End of the Month Digest

PearlA

December 10th, 2007 at 10:49 am

Hey. I just did some catching up on your blog, and I’m so pleased that your mom worked with you so well on Thanksgiving. Our holiday was the same way … my mother and I always do the cooking, and since she’s switched to the same dairy and egg sources I have, those ingredients were all organic, “cornucopia-site-approved”, or “more humanely farmed”. There was a turkey, but like your mother’s, it was free-ranged and from a local farm with more open practices.

Since early October when I started this, our meat consumption is down by at least forty percent. I’ve been aiming for at least fifty percent, and I think I’m almost there. My two methods are: making fewer meals with meat, and stretching the meat that we do use. My husband (who’s always been a bigger meat eater than me in the first place) is actually *liking* how I’m doing things, and I can honestly say that I’m facing no resistance from him at all.

What meat we do use now comes from either: 1) brands on those ‘more humane’ lists (the ‘certfied humane’ list, and the humane association’s list), or 2) a few old-time farms near my hometown, where everything is pasture-raised, hormone/antibiotic-free, and ‘visible’ to the public. One of those farms is that Hendrick’s farm from the ‘certified humane’ list, and they’re so transparent with how they run their farm, that their young daughters now take Katie (my five-year-old) out to see the animals while my mom and I are in their little farm market building. I can’t tell you how happy that makes me. Remember, I grew up next to an old-fashioned dairy where I could pet the cows while they were in the green pastures, and our own family had our own flock of chickens (in a coop with fenced in yard-space). But now that I’m raising the next generation … well, it’s one thing for me to “tell” Katie that the animals belong out in the sunshine, and another thing for her to acutally *see* it.

Well anyway there are also a few other farms like that in that area too, (and in all honesty, I’m sure they could get the ‘certified humane’ label too if they wanted, but they’re old-fashioned Mennonite and just wouldn’t be the type to go through the paperwork. Old-fashioned Mennonites (as my grandmother was before she married my grandfather) don’t even use television or radio, so labels like that are, to them, just part of the modern world that they eschew. But anyway, all of our eggs and most of our meat now come from those farms. The exception is what little luncheat (which katie loves) or hot dogs (which hubby loves) that I still purchase. For that, I use Applegate farms brand from the supermarket (you can find that brand on the ‘certified humane’ list).

I now cook about half of our meals vegetarian (and that includes hubby’s lunches because he takes leftovers). For example, Friday night I made French toast, Saturday we went out and had fish, Sunday was spaghetti, and tonight will be Boca Burgers. Last Wednesday, hubby wanted hot dogs, so I used those I just mentioned above: Applegate farms. The brand is on the certified humane list, and it’s organic, grass-fed beef, no antibiotics/hormones/nitrates/nitrites. And what I did was ’stretch’ it. — The next night I made homemade beans and rice, and instead of adding sausage the way hubby used to prefer, I used water that I had simmered the hot dogs in extra long the night before. So hubby still got some of the meat flavor he wanted in the rice, but it all came from the pack of ‘healthier’ hot dogs he’d had on buns the night before. See what I mean? When we were using the factory farmed, chemical-laden hot dogs, I’d have just thrown that water out and used sausage for the beans and rice. But this way, the total meat purchase for those two meals was actually halved.

For dairy, I’m using Organic Valley brand (well-rated on the Cornucopia list) for cheese, Seven Stars or Stonyfield (both from Cornucopia) for yogurt, and Natural By Nature (also Cornucopia) for milk/butter/cream. I lucked out on the Natural by Nature brand because they’re actually *so* local, that they’re main bottler is only ten miles from my house. It’s that dairy I told you about, where we always went to get ice cream when I was growing up. They have an actual “outlet” store there, where I can get natural by Nature at a significant discount. Well of course — they package it right there. They’ve also become our source for ice cream now too … that, and Stonyfield frozen yogurt.

But the kicker is this — I’ve learned to read labels. I’ve learned to watch for ingredients like whey and casein, and avoid them. The wild thing is that as far as the supermarket ledgers are concerned, I now purchase mostly vegan. For example, Boca burgers over Morning Star, because Morning Star has eggs in it that were probably from battery cages. I look for breads without whey or casein because I know those ingredients are dairy, but dairy which was probably feed-lotted. So I buy Luna bars (vegan) over Balance bars, Endangered Species brand vegan dark chocolate over milk chocolate, Dr. McDougall’s and Progresso brand vegan soups, and Amy’s vegan buritos. But then I bring the soups home and sometimes add a dollop of my own Natural by Nature cream, or bring the buritos home and put my own Organic Valley cheese on them. I’ll never be a vegan, I’m pretty certain of that. Vegetarian — odn’t know. As of right now, I (and hubby and daughter) are sitting on the low-meat end of omnivore, but with rapidly tightening boundaries on where the food comes from.

