I’m Not Vegan and Never Will Be August 26, 2009

**Not an entry for the vegans but could help your friends!**

I’ve heard this a million times. Ok, so you know about Sweet Utopia and are interested enough to check out the Sweet Utopia blog, but you have little interest in becoming a vegan. That’s ok. Let’s go step by step. Did you know that you can try…

-endless varieties of nondairy milk and veggie burgers

-veggie “chicken” patties

-veggie cold cuts

-nondairy cheese, cream cheese, butter and yogurt

-veggie hotdogs, “beef,”  “steak,” “ribs,” “chicken” nuggets, “wings,” “meatballs,” etc.

…just about any other animal based product in a vegan form?

It’s not at all like when I became a vegetarian at age 12. Back then, and I am aware this is dating me, we had one variety of thick, chalky soymilk, and for the lucky ones who knew about it or could get it, vegetarian but not vegan patties imported from Israel in the frozen Kosher section of certain supermarkets. That’s it. I was so lucky that my mother raised us on mostly vegetarian food anyway, and lots of Middle Eastern food, so pasta, humus and falafel it was.

Really! They make everything you can imagine now in a vegan version! Even marshmallows! (In case you didn’t know, they usually contain gelatin, from cow bones.) And even better, you can get the stuff all over the place now! Supermarkets, Target, Walmart, specialty or health food stores, and online. Yes, online, meaning that you can live anywhere and have all types of foods come right to your doorstep for a small delivery fee.

What I’m trying to say is, you are interested, you are curious, and you want to taste some things. Give it a shot. Actually, give it a lot of shots. With so many varieties out there, there are bound to be foods you really like. Some meat substitutes are so realistic that I can easily fool meat eaters with them (and have!). They can be so realistic that I won’t touch them. I even abandoned a gourmet “beef” dish at my favorite Asian vegan eatery because it was too realistic for my tastes and it grossed me out.

Try some stuff, pick a few things you like, and add them to your cooking or eating repertoire. Every little bit counts to help your health, the environment, and the animals. Little by little we can reduce our use of animal products.

The Dilemma: Soy vs. Rice Milk

I always go back and forth on this. My kids drink a TON of nondairy milk. And I use it a lot in cereal, recipes, etc. Both kinds of milk are accessible and comparable in price, though soymilk is much easier to get at the supermarket, Target, etc. Even Walmart carries Silk! Target now carries all varieties of Silk, and their own brand, Archer Farms, even has a new line. Theirs is also fortified with calcium, B12, D2 (the vegan sourced vitamin D), and it is organic and delicious. My son resists rice milk and won’t drink plain soymilk unless I spike it with chocolate syrup. He loves vanilla flavored milk, though (or because) it contains extra sugar. I always have a tinge of guild giving my kids nondairy milk, which is so important nutritionally, when I know they are also getting plenty of sugar along with it. The sugar makes the milk palatable, and kids always want something sweet. Whether you raise them on unsweetened milk or not, as soon as they can inform you that they prefer the sugared variety, they will.

Rice milk comes in different varieties. Some store brands sell a milk that is only brown rice syrup (a sweetener) with water and fortification. A good brand will be based on real brown rice, not just syrup.

Soy milk contains more protein and healthy fat than rice milk. It has a thicker mouth feel, which some people prefer over rice milk. It is more like animal-based milk than the thinner rice milk. There are so many other varieties of milk out there now too, like almond, oat, other grain or nut, and hemp. Hemp milk is also thicker, extremely healthy, but is expensive. The other varieties tend to run more money than soy or milk too.

When I buy soymilk, I am sure to only buy organic. Nonorganic soymilk could come from genetically modified soybeans or heavily-sprayed soybean crop, and you don’t want that.

Soy is active hormonally, and this concerns people. Do we want to potentially influence the hormonal development of our kids or ourselves? Is there enough of these estrogen-like substances in our nondairy milk to actually do so?

The decisions are very difficult to make, especially with evidence from studies pointing to the beneficial effects of soybean products on disease-resistance and healthier hearts. But with so many vegan products based on soy, it is something to keep in mind.

So for now, I will buy both types of milk and switch off for my kids.

Hello!

Thanks for reading my new blog! Previously I blogged on Yahoo…mainly about raising my vegan kids. It was a cool blog, but Yahoo deleted it with their file transfer! So here I go again. I will blog about vegan issues like becoming vegan, eating vegan food, recipes that I create, my new book “Sweet Utopia: Simply Stunning Vegan Desserts,” raising my vegan kids who are now 5 and 2, and much more.

About Sweet Utopia: This book was in the works since 2004! I have always loved to bake and eat sweets. The hardest part of veganism for me was dessert. I never enjoyed the vegan desserts I found so I created all of my own. Back then, it was challenging to find a publisher who thought vegan sweets had enough cache…eventually I found Book Publishing Company, but the entire process was lengthy. I created a book with Milan, who made all the desserts I created look heavenly, and he photographed them. I really hope you enjoy the book. I included as many options as I could in this volume. Each recipe is a product of my relentless experimentation and improvements. My goal was for everything to taste so good that you’d never think it was vegan! Taste it to believe it!

Please leave feedback! Thanks again!

Sharon

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