Chicken Nuggets are made with pink goo- fact or fiction?

Probably most of you by now have seen the picture of pick goo coming out of a silver machine claiming to be what chicken nuggets are made of.

(pause)...ahem...how to avoid writing this post without feeling nauseous?...not sure if it can be done.

Anyway, actual Chicken McNuggets are actually made with white meat just so you know.
I came across this lovely post concerning what is true and what is not about the "pink goo claim". I love how they ended with a video from Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution show - I highly recommend watching it (and other clips availabel from that show on YouTube.

Pies to make this weekend for Canadian Thanksgiving

I am hoping to make and take some dishes to Thanksgiving dinner at my in-laws. They still don’t know I am eating vegan, so the trick is to bring enough food with me that maybe they won’t notice I’m not eating any of theirs? I haven’t figured out any other dishes yet, but I have the following two pies in mind:

Pumpkin Pie Brownies (This one is by Isa Chandra Moskowitz – loooove her!)

Nutritious Vegan Apple Pie

Happy Vegan Anniversary to Me

Life has gotten away from me. The past few months have been the "busy season" for my business. As time wore on, you may have noticed that I blogged less and less, but I also went from regularly trying new recipes, learning new things, and making most foods at home, to becoming stagnant in my vegan knowledge base and becoming a very frequent visitor to the deli at my local Planet Organic store. I did mostly stick to vegan foods, and I definitely did not have any meat, but more often than I can keep track of while not at home I partook in the sampling of baking that I am sure couldn't have been vegan.

It is my five month anniversary today of the beginning of my vegan journey. I have learned so much and I am pretty confident that I will be eating this way for as far as I can forsee in the future. I am excited to continue on and experience all the learning and growing that lies ahead for me on this road.

American Dietetic Association Position on Vegetarianism

I picked up a copy of a 2010 issue of Vegetarian Journal, which is published in Baltimore, Maryland. This issue had enough vegan content to satisfy me. I am constantly being pleasantly surprised that the "vegetarian" magazines I pick up are often have more vegan friendly content than just being primarily vegetarian. My favorite section of this magazine is called Scientific Update: A review of recent scientific papers related to vegetarianism, as I never get tired of hearing about all the health benefits and good reasons to be vegan. One of the pieces talked about The American Dietetic Associations 2009 position on vegetarian diets. There was a link to the complete position paper at the bottom of the piece but It didn't seem to work, so I am just going to pass on the quote that they published, as it is pretty good on it's own. "...appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatments of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy,lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes."

What an excellent position! However, take note of the words "appropriately planned" and "well-planned" - so important that they had to mention it twice. A lazy vegan diet lacking in nutrients is not healthy and eating that way not only won't give you any health benefits, but if you are vegan because of moral issue, you are certainly not doing anything for "the cause" for the general public to see such a sickly representative.

Vega Shake and Go Smoothie Photo Contest Update

I thought I would let you all know that I won a prize in that photo contest I told you about in this previous post. My photo had enough votes to take 12th place and win me a year supply of Vega Shake and Go Smoothie. Hoorah!

Vegan Groceries Revisited

Something has been bugging me. I blogged yesterday about a website that listed some (mostly) processed foods that were vegan.

When you visit the homepage, you are greeted with a perky little write-up that begins with the following sentence. “Being vegan doesn't mean you have to eat wheatgrass and alfalfa sprouts.” My thought as I read this was, “Why wouldn’t you want to eat wheatgrass and alfalfa sprouts?” I am not saying I would want to eat these things all day every day, but they are two very healthy choices that would be a great addition to a healthy diet. I personally didn’t think a sandwich was quite complete without alfalfa sprouts long before I was vegan or had a relatively healthy diet.

Am I alone, or in the minority, of wanting foods that are as natural as possible, that are not made with chemicals, that are going to be the best for my body and let my body perform and function at its most optimal level? Yeppers, I am the first to admit that I sometimes many times want something that I absolutely know is not good for me. I will search the house on occasion to find that bag of chips or sugary something that someone else missed. I am, however, not going to put those kinds of things on my grocery lists or aspire to incorporate them into my diet on purpose. When I do indulge in those things I feel like I have let my body down and many times eating foods like that zaps some of my energy and happiness too.

Vegan Grocery Hunt

I found a pretty neat website ( I Can’t Believe It’s Vegan!” ) that lists foods that are vegan from an assortment of categories. It is nice, especially for beginning vegans, to have a place to look and find familiar foods that you know are going to not have animal products in them. It is also good for not-so-beginner vegans to just know a list of convenience foods that can be purchased when you are in a hurry (or for non-vegan husbands to pick up on their way home who do not know healthy food lingo). I post the link for those reasons. However, most of the foods are processed gunk, likely using or containing a really gross amount of chemicals, so please take the list with a grain of salt and make sure you don’t eat these foods too often.