There are still things that slip through, and I know that. Like Nutri-Grain bars which I only discovered this morning have nonfat milk listed in the ingredients. Or when we go out to eat — though we order either pescatarian or vegetarian now, there’s still some dairy in there that was probably factory farmed. We’re getting there though, and our true test will be Lent.

We’re going hardcore for Lent. No ‘unapproved’ dairy/egg/meat products, period. And I mean even things like the bread. It means that eating out will entail foods like salad with vegan dressing, pasta with marinara, vegetables, non-dairy sherbert instead of ice cream (unless we’re at the farm where the ice cream is ok). I do realize how hard this is going to be … I’ve already been researching the issue of vegan menu items at various restaurants. Luckily though, we already frequent an Indian restaurant that does plenty of vegan dishes.

But yeah, that will be our Lent this year (and believe me, our family and our familes of birth both take the season of Lent very seriously). We told our parents at Thanksgiving, and of course my own mother and aunt completely understood. Hubby’s mother was surprised, but she knows we’re serious because we’ve begun supplying her with bacon from Hendricks farm. We’ve explained to her that when we go out to visit her from now on, and she makes her traditional ‘cabbage/potato/bacon’ dish (hubby’s favorite childhood dish), she has to use that particular bacon in it. She also knows that we’ll be bringing along our own carton of milk for Katie. … And I do realize that the bacon part must sound odd and wrong to a vegetarian, but consider that my mother-in-law doesn’t blink an eye at factory farming. … This looks odd and wrong to her too, but from a completely opposite direction.

The best part of all though, is that Katie is understanding. I’ve had some talks with her about why we’re going to the farms now, and why we’re buying what we’re buying. Well one of her favorite foods *used* to be McDonald’s chicken McNuggets. But just the other day, she asked to go to McDonalds *not* for mcnuggets, but for a fruit and yogurt parfait. Yeah, it’s still the factory-farmed dairy involved. I know that, and we remain a work in progress. But for now at least, on the sliding scale of things, it feels a little less cruel than the factory farmed mcnuggets. And her *reason* for wanting the parfait, as she’ll proudly announce to anyone in earshot, is because “the people at McDonalds are mean to their chickens”. Not bad for a five-year-old.

So anyway, that’s where we are right now. I should also note that I’ve been using a lot of resources from online vegetarian and vegan sites/boards in order to learn ingredients and brands and such, but I remain entirely silent there. You’ve been so nice to me as I’ve tried to figure this out, and I can honestly say that your blog is the only place I feel safe enough to work through some of this. I feel better in a lot of ways now, and ‘feeling better physically’ is only a tiny, tiny part of it.

Emily

December 10th, 2007 at 11:48 am

Hi Pearl! Nice to hear from you again! Wasn’t that nice of my mom to cook a free range turkey? Maybe eventually I’ll convince her to be like your mom and buy everything free-range.

Wow — that’s really impressive that your meat consumption is down by 40%! It sounds like you’ve developed a great method for reducing your meat consumption — cooking half of your meals vegetarianly, stretching the hot dogs over two days, etc. I think it’s really a good idea of yours to incrementally eat less meat than to go 100% vegetarian in one day — much more sustainable in the long run. Plus you have to give yourself credit for your mostly humane-farming-only thing — you’re not promoting cruel living conditions for animals for the most part, which a lot of vegetarians certainly cannot say! (And I know how hard it is to buy only humanely raised products! I have been having serious trouble lately — what with the holiday season I have been ending up at restaurants with no vegan options at all, and I buy meals with factory farmed eggs/milk in them because I am famished and then I feel guilty. I have actually been following your lead in not buying anything with factory-farmed eggs — for some reason I have found it easier to find entrees without eggs at places that serve virtually nothing without milk/butter. Sigh. Once the holidays are over I’m going back to a stricter no factory-farmed products policy.)

Wow, I’m so jealous you get to go to Hendricks farm — I’d love to go to a farm and see the animals in the sunshine and make sure they are pasture-raised, hormone free, etc. That sounds wonderful! Also that’s great that you’ve convinced Katie that the reason you won’t buy chicken at McDonalds is that the people at McDonalds are mean to their chickens — that’s exactly my philosophy boiled down to five-year-old-speak.

