As much as I said I LOVE their cheddar spreads – I’m so so glad I didn’t get sucked into the coupon on the side of the WayFare vegan Sour Cream (buy 2 get one free).  This stuff is horrible!  I’ll be sticking to my Tofutti Sour Supreme.  This stuff is like yogurt.  The consistency and flavor!  It’s thin and not smooth, nor do I think it has the right flavor to try to pass as sour cream.  Don’t waste your money on this product!

The other day I picked up the WayFare Hickory (vegan) Cheddar spreadable “cheese” at Whole Foods and I’m in love!  It’s so good!  I’ve been enjoying it on some nice whole grain wheat crackers.  The consistency is thick but still easy to spread and the flavor is great – even my cheese eating husband said it was decent!  This is going to be a new staple in my fridge for snacking!  I’m looking forward to trying the other flavors.

I became a vegetarian because I loved animals too much to eat them – at age 11!  Now I’m vegan because I love animals to much to see them suffer for me, but there are so many other reasons why eating a plant based diet is better for you and the rest of the world.   

 

 

 

Why Are You Vegan?

Posted by Healthy Bitch Daily on Oct 25, 2011

Carnivores are really starting to piss us off.It’s not exactly news that meat consumption is creating a tragic kingdom for humans and animals alike, but that doesn’t mean we’re not still mad as hell about it. We destroy land to create cattle ranches. We raise cows to feed people. Then, people end up sick and disease-ridden from eating cows.  It’s a vicious cycle and it’s not about to end any time soon.

Staying on the Wagon

Clearly, the choice to become and remain vegan is easy when you consider the facts.

But admit it. There are days you forget why you’re noshing on carrot sticks in your cube when everyone in the office bought greasy burgers for lunch. You feel guilt pangs over wanting pizza. You wish you didn’t have a moral issue with leather boots.

This shit can be hard.

Pep Talk

We get it – which is why we wanted to remind you of the awful, disgusting and horrible reasons to keep your wits about you and stay committed to a cruelty-free lifestyle. We rounded up some mind-boggling reasons to stay meat-free and motivated to kick some carnivore ass.

How do we loathe meat? Let us count the ways…
 

Hunger Pangs

Reason to Rage: At any given time, there are about 20 billion farmed animals on the planet, which is more than three times the total human population. Cattle alone consume a quantity of food equal to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion people, yet they can’t produce nearly enough meat, milk and eggs to feed everyone.

What’s worse? If people ate the plants we feed to factory-farmed animals, there would be more than enough food to eliminate world hunger. Yet, we’d rather slaughter animals cause burgers taste good?

Who Broke Wind?

Reason to Rage: Many people blame automotive and industrial emissions for pollution, climate change and global warming, but livestock farming generates more greenhouse gas emissions than all other sources combined. It’s time to get real about the impact this is having on our environment.

Waste Not, Want Not

Reason to Rage: Animal waste and feed dump more pollutants into our waterways than all other human activities combined.  We may have easy enough access to animal-free food choices, but now we have to worry that our water isn’t vegan? Holy shit.

Land’s End

Reasons to Rage: Meat-based diets require 10-20 times as much land as plant-based diets. Nearly half of the world’s grains and soybeans are fed to animals. Fifty-five square feet of rainforest are destroyed for every quarter-pound hamburger that comes from a cleared rain forest cattle farm. In the past 20 years, Costa Rica (as well as most of Brazil) has lost the majority of its forests to beef cattle ranching. This slash and burn farming is believed to account for 50% of all rain forest destruction. Bring that one up the next time your hubby wants his Big Mac.

Water, Water, Everywhere
 
Reason to Rage: Over half of the water used in the United States goes to beef production. In fact, it takes an average of 2,500 gallons of water to produce a single pound of red meat. With the amount of water it takes to produce one pound of edible animal flesh, farmers can grow up to one hundred pounds of grain. Are you throwing up yet?
 

Animal Torture
 
Reason to Rage: Factory farms often use methods such as genetic manipulation to force modern dairy cows to produce 100 pounds of milk a day – ten times more than they would produce naturally. Male baby cows used for veal are chained by the neck inside crates measuring just two feet wide. They never get to stand up, so their muscles won’t develop and their flesh will remain tender.
 
As we all know, animals are kept alive under the filthy conditions at factory farms by feeding them massive amounts of antibiotics. They are also given hormones and are genetically bred for rapid growth. Hurl.

