What do you eat?
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Interesting note: Oleo is probably our first widely used manufactured food. Enjoy your whipped fat!
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I actually like some veggie burgers on their own. However, the last imitation meat I tried literally smelled and tasted of peas, and that was supposed to be the closest yet.
It made me sad.
I am sure we will get there.
I have a waggish sense of humor.
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@Misadventure said in What do you eat?:
I am sure we will get there.
If Star Trek communicators turned into cell phones (it became real!), then I hope the same thing happens with replicators.
A device that can use existing matter to create (3d print) an actual aged, cooked, and seasoned ribeye steak without having to kill anything seems like a win all around.
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I love basically all food. I try to eat locally or sustainably sourced meat, fish, and produce when I can and am super impressed with some of the food science that goes into meat and sugar substitutes lately. Eating healthy is a struggle. I have health issues surrounding sugar and carbs that are a constant, CONSTANT battle. I respect people who have the discipline to do more limited diets but I just... I cannot. I'm sorry.
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I think I may have mentioned here that I started with a nutritionist this past March. To be clear, my goal wasn't about weight loss. I wanted to eat better to recover my energy and get my blood sugar under control. I also wanted to learn how to eat properly, in terms of the foods I should be choosing. The physical therapy clinic I was working with for my hand introduced a nutritionist at one of their other branches, and since I really liked my PT team, I decided to give their nutritionist a shot.
I am so glad I did.
When we started she stated outright to me that her goal was not about weight loss, and that wouldn't be her focus. She also told me that she would never shame me for something I chose to eat, but she would encourage me to talk about why I might have chosen to eat something. And during our sessions, more often than not she would commiserate with me over how good different things taste. She took into account what kind of flavors I enjoy, reviewed menus with me of restaurants my friend circle frequented to pick items that would be better choices for me, etc. She also started giving me goals...small ones, gradually building on them, as weeks went by. I started with sessions each week, and now I'm at 6 weeks between each one.
I did a weigh in at my last one, two days ago. I'd dropped 14 lbs from my initial weigh in, without "dieting" being one of my goals.
Some of the stuff I've done:
- B12 vitamins, for helping convert food into energy.
- 48 oz of water per day. Most liquids could also count as part of water intake, like milk. She didn't cut me off from caffeine, but I began to need less.
- Eating breakfast. I wasn't when I started, but now I do, and the fuel it provides gets me further through the day without feeling drained.
- Switching most of my bread products to whole or multi grain.
- Increasing vegetable intake by introducing in terms of color. As in "add more color to the dish". The greens, reds, and yellows of vegetables make your plate prettier.
- Portion control. This, along with eating time, are definitely the hardest. Training your body to understand the proper signals is hard as hell.
- Eating time. I used to just gobble my food, and now I try to be more deliberate when eating. No counting chews or setting down my fork, just taking the time to process what I put on my tongue.
I'm sure there's more I'm not thinking of, but LSS this experience has been great and profound and I'm hoping I can keep it up.
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shout out to @kaiju for a cake recipe that's vegan and have everything I already have at home
Though I still intend to try @Kanye-Qwest 's aquafaba thing. If anyone else has great vegan dessert stuff that toddlers might like, hit me with it, please!
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@jibberthehut https://www.geniuskitchen.com/recipe/chocolate-berry-tofu-cake-110935
This is a very easy favourite that my roomate made all the time.
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@SG Will add that to the list, will have to omit the semisweet chocolate (Not vegan) Berry tofu... interesting.
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<— Vegan AF. For the animals, for the planet, for health & longevity, for a sustainable future.
Currently building a vegan startup and have been heavily involved in vegan activism/outreach for a good few years now. I made the switch 6.5 years ago and regularly attend meetups, festivals, talks and marches, so I'd say I'm pretty familiar with the broader vegan community. (Especially as I've been building contacts for my business.)
Thoughts on Impossible & Beyond:
- I don't like Impossible because they needlessly tested on (and killed) animals for no apparent reason.
- Despite this I support cultured meat and think it's a great way forward for the animals and the planet.