That’s really interesting that the Mennonite farms are so humane — I am completely in favor of rejecting modern factory farming methods. That is such a more caring way of life. You’re so lucky there are so many Mennonite farms around you — California certainly doesn’t have anything like them, as far as I know. It’s too bad . . .

Ooh, Natural by Nature sounds fantastic — it’s really a humane farm outlet? How nice! I should look around here for something like that. I do love a bargain.

Oh my gosh, I hear you on the reading labels and buying everything vegan — I spend most of my time reading labels at the grocery store, and it’s amazing how many things have factory farmed milk/egg products in them. (By the way, I love those Endangered Species chocolates — don’t they have the best pictures on them? So pretty.)

That’s a great idea to go hardcore for Lent — I should do that too. (I actually don’t celebrate Lent religiously but I am in favor of spending periods of time being obsessively committed to principles, and then spending other amounts of time being fairly relaxed about them.)

I’m so glad you’ve found lots of vegan/vegetarian sites that are helpful! I’m sorry you don’t feel comfortable speaking up on them — they should be welcoming you with open arms as you try to increase the amount of vegetarian food you consume on a daily basis. Tchah. I’ve never quite figured out why so many people who have vegetarian/vegan diets seem to think not eating meat/animal products gives them the right to be censorious and rude to other people who don’t follow their exact diets. Anyway, I’m glad you feel that you can talk about your progress here in this blog though! I’m sure your information is very beneficial to many other people who are making the same transition. And of course, I like to hear about your trials with finding humanely farmed products since I have the same issues . . .

PearlA

December 10th, 2007 at 12:09 pm

Oh, and another thing … I assume you’ve seen this, but just in case:

http://www.vegetarian-restaurants.net/

I found it on my wanderings to help with this upcoming Lent. Remember, our intention is to remove all ‘factory farmed’ dairy and eggs too during Lent, which will mean that eating out means basically eating vegan.

I particularly like

http://www.vegetarian-restaurants.net/OtherInfo/FastFoodRest.htm

Look at all the restaurants listed. That, I think, will be a help to us.

Emily

December 10th, 2007 at 1:43 pm

Oh yes — that is a GREAT resource! I used to use it a lot, now I use it occasionally. It came in really useful on a long road trip I took once.

PearlA

December 12th, 2007 at 4:16 pm

>Maybe eventually I’ll convince her to be like your mom and buy everything free-range.

Have you emphasized the health benefits? A lot of times people will act more readily if there’s “something in it for them”. I’ll be honest, I’ve been pointing out the health benefits too, to those family and friends who are doing this along with me. Yes, I point out that the animal husbandry is much much better than the factory farming horrors, but I’m also reminding them of the health benefits.

Grass-fed milk/eggs/meats all supposedly have a better ratio of the omega-3 fatty acids and saturated fats, than *corn*-fed milk/eggs/meats. I’ve read suggestions that one reason we Americans have such bad cholesterol levels now (as well as bad levels of triglycerides) is because we’ve switched from grass-fed farming, to corn-fed farming. This obviously does not affect vegans, but even the dairy and eggs that vegetarians eat, are affected by this fact. And really, almost all factory farmed milk/eggs/meats is ‘corn-fed’.

And consider also that grass-fed (pasture-raised) products are almost always **also** antibiotic free, growth hormone free, organic, and raised with better animal husbandry practices. See what I mean? The healthier foods, both in terms of their fats profile, and those dangerous antibiotics/hormones, usually *are* much more humane in their animal husbandry. So maybe you could approach the subject from the direction of the food being *healthier* for your mother.

You know, my mom has always eaten very little meat. For example, we’d go to a buffet, and she’d come back with her plate piled high with vegetarian foods, and then have one little chicken drumstick on top. She was never vegetarian, but I’m serious when I say that her meat consumption was always ‘low’. However, my family always did use a lot of cheese, and my mother especially uses milk and eggs. And despite her low levels of meat, she’s always had cholesterol problems. Part of it, I think, might be hereditary. But I also think it’s the corn-fed milk/eggs she’d been using these last couple decades. Not just in what she would buy directly as milk/eggs, but also the milk/eggs in all of the processed foods. It would have been almost entirely corn-fed. Well I’ve always used a lot of dairy too, just like mom. And I’m watching to see if switching to grass-fed will help things.

>Wow — that’s really impressive that your meat consumption is down by 40%!

