Veggie Might: I Want to Be Tofu Butcher

Written by the fabulous Leigh, Veggie Might is a weekly Thursday column about all things Vegetarian.

Last night there was a vegetarian quorum in my living room: two lacto/ovo vegetarians, one vegan, and one omnivore (who had once been a vegetarian). We voted a moratorium on the question, “So, will you ever eat meat again?”

BA mentioned she was coming up on her 17-year vegan anniversary and that people still asked her that question. We all nodded in sympathy. “They may as well ask if I’d ever eat wood.”

Well, according to the trend piece Flesh Mob in the New York Press, it’s not such a crazy question. Apparently, the bacon craze and conscious carnivorism has vegetarians abandoning their previously held convictions and signing up for butchering classes and joining CSAs for the grass-fed beef—really getting back to the land.

“People were encouraged to avoid meat with scary PETA videos and horror stories about factory farming, but these days, newly carnivorous New Yorkers are able to cushion their consciousnesses with locally grown, free range and all-around-happy meat.”

I found the claim that vegetarians are lining up to become butchers quite disingenuous. Whatever their reasons for becoming vegetarian, none of my current veg-head friends would dream of consuming meat just because it’s de rigueur.

Most former veggies I know, including BH of our living room quorum, made the switch after some soul searching and for myriad reasons, including access and convenience, love (of another human)—and nearly all of them eat meat sparingly.

Plus, I thought people were catching onto the idea that a little meat goes a long way. What happened to being a flexitarian to improve one’s health, bank balance, and environment?

A 2009 Vegetarian Resource Group Poll put the nation’s vegetarian numbers at about 3%, up from 2% in 2006. Even my sister, whose husband hunts and fishes, and a pair of dear friends and avowed omnis are giving part-time vegetarianism a try.

Food is deeply personal, and increasingly, has become moral and political. I am not questioning people’s decision to eat what they choose and live as they believe is right. (I have lots of omni friends!) My beef (har) is with the framing of the story: that vegetarianism is a “phase” we’ll all get over when we grow up—an get a good whiff of frying bacon.

Maybe wood pulp and poly-cotton will be the next big thing. BA and I are on board, since they’re vegan.

Readers, what about you? Are you vegetarian, vegan, part-time vegetarian, or conscious carnivore? Would anything make you change your diet? How do you balance your ethics with your grocery bill? Is food a moral issue in your household? Let ‘er rip in the comments.

(Photo courtesy of Flickr member FantasyFan.)

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The Junk Food Tax: Reader Ideas, Opinions, and Solutions

Last week, we discussed the prospect of a Junk Food Tax, a hypothetical federal tariff that would be placed on ostensibly unhealthy edibles like soda, pizza, and more. Ideally, it would curb obesity and prompt buyers toward making healthier grocery choices. Probably, it would make a lot of people angry.

I asked readers their opinions of the potential tax. Responses were voluminous, wonderfully thoughtful, and chock full of good points. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many were vehemently opposed to a junk levy. Of around 40 commenters, only eight were firmly in support, though many had reservations. Those favoring the tax did so mainly for two main reasons:

1) It would help regulate national health care expenses.

• Rip: High sodium and sugar junk food diets cost the US FAR more than smoking or alcohol, in terms of health costs.
• Sister6: Decreasing consumption would also decrease the incidence of health problems, and health care costs.

2) It’s not unlike taxing alcohol and cigarettes.

• Lori: I see snacks and desserts as luxuries, and, as such, I'm fine with taxing luxury items.

Incidentally, I really liked one of commenter Mike’s solutions: “Good behaviors like gym attendance should be subsidized.” Some health insurance companies already do this (note: not mine), and it can only be a good thing.

Still, the vast majority of readers seemed uncomfortable with a Junk Food Tax. Many expressed a deep distrust in elected officials, particularly in their abilities to apply the taxes objectively and morally. Here’s a sampling of the responses from those who were not in favor:

1) There’s no way to regulate the regulators.

• Amanda: The idea of who would be in charge of drawing the lines, what is "junk" and what is not, and the inevitable lobbies … scares me to death.
• Alice: Can anyone tell me what happens to the tobacco and alcohol taxes in the US, and where they're proposing the revenues from the new 'fat tax' will end up?