- I don't have any interest in eating fake meat, because whole-food plant-based (WFPB, google it) meals are healthier and I do care about that too. However, I think it's great to have the option of vegan junk food for transitioners and I'll definitely try it at least once out of curiosity.
- I think plant-based proteins such as Impossible and Beyond (my pick being Beyond, obviously) are a very smart investment, and I am trying to grow my nestegg this way.
- Of the vegans I know and talk to (many), I would say about 99% are supportive of cultured meat innovations etc. A third, like me, say they wouldn't want to eat it, mostly due to a visceral gross factor, but they still recognise this'll save many animals and are glad for it.
@jibberthehut and anyone else interested in delicious vegan recipes:
- This is my favourite from before I went WFPB. It's vegan, but should be viewed as a "treat" (a very, very delicious treat) as it's made with coconut oil and therefore pretty high in saturated fat. It does also have a good deal of protein though and I think your toddler will like it. I've made it many, many times, it's super easy and I've only ever gotten overwhelmingly positive feedback for it. Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Bites
- Healthier recipe sites: Clean Food Dirty Girl, Forks Over Knives
- An extremely supportive, wholesome Facebook group for health-focused transitioners, with really great moderation and a no judgement/shaming ethos: Clean Food Dirty Girl Private Group
- Three amazing YouTube channels for vegan recipes: Raw. Vegan. Not Gross. (Healthy recipes), Pick Up Limes (Healthy recipes & wellness tips, run by a registered dietician), Avant Garde Vegan (less health focused, just good food)
- A complete resource for the hows, whys & whats of going vegan, with recipes, product lists etc. Specific to the UK, US and Australia. (Pick your location at the top.) Veganuary
I enjoy helping people go vegan and if anyone needs any tips/advice etc., feel free to tag or PM me.
(Don't PM me to argue about it though, thanks.)
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Sadly, it's a thing in the system. Animal testing is often unnecessary, but it's built in. You have to prove that it won't cause cancer or whatever, to prove to laws and regulations that the product won't harm people. It sucks, but it is what it is until the regulations change.
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@Taika said in What do you eat?:
Sadly, it's a thing in the system. Animal testing is often unnecessary, but it's built in. You have to prove that it won't cause cancer or whatever, to prove to laws and regulations that the product won't harm people. It sucks, but it is what it is until the regulations change.
Beyond didn't test.
️I'd rather people eat Impossible burgers than cow burgers, and I'd be pleased for them to do well and become mainstream — in the grand scheme of things, 200 rats is preferable to 60bn animals annually. But as a personal preference, I won't support or invest in them, and hope their immediate competition (Beyond) does better.
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@jibberthehut said in What do you eat?:
@SG Will add that to the list, will have to omit the semisweet chocolate (Not vegan) Berry tofu... interesting.
Shop around, quite a few brands of semisweet are actually vegan. The Superstore house brand and kirkland from costco are last I checked.
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@SG Oooh really? Will hunt down some then! I like to keep things around for her for treats and as we transition to potty training, little rewards that I can give both of them for jobs well done!
@kestrel Oooh! Will try those too, they looks like things the toddlers can get on a chair and help make too! Seriously, you guys are great. Far better a resource that Reddit's Vegan sub was. They were too focused on trying to get me to go vegan instead of helping me find vegan adaptations for the toddler.and make her feel included instead of excluded.
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I don't think factory farming is ethically defensible unless you're willing to say that torturing animals for pleasure is ethically permissible. But I eat factory farmed food all the time. I'm a hypocrite.
I have no compunction whatsoever about killing and eating animals per se; it's their living conditions that concern me. Also, the environmental effects.
To that end, I'm beyond happy to see alternatives like the Impossible burger arise, though frankly I'm unironically hoping for monstrous flesh-vats of meat that can be continually carved away at for product.
Oh, as for what I eat--literally anything under 1900 calories per say. More peanut butter and jelly sandwiches than I should.