Yep. Last night was asparagus, carrots, and onions, in a sauce of korma Indian paste (Maggi brand rules), vegetable broth, and Natural by Nature, grass-fed, half-and-half. All over rice. Paul took that for lunch today, I’m eating vegetable soup for lunch, and tonight, I think Paul wants a big salad. (He loves salad with asian dressing, mandarin oranges, and almonds. Personally, my reaction to oranges on salad, is “yuck”. ) Now I know he wants some of the leftover Thanksgiving turkey one evening here … used in this creamy vegetable thing I do … but my point is that we’re still trying to get through the turkey, which *wasn’t* that large to begin with. Even if I wouldn’t be mentally keeping track of ‘lower-meat or no-meat days’, I’d still notice it by the fact that we’re not done the leftover turkey yet.

>(And I know how hard it is to buy only humanely raised products! I have been having serious trouble lately — what with the holiday season I have been ending up at restaurants with no vegan options at all, and I buy meals with factory farmed eggs/milk in them because I am famished and then I feel guilty.

It’s *UNREAL* how much processed food out there has dairy and eggs, isn’t it? It’s just unbelievable. I literally had no idea. I mean, according to that restaurant link I gave you the other day, even Olive Garden has eggs in the pasta. I mean … WHY???? You don’t have to have eggs in pasta! Even the pasta I get from the normal supermarket doesn’t have eggs. I just don’t see the point. One of the only things that makes it easier for us is that being a stay at home mother, I actually do have time to cook. Because, honestly, it seems to be the processed foods that really have to be avoided.

>I have actually been following your lead in not buying anything with factory-farmed eggs — for some reason I have found it easier to find entrees without eggs at places that serve virtually nothing without milk/butter.

Yeah, well just don’t go to Olive Garden for spaghetti. (Shaking my fist at the sky.) But yes, I agree that, especially in processed foods in the supermarket, it’s easier to dodge eggs than it is to dodge dairy. Even a lot of the breads have dairy whey and casein. It’s just entirely unnecessary.

>You’re so lucky there are so many Mennonite farms around you — California certainly doesn’t have anything like them, as far as I know. It’s too bad . . .

Yeah, but at the same time, California might be more accomodating to vegetarians and vegans, just in terms of ‘food culture’. And the thing is, even if we do eat some ‘better-farmed’ meat at home, that doesn’t help us when we eat *out*. In order to avoid factory-farming when eating out, you almost have to order things entirely vegan. And my suspicion is that ‘culturally’, that’s much more accepted on the West coast. Let me put it this way … you rarely hear of a Mennonite vegetarian, let alone a Mennonite vegan. However, the meat/dairy/eggs that they *do* use (on these older farms) is usually more humanely raised. Well that’s all well and good for eating at *home*, but eating out is a mess.

>Ooh, Natural by Nature sounds fantastic — it’s really a humane farm outlet?

What I mean is this …

Natural by Nature (NBN) is a cooperative group of small, predominantly Mennonite and Amish farms here in southeast PA. No hormones or antibiotics are used, the cows must be grass-fed and spend the non-winter months outside in the pasture, and they also scored very well at cornucopia.org, especially in terms of health and longetivity of their cows.
http://www.cornucopia.org/dairysurvey/FarmID_100.html

Well right down the road from me is a place called “Longacre’s Modern Dairy”. They’re part of the NBN group, they’ve been famous for their own homemade icecream for decades, and they are also one of NBN’s main bottlers/packagers. So they sell NBN products right there in a little outlet store. I can go to a local supermarket and buy a half gallon of NBN milk for $3.40, *or* I can drive ten miles down the road, and buy the same carton directly at the bottler’s outlet store, where the milk was bottled in the first place, and buy it for $2.95. They also sell NBN butter, sour cream, ricotta cheese, cream, whipped cream in cans, and I think cottage cheese too. All of it, cheaper than supermarket prices. It’s a ’selling-direct-to-the-public-outlet’ for all of NBN’s products. Well I drive near that outlet anyway, whenever I’m heading down to my mom’s house, so now I just drop in there and stock up on all of our dairy supplies on the way home. …. Seriously, just go and look at their profile on cornucopia.

>(By the way, I love those Endangered Species chocolates — don’t they have the best pictures on them? So pretty.)

Oh yes, they do. I love the one with the blueberries in it too. The only problem is, I can’t buy the milk chocolate because that milk might be factory farmed. If I knew their milk was at least organic, that would at least be a point in the right direction. But I’ve found no data to assure me that it is. On their site, they talk about the chocolate being “ethically or fairly traded”, but it says nothing about the source of their milk. I WISH I could at least find something stating that it was organic.

PearlA

December 12th, 2007 at 5:15 pm

Wait a minute. I just thought of something. Didn’t one of your readers (or was it you?) say that in France and Switzerland, dairy cows on pasture is the norm? Such that even without the fancy ‘organic’ labels, the dairy cows are allowed a more natural environment by pasture grazing?