 2) There are no clear guidelines on what would be taxed.

• Anonymous: Where do you draw the line? Why soda and not candy bars?
• Lisa: If the government-designed USDA Food Pyramid is used … then Wonder Bread and Rice Crispies will be health food, but we'd be taxing salmon and olive oil for the high fat content.
• Elizabeth: Our understanding of what constitutes unhealthy food evolves so quickly that it's hard to know where to draw the line in a tax like this, or how often to update it.

3) It’s another symptom/indication of a growing Nanny State.

• JuLo: They can educate, they can advise, but they absolutely cannot tell me not to drink soda, and taxing specific foods over others sure feels that way.
• Anon: We need to start looking inward and taking responsibility for the things we do, eat, and say in this country.

Though readers disagreed on the concept overall, three alternatives to the Junk Food Tax were mentioned repeatedly, by people of every opinion, across the board. And those solutions were freakin' sweet.

1) Subsidize healthy foods.

• The Happy Domestic: Here in Ontario, Canada, all pre-packaged, processed foods are taxable, and all whole-food staples are non-taxable. Now THAT's a tax scheme that makes sense to me.
• AmandaLP: [I’d] be for a tax on junk food IF it were used to subsidize healthier whole food options…Making apples or lettuce a cheaper options than candy or chips is the way to do it.

2) Decrease or eliminate subsidies for corn, soy, and unhealthy foods.

• KarenL: Cut the subsidies then we'll talk about taxes.
• Shesasering: End corn/soy subsidies. The logic is better: we're fat because we eat at Mickey D's and drink soda, right? And we eat that because it's cheap. And it's cheap because corn/soy/wheat are produced at the government's expense. So it makes no sense to subsidize it on one end and tax it on the other.

3) Invest in long-term education.

• Kristen: I'd rather see encouragement towards and education about good foods rather than taxation of bad foods.
• Jennifer: Teach people how to garden and give them room to do it. Get some brilliant advertising people to develop ad campaigns that show home cooking from scratch as fun, easy and quick and full of those family values we're so fond of.

Finally, a few readers made a very important point: when we’re considering food and health on a national level, we can’t make the overweight into scapegoats. Not only is it discriminatory, but it’s a misdirection of anger that should be pointed elsewhere, like corporations that make bazillions off stuffing our four-year-olds.

Sweet readers, I want to thank you very, very much for responding in such a spectacular way. It's been a pleasure and an education reading your thoughts. If you have anything more to add, the comment section is open.

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Green Kitchen: Chickpea Cutlets and Non-Meat Proteins

Green Kitchen is a bi-weekly column about nutritious, inexpensive, and ethical food and cooking. It's penned by the lovely Jaime Green.

When it comes to humanely raised food, meat is a big question. If you've seen Food, Inc. (which Kris has written about before) or read Fast Food Nation or The Omnivore's Dilemma, you're familiar with the cruelties of the industrial livestock industry. The animals suffer, the workers are mistreated, food safety is a joke, the health value of the meat plummets, and the negative environmental repercussions are epic.

But okay, farmers market meat is usually humanely raised on small-scale farms that are a bajillion times better than factory farms. Sadly, it’s also hella pricey, and this website is not called Worthwhile Expenses Healthy Good. Of course, we should support small operations so they can grow and thrive, but there’s an alternative: non-meat protein.

When you can't buy from a local farmer, non-meat protein is a solid alternative on every level. It will save you money. It almost always will be healthier. It will be better for the planet, having required less energy to produce.

So: non-meat protein! Yay! Nearly all supermarkets have some tofu and mock-meat cold cuts these days, which is spectacular. Still, even the most enthusiastic vegetarian gets tired of tofu, and have you looked at the ingredients on a box of fake ham? There are a lot of them, and I don't know what most of them are. The solution: DIY.

Take these chickpea cutlets, for example. Adapted from inimitable vegan cookbook Veganomicon, they’re healthy, cheap, homemade, and DELICIOUS. (Meat-eating boyfriend-approved!) They’re also packed with protein (thanks, legumes), and a cousin of seitan, the hearty vegan protein Leigh and I have both written of.

