Monday, September 5, 2011

Sure, I'll have some meat.






Give me a home where the buffalo roam: The Wingwich.


I'm working on the video entry from VVC, and because of the time involved, it will be a bit before it is posted. That won't stop me from talking about yummy food.

Hands down, the most inspiring part of the conference was listening to Colleen Patrick Goudreau's discussion on how important it is to be an ambassador of compassion. She preached the good news of taking back the words meat and milk. I remember reading about this in Veg News a while back and going, "Uh-huh!" while pumping my fist into the air.

So listen up, even though I'm a vegan I DO eat meat and I DO drink milk. Both are sourced from plants which are real living things, so there's no need to call it fake, faux, pseudo, et al. I think it is a disservice to veganism to call meat "fake" because it just reinforces the stereotype that vegan food is awful. The food I eat is delicious and real. I encourage you to look at some of the food on this blog. Just look at the shot of that buffalo sandwich at the top of the page. Does that look like an illusion? This is one of the many noshables you'll find in Celine and Tami's upcoming vegan sandwich cookbook. Shown above is the Wingwich, and a twist on the Reuben called the Rachel is shown below the text. Both were amazing to test, eat, and most of all--were REAL sandwiches.


The Rachel: like BBQ pulled pork? Like reubens? Why not have both?

Readers: what keeps you from trying vegan food? What would you like to see veganized?

Vegans: what meat kept you from attempting veganism/vegetarianism?

7 comments:

Lori said...

No meats kept me from trying vegetarianism or veganism. The hardest thing for me to replace, and it was actually the last thing I replaced before eating a vegan diet, was creamer for my coffee. I could not tolerate the soy creamers. It was Noelle from An Opera Singer in the Kitchen who suggested I try SO Delicious Coconut Milk Creamer. THAT did the trick. I don't miss meat at all.

Vagabonds Mercantile said...

You would think chicken would be the hold out but for me it was fish, because of my love for Sushi. Somehow in my silly mind I was able to separate fish from meat. I was finally able to let go of fish this year!

Anonymous said...

It wasn't very hard for me to not eat animal meat. Dairy products were harder - specifically cheese and coffee yogurt - but it's important enough to me that I not be supporting the dairy industry, that I was willing to give those up.

I don't think of meat as food, so I don't really like to call my food "meat" or "fake meat". I'd rather call it seitan or tofu or tempeh or beans or whatever it actually is. I call my milk "soy milk" or "coconut milk" or "almond milk" because all those kinds of milk are different, and I say "cow milk" or "goat milk" or "human milk" if I'm talking about milk from an animal.

Nicola said...

Giving up meat to go vegetarian was easy for me, it was the secret animal corpse bits that were difficult, in gravies and jellies etc.

Now that I'm vegan I'm finding it difficult to find suitable things to make my foods creamy, and cheese, oh cheese...the non dairy ones just don't quite cut it.

x

Anonymous said...

Colleen's comments about 'real meat and milk' totally took me by surprise! I never thought of it that way but I always hated the words faux and fake. Loved her class, and it was nice discussing gardening with you!

Lydia said...

What you say about the words meat and milk are true.. But I had never thought of it before! However, I typically don't say "fake ___ (meat product)," anyway, but I do say, for example, "soy hot dog" or "vegan cheese." It irks me when people refer to vegan things as "fake meat" or "fake milk."

Turkey was hardest for me to give up, though I ate it infrequently.

Bianca said...

I loved Colleen's speech too! Let's take back meat and milk!! Our meat and milk is better anyway.