tang’ – More Than Meat have 100% nailed the flavours of a traditional lamb casserole.
The butterbeans that really DID melt like butter in the mouth. Beans in pre-cooked food are NOT always this good.
The fact that although this was a very rich dish, it was not remotely greasy, so it actually felt healthy.
The fact there were no sugars in the ingredients.
The ease of preparation. To make a dish like this yourself would take hours. To be able to heat this up from frozen and it take 10 minutes was amazing.
My only personal gripe was that I’d have liked the wheat gluten/seitan pieces to have had a chewier texture, but I asked my husband about this and he said he liked them just fine – and he’s a seitan connoisseur! So to be fair this is probably just subjective on my part.
They come with the directive to brush a little oil on them before grilling, because they don’t contain any added oil. I really appreciated this – I like to control how much oil I’m getting.
I’d taken the burgers out of the freezer earlier in the day, so they literally only took around 10 minutes to grill – 5 minutes on each side.
Roast squash and steamed greens were my accompaniment of choice (though of course these burgers would be perfect to serve in a bun); some sliced onions and lettuce, and a dollop of my homemade ketchup completed the picture.
Despite slightly overcooking them (my fault entirely – next time I’d cook them a couple of minutes less) they were still delicious. The texture is very hearty and meat-like – it’s not exactly the same texture as meat, but it’s definitely a good replacement for the density and ‘mouthfeel’ that meat has – EXACTLY what you’d want from a burger in fact. I feel that even a staunch meat-eater wouldn’t grumble about the texture.
The jerk seasoning made itself known agreably, and my ketchup and crunchy (but thinly) sliced onions really complimented this.
You know what? The burger was over way too quickly for me. I can’t blame it on the burger because though its diameter was small, it was quite thick, and what most would consider to be adequate portion size, but it was just so good I wanted more.
A couple of hours later I was working, and could still faintly smell the jerk seasoning from where the burgers had been cooked earlier. It was making me REALLY crave another one, to the point where I couldn’t concentrate!
Warning: If you take these mothers to a barbecue or plan on having them at a dinner party, you’d better count on at LEAST two per person – they’re THAT more-ish.
Both these products (and many more – check out the full product list) can be ordered from the More Than Meat website, or see the list of stockists to see if there is one near you.
There are so many ways that being vegan impacts the world.
You know about the animal cruelty, environmental destruction, poor health and threat to world hunger that comes with a standard meat and dairy strong diet.
And Lord knows I’m ALWAYS going on (particularly on my live broadcasts – follow me on Periscope right here, YES IT’S FREE!) about the dynamics of oppression and how all oppressions (speciesism, sexism, racism etc) are the same and feed each other, so we need to be aware of this because, as MLK says: ‘injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere‘ etc., etc.
So I’ll go along thinking I have a good grasp of where veganism fits into the big picture of, er, everything; then I’ll read something that makes me think of yet ANOTHER reason why everyone being vegan would just…well…..stop the world from going down the toilet!
You’ve heard the saying ‘violence breeds violence.’
In how many ways might this be true as it relates to the violence inherent in the meat industry breeding violence elsewhere?
There’s a couple of interesting studies I’d like to share.
In the late nineties/early two thousands, a prison facility in Victor Valley, California tried a program they called NewStart where they let inmates choose whether to have standard food and go through the normal prison program; or a vegan diet with some Bible study and anger management classes.
The main reason for initiating this was, as quoted by the nutrition services co-ordinator of the prison ‘what we eat affects not only our bodies physically, but also our mental attitude, our levels of aggression and our ability to make good decisions.’
State officials were skeptical about how many prisoners would actually choose the vegan meal plan, but 85% wound up on the program!
The results?
It seems that violence decreased significantly amongst the inmates on the NewStart plan.
The remarkable behavioral changes could even be seen outside in the prison yard where according to prison officials, nobody “owned” or controlled the yard. Typical lines drawn between blacks, whites, hispanics, gang members and other groups were non-existent. On the NEWSTART side, everyone played basketball together and had great fellowship. The CDC [standard prison program] side of the house had the same racial divisions experienced at any other prison.
Not only that, but the recidivism rate for the inmates once released was 2%, when the average for California is 90%.
Now I’m sure the anger management classes and Bible study contributed to these results somewhat, but it leaves some big questions as to whether more people going vegan would mean far less violence in the world.
Could more people on a vegan diet even help to eradicate racism (and racist violence) as it did in the prison? And if it did this, could it also end sexism and violence against women? I believe it could – if we stop seeing animals as ‘other,’ we stop seeing anyone as ‘other.’
Can you even imagine how it might be if all children were raised vegan from birth?
What about domestic violence and violent crime in a community?
Well, this study from the universities of Windsor and Michigan State found that in locations surrounding slaughterhouses, there are clusters of domestic violence incidences and violent crimes amongst the workers and their communities that occur BECAUSE of the nature of the work in the slaughterhouse:
The findings indicate that slaughterhouse employment increases total arrest rates, arrests for violent crimes, arrests for rape, and arrests for other sex offenses in comparison with other industries. This suggests the existence of a “Sinclair effect” unique to the violent workplace of the slaughterhouse, a factor that has not previously been examined in the sociology of violence
The study, by the way, was to see if what was a hypothesis about the connection between violence towards animals in the slaughterhouse and crime and violence outside of it (initially explored by Upton Sinclair in his novel ‘The Jungle’ about a big Chicago slaughterhouse) held any weight.
It’s no great stretch of understanding to see that if someone is desensitising themselves to the brutality they are inflicting on sentient beings all day long, that when they leave the workplace this desensitisation and lack of empathy is still in place and would affect every relationship outside of it.
An Australian study that was carried out to see if the same conclusions that had been drawn overseas were relevant to Australian slaughterhouse workers found exactly the same result :
Senior sociology lecturer Dr Nik Taylor at Flinders University said it had been established that the more positive a person’s attitude to animals, the lower their aggression levels, and that the reverse is also true – if you’re cruel to animals, you’re more likely to be violent to humans.
She found that meatworkers’ aggression levels were “so high they’re similar to the scores… for incarcerated populations”.
How does this branch out to the general population?
Even though those who don’t work in a slaughterhouse aren’t doing the killing, they are still desensitising themselves to the suffering of others.
Even the most unenlightened meat-eater knows that animals are killed for the meat they eat, and thus they have to compartmentalise this fact on some level to be able to consume it. It’s a pretty sound bet that if they met the animal face-to-face they wouldn’t be able to kill it themselves.
So it kind of follows that anyone who eats animal products (or at least meat, because many are actually unaware of the violence inherent in the dairy and egg industry), have desensitised themselves to the fact that an ‘other’ has been killed for their food.
Their desensitisation is a little more indirect and less intense than the slaughterhouse workers perhaps, but it is there nonetheless.
The second we desensitise ourselves to ANY ‘other’ in this way; violence (be it domestic violence, rape, general aggression) becomes possible to inflict on any ‘other.’
It’s fun imagining what a vegan world would look like 🙂