A couple of recipe notes: You can bake the cutlets or pan-fry them, and instructions on both methods are below. The pan-fried are a little juicier and tastier than the baked, but that's what fat does for your food. The baked cutlets (I made two of each) were still totally delicious.

Also: one cutlet is a good, albeit slightly small portion. Depending on what else you serve, hungrier or larger folks may want one-and-a-half. The recipe makes four. I ate them with roasted root vegetables (love you, parsnips!) and broccoli, because there is nothing green at the greenmarket right now, and that just doesn't work for me.

From the wonderful/hibernating vegan blog, Yeah, That Vegan S***, I got the idea to dip these cutlets in agave nectar, and oh my goodness was it good! Also great: honey, a squeeze of lemon juice. Maybe a sandwich with an herbed mayo? (Sorry, Kris.) Honey mustard? BBQ sauce? Go mad. Anything you'd dress chicken with would work.

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If you like this recipe, you might also like:

• Roasted Chickpeas
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Chickpea Cutlets
Makes 4 cutlets.
Adapted from Veganomicon by way of Yeah, That Vegan S***

1 cup chickpeas
2 tablespoons olive oil
½ cup vital wheat gluten
½ cup oatmeal, food-processed to breadcrumb consistency (or ½ c plain breadcrumbs)
¼ cup vegetable broth or water (I used Better than Bouillon)
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 garlic cloves, pressed or grated
½ teaspoon lemon zest
½ teaspoon dried thyme
½ teaspoon paprika (I used hot, and it was great)
¼ teaspoon dried sage
Olive oil or cooking spray for baking or pan-frying

0) If you will be oven-baking these, preheat your oven to 375.

1) In a medium bowl, combine chickpeas and olive oil. With a big spoon and/or fork (plus a little muscle), mash them together until all the chickpeas are broken apart.

2) In a separate small bowl, combine dry ingredients: gluten, oatmeal, thyme, paprika, sage.

3) In another small bowl, combine wet ingredients: broth, garlic, lemon zest.

4) Dump both dry and wet ingredients into the chickpea mixture. Knead about 3 minutes or so, "until strings of gluten have formed."

5) Divide your dough into quarters. Flatten each piece until it's a patty roughly the size of your flat hand.

TO PAN-FRY: Heat a large skillet over medium heat and coat lightly with olive oil. Cook cutlets about 12 to 15 minutes, flipping once halfway through. When finished, they should be browned and patty-esque in texture.

TO BAKE: Grab a baking sheet and lightly oil or coat it with cooking spray. Then, "brush both sides of each cutlet with olive oil" (or spray with cooking spray – you get the idea here). Pop in the oven for 20 minutes. Flip once and bake 8 or 10 more minutes. When finished, they should be browned and patty-esque in texture

Approximate Calories, Fat, Fiber, and Price per Cutlet
246 calories, 8.2g fat, 3.8g fiber, $0.65

Calculations
1 cup chickpeas: 286 calories, 2.7g fat, 10.6g fiber, $.50
2 tablespoons olive oil: 239 calories, 27g fat, 0g fiber, $.24
½ cup vital wheat gluten: 280 calories, 0g fat, 0g fiber, $.82
½ cup oatmeal: 150 calories, 3g fat, 4g fiber, $0.15
¼ cup vegetable broth: 1 calorie, 0g fat, 0g fiber, $.05
2 tablespoons soy sauce: 18 calories, 0g fat, .3g fiber, $.21
2 garlic cloves: 10 calories, 0 g fat, 0.1 g fiber, $0.10
½ teaspoon lemon zest: negligible calories and fat, 0.1g fiber, $.50
½ teaspoon dried thyme: negligible calories, fat, and fiber, $.02
½ teaspoon paprika: negligible calories, fat, and fiber, $.02
¼ teaspoon dried sage: negligible calories, fat, and fiber, $.02
TOTAL: 984 calories, 32.7g fat, 15.1g fiber, $2.63
PER CUTLET (TOTAL/4): 246 calories, 8.2g fat, 3.8g fiber, $0.65

Ask the Internet: CSA Reviews, Ideas, and Experiences?