Sea Sick
 
Reason to Rage: Industrial fishing is also environmentally devastating. Commercial fisheries locate schools of fish using satellite-tracking equipment and cover miles of ocean with gigantic nets that trap everything in their paths. This practice kills millions of animals that simply aren’t valued by the industry, such as sea turtles, dolphins and sea lions. Awesome.
 
Due to over-fishing in the wild, most fish now come from fish farms. Raised in overcrowded caged enclosures, farmed fish live in water that’s infested with bacteria  from a surplus of excrement (i.e., poop). When the fish are ready for market, they are dumped into large mesh cages where they suffocate to death.

Sufficiently pissed? Good. Print this shit out. Leave it on your fridge. Hang it in your office. Also, shove a copy in the faces of those people who make fun of you for eating tofu.

Last week I made some super delicious cupackes for a friend’s birthday.  For Christmas my sister gave me this little tool that cores out the cupcake so you can fill them.  I hate to say it took me this long to use it but now that I’ve finally taken the time to do filled cupcakes, I think I’m going to have to fill every cupcake I make from here on out.  They were amazing!  Here’s what I did – I made the chocolate cupcakes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World, filled them with the peanut butter frosting and topped them with the vanilla buttercream.  I think I might have to whip up another batch of filled cupcakes this weekend! 

click to download your guide!

My friend Dana just pointed me in the direction of this great Guide to Meat Free from HSUS.  I’m pretty sure I remember seeing all these pages in a past issue of the magazine that HSUS sends to donors but I love that they put all these pages into a book and made it available in pdf via a quick download!

There are some delicious looking recipes, tips for dining out, tips for taking steps to going meat-free, info on the health benefits and more!

I discovered this idea on Crafterhours and immediately knew I had to make a vegan version ASAP.  I don’t know who thought of doing a chocolate chip cookie with an Oreo in the middle, but they’re a genius!  I’m calling them chocolate nesting cookies because they remind me of the Ukrainian nesting dolls I had growing up – like these…

one cookie inside of another, just like the little dolls!

these are super easy to make – whip up your favorite chocolate chip cookie dough recipe…

then form the dough around an Oreo cookie and bake!  easy peasy!

 The recipe I followed over-complicated them so here is my simple version:

bake two Duncan Hines cakes (yes, the mix is vegan – just use your favorite egg substitute instead of adding an egg to the mix)

 crumble the cake into a large bowl and add 1.5 containers of Duncan Hines frosting (yep they have vegan frosting!)

scoop out balls of the mixture and place on a cookie sheet

put in the fridge or even freezer to cool them quickly – I cooled them just enough to be able to roll them into nicely rounded balls

while they’re cooling melt two bags of Ghiradelli Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips (yep, they’re vegan!)

covering them in chocolate isn’t the easiest thing – I can’t really tell you there is one amazing way to do it so if you don’t like my way, try something else.  I held each ball in one hand, filled a soup spoon with the melted chocolate and smoothed it over/around the ball – careful, that chocolate is very hot – I definitely burned my fingers!

sprinkle on some fun decor and put them back in the fridge to cool.  when they’ve hardened, pull them out and store them in an air-tight container.  I kept mine in the fridge and either ate them cold or would pull them out about an hour before serving – at which point they were super gooey and delicious

you could very easily make these with any type of cake and frosting.  It certainly took out several steps in the process by using a cake mix and pre-made frosting but since I NEVER buy that stuff I’ll likely make them completely from scratch next time

I’ve been loving the Pret that opened across the street from my office.  Today was my third visit and they continue to impress me with delicious healthy options – specifically vegan for me.  I discovered that they can do their oatmeal with water or any kind of milk – so I had soy.  They steam it with the steam wand on the espresso machine so by the time I got settled back into my desk it had thickened up and was fantastic.  It has almonds, hazelnuts, cinnamon, cashew, coconut and supposedly currants but they seemed like raisins to me – either that or they were currants on steroids!  Regardless it was delicious.  Although the package doesn’t say it, I read online it has maple syrup – which I definitely taste.  This was the perfect Friday – gloomy day – breakfast.  I’ve always been a Jamba Juice oatmeal fan since they do theirs with soy.  Jamba’s is slow cooked and consistency wise better but I love the flavors in the Pret oatmeal – and considering its far closer to my office I think I’ll be sticking to Pret from now on!  Love it!