If I’m remembering that correctly, then wouldn’t that make Swiss milk chocolate more ‘acceptable’ than other milk chocolates? I mean, when we’re talking about sourcing dairy ingredients? Lindt, I know, is Swiss. (It’s actually from one of the towns where many of the local Mennonites originated from, ironically.)

Do you think we extrapolate the comments on Swiss and French dairy practices, to the chocolate?

Emily

December 22nd, 2007 at 3:10 am

Ooh, I’ll have to try the health benefits angle of free-range foods on my mom! I had not thought of that. I didn’t realize grass-fed milk/eggs/meat all have better ratios of omega-3 fatty acids and saturated fats — I really should read up on that. Do you know of a good article/book that’s not too technical I could give my mom that would mention that sort of thing? Unfortunately my mom is a big meat-eater — she eats meat for almost every meal, and she once cooked me a vegetarian meal that had sausage in it — I’m still a little confused by that. I guess I could pick out the sausage, so she thought that made it vegetarian? That’s really nice your mom doesn’t eat much meat — both my parents are meat-at-every-meal types – it would be a LOT easier if they weren’t.

Ooh — I LOVE vegetable korma! It’s so good, isn’t it? It’s my favorite dish at my local Indian restaurant after paneer tikka masala — unfortunately the Indian restaurant I go to doesn’t use humane dairy products — I really should try making it for myself. Maggi brand, you say? I shall check that out

No, that’s really good you’re down 40% on the meat consumption — I mean, it’s definitely a kinder way to live, but it’s also far far healthier. Vegetables are the healthiest thing out there!

Well, I shall definitely stay away from the Olive Garden — I can’t believe an Italian themed restaurant would have everything with eggs. I mean, French food, I can totally see, but Italian? Half of Italian cuisine is vegan.

You know, you’d think northern California would have lots of vegetarian/vegan options, but I’ve had mixed luck. I suspect it’s better than in other parts of the country, but whenever I tell people here I’m a vegetarian/vegan they roll their eyes at me – there’s some vegan acceptance, but not much. Part of the problem, I think, is that San Francisco is a restaurant-oriented town – I’d say 75% of the economy can be attributed to restaurants alone – and restaurant-going is very popular and people don’t go out to restaurants to eat vegetarian/vegan food. I used to live in Santa Cruz, which was not consumed with restaurant-frenzy and is extremely leftist, and there were a lot more vegans – I miss that sometimes. I’d say in the San Francisco bay area, almost every restaurant will have at most one vegetarian option (which is probably not the case outside of California? I’m not sure), and it will be extremely boring. There may be a vegan option on the menu, and it will be either a side salad or a side order of toast. I’m kind of an adventurous eater, and that just drives me crazy. (That’s not to say there aren’t a few hippie vegetarian restaurants around here which are lovely, but there aren’t enough of them and then do tend to have mediocre food with a beansprout-and-brown-rice emphasis, so I have a hard time convincing my omnivore friends (and myself) to go to them. The exception is an excellent vegetarian restaurant called Greens, but it’s a little pricey to go to frequently, and the many Thai/Indian restaurants that abound, which always have fantastic vegetarian/vegan selections and are a lifesaver.)

Surprisingly, I’ve actually seen a much bigger acceptance in San Francisco of the humane-farming movement. There are far more humanely-raised meat dishes on every San Francisco menu than vegetarian options. Virtually every expensive restaurant and half the middle-priced ones now serves humanely-farmed meats. That’s how I first learned about humane farming – the restaurants I’d been going to suddenly started stating what farm their steaks came from on the menu, and I got to thinking about it, and decided to only eat humanely-raised meats from then on. There’s one (expensive) restaurant, Chez Panisse, that serves EVERYTHING humanely-raised/free-range – including dairy and eggs. It’s very uplifting!

Ooh, Longacre’s Modern Dairy sounds very nice . . .

Oh, right, I hadn’t even thought about the Endangered Species chocolates not having humane milk sources. Yikes. But I am THRILLED by the thought that Lindt milk chocolate is probably made from pasture-fed dairy cows — I do remember one of the commenters mentioning that French and Swiss cheeses are definitely not from factory-farmed dairy cows. Because I adore Lindt chocolate — it is really excellent chocolate — and I have two friends with Lindt addictions — it’s good to know they’re supporting humane chocolate. That’s fascinating that most Mennonites originated from the town Lindt chocolates come from — interesting . . .