This week’s question comes from Canadian reader Kathleen. She asks:

Q: I am in the process of signing up for my first CSA share and was struck by the lack of discussions about CSAs on the internet - except for farm websites, and CSA networks for farmers. I'm new to the whole eat-local scene, not mega-rich by any stretch of the imagination, and am wondering what kind of risk I am taking investing in one farm for all my veg for this coming season.

Generally, I'm just wondering if you had any thoughts, ideas, reviews, cautionary tales, etc., on community supported agriculture.

A: Thanks for writing, Kathleen! Though I’ve never joined a CSA, our own Leigh was part of one in 2008. That summer, she created a lot of her recipes based on its bounty, and talks a little about her first trip here.

Beyond that, sweet readers, this one is all you. Have you ever signed up for a CSA? How did it go? Would you do it again? What did you do with all that kale? The comment section is wide open.

Want to ask the interweb a question? Post one in the comment section, or write to Cheaphealthygood@gmail.com. Then, tune in next Tuesday for an answer/several answers from the good people of the World Wide Net.

CHG Hall of Shame, Part III: Return of the Breadi

Today on Serious Eats: Moroccan-Style Chickpea Soup. I give it three snaps up in Z formation.

Every few months, instead of highlighting a newly beloved edible, we at CHG will compile a list of dishes that totally bombed. Sometimes the recipes themselves are bad, but mostly, it’s my own fault, since I’m semi-literate and terrible at improvising. Seriously, there’s a French Onion Soup at the bottom of this post that didn’t just make me doubt my own skills, but the existence of god.

The reasons for the Hall of Shame pieces are threefold:

1. This way, you know we don’t post everything we make. Dishes can’t just be cheap and healthy. They have to taste like actual food. That people would eat. Without accompanying upchuck.
2. Bad food is funny.
3. I forgot reason #3.

So, without further ado, here’s the very best of the very worst. Please respect me in the morning.

Parsnip Fries
Okay, you know how one of the basic tenets of food prep is chopping ingredients into similar-sized pieces, so they cook evenly? I ignored that rule here. Some parsnips burned, others didn’t heat through. I think the one in the middle is giving me the finger.

Turkey Meatballs
Giada DeLaurentiis’ turkey meatballs are widely known and well reviewed. “Hey,” I thought, “Why not ignore her directions completely, add more egg, and chop the onions into something resembling hubcaps? Then, I’ll burn the meat beyond recognition and cover the carnage in red sauce.” Bad plan, me. Bad plan.

Lime Basil Sorbet
It turns out, when a recipe calls for an ice cream maker, you can’t substitute an 8x8 Corningware baking dish. Doy. This block of lime and basil ice haunted our freezer for a month before I finally sacked up and tossed it. Apologies to Cooking Light, which deserves better from its readers.

Parmesan Steak Fries
This one wasn’t me! At least, I don’t think it was. No, it was probably me. Either way, this Everyday Food recipe tasted like nothing. They’re usually infallible, so I shoulder the blame. Martha, please forgive me. Don’t hit me with your ornamental loom.

Watermelon & Feta Salad
When an excellent, competent food blogger asks you to cut up a block of feta, and you use cheap pre-crumbled cheese complete with anti-caking agent, you deserve whatever weird Watermelon-cheese soup you end up with. Which is what I did.

Pureed Broccoli Pasta
Sigh. Again with the feta. I don’t think I added enough liquid, either, meaning the only thing grainier than my picture was the sauce itself.

French Onion Soup
Once upon a time, there was a culinary nitwit who wanted French Onion Soup, but didn’t have the time to make one from scratch. So, she opened a can of Progresso, crumbled up an old roll, and melted a hunk of about-to-go-bad mozzarella on top. This all occurred in the microwave, which actually yelled at her for attempting such a travesty. Then she died of bad food. The end.

The cookies. THE COOKIES.
A few months before Christmas, I received an e-mail from a major food publication asking me to enter a baking contest. Ecstatic and newly motivated, I devised a recipe for Double Chocolate Cherry Cookies, which was supposed to whet editors’ appetites, revolutionize cookie making, and bring about world peace. Eight slightly different batches later, they still sucked and I gained seven pounds. We’ll get ‘em next year, Buttermaker.

And that’s the whole shameful bunch. Readers, what dishes have you mucked up lately? Do tell.

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