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This is one of those issues that, I will admit, causes a hint of cringe whenever it comes up. Not because I don't care about where my food comes from, what it does to the environment, or if something lived a horrible life only to have it end on my plate, but because this is such a first world problem sort of conversation, and a number of folks I know (and I've been there myself) are simply not in a financial position to consider anything more than 'how am I going to get food today', with a hope toward it covering their nutritional needs, less worrying about what that food is, and forget about where it came from or its carbon footprint.
While this isn't the thrust of the conversation, it's important to recognize that these choices are frequently a notable privilege. This may be income-based, but also based on location, and that location (not surprisingly) often leaves low-income and/or primarily PoC neighborhoods with precious few options. It's not a joke that bringing fresh produce to neighborhoods that don't have a local grocery that otherwise carries them has had to become a thing (a great thing that people are doing it, but a horrible one that they have to).
We're glad to have a local farmer's market, but it's not year-round, for instance, because we have actual winter here and they source everything not from the immediate area, but from a radius of about 200 miles. (Which counts as 'local' so far as I'm concerned; if we were a larger state this could easily be 'from within the state', but we're a runty state, so it's not.) Make no mistake, though: these are definitely 'splurge' purchases for us, because they're more expensive than the grocery store. The quality is worth it, but the money isn't always there. (There's a reason we have a big happy celebratory day when they open since we can get our fresh breakfast cheese, for instance -- it's a big deal to us, and they're cool enough to let us buy a bulk pack we can nom on through the week, which lets it work out to be a little less ouch.)
We're similarly thrilled to pick up things from the 'right from this very farm'-operated produce stands when we do a daytrip, but again, doing that daytrip is an expense we can't always work into the budget. Again, this is seasonal availability. Those stands are up when they've done their harvest, period, and at no other time.
For people on a very tight budget, Trader Joe's has some decent options. For this area, they're decent on fresh produce, even if the selection is on the small side at our local store (which is tiny, and we just have the one). That selection is somewhat seasonal, too, though.
Anyway... it's important to remember that for some folks, the ability to consider these things at all is a luxury. In a more perfect world, we'd be looking less at fancy meat substitutes that will cost a pile of cash to feel better that a beastie hasn't suffered to get it to the plate, but at safe, healthy, fresh food (of any kind) that is available to all inexpensively, and work from the bottom up, rather than from the top down. If that's a wonder grain, awesome. If it's artificial meat, awesome. If it's a superveggie, awesome. If it's algae, awesome. Don't even care.
There are a lot more people struggling that need a good staple they can rely on than there are people who can fork out (pun not intended) for a $100 burger made from artificial meat.
Oh fucking well.
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You aren't wrong. The hype over the Impossible burger is that it's competitively priced. Burger King is about to roll out an Impossible Whopper nationwide.
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@surreality God, were it not for my garden in the summer, I would not have tomato's, green beans etc etc. Fresh produce in the mid-west that isn't -corn- is pricey, it often spoils within two days once you get it here and generally not that great in quality. a head of cauliflower is regularly almost 3 bucks, sometimes dips to close to two or under. Aldi's does their best bringing in fresh fruits and veggies. But come winter, you're fucked and my budget for feeding a diabetic has to stretch far if I don't want to revert to shitty food. But during the mid to late summer, I'm feeding us out of our garden.
So yeah, low income, it's a bitch to eat healthy. It can be done, but usually involves buying when cheap and freezing stuff or pre-making and freezing meals.
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FYI the impossible burger was the same price as regular burgers at the place I had it.
Also, the ethical concerns I see most re: eating meat here (IE huge factory farm industries and the wanton cruelty and environmental havoc they cause) are also a first world issue.
Also also India has pretty much the highest concentration of poor people in the world, and only 30% of that population consumes meat 'regularly'.
It is a first world problem created by the first world and systemically entwined with it. That does not dismiss or devalue the conversation in any way.
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I thing agribusiness as a whole has a lot of horrible things associated with it, from slave labor to genocide to monopoly across the whole system to human and animal suffering and injury and death to racist marketing and financing strategies. It would be very hard to go back to a small farm model right now though, so I am not sure what the future holds. It is something that was discussed quite frequently in school though even in the 90s (I was an animal science/family and child development double major).
