2023 Vegan Storecupboard Challenge

leftatthetrafficlights

Last night I made a big batch of roasted veg, some chargrilled sweet potato slices and hm tofu with a mirin, tamari and chilli sauce.

It was the first hm tofu using lemon juice as a coagulant and although it was softer than the tofu made with nigari, it absorbed the flavours much better - dh absolutely loved it and it's certainly going to be my preferred way of making it going forwards, especially as it works out cheaper and lemon juice is much more accessible than nigari! 

Brie

Annoyed that having prepped everything for my Bro to do a stir fry he forgot to put the bean sprouts in!  And I love bean sprouts!!!  Still he did a great job with everything else and there was lots of left overs which are now bubbling on the stove for soup.

Krakkkers

Can i ask a genuine question of Vegans? I understand vegans won't use products of animals including honey or wool, so things that do not involve actual harm to the animal but a conversation with a friend recently made me think as they asked about guide dogs, what is the vegan position on guide dogs?

tooldle

Cauliflower, leek and thyme gratin for us last night. Leftovers for this evening

tooldle

Krakkkers said:

Can i ask a genuine question of Vegans? I understand vegans won't use products of animals including honey or wool, so things that do not involve actual harm to the animal but a conversation with a friend recently made me think as they asked about guide dogs, what is the vegan position on guide dogs?

This from an opinion piece on the Vegan Society https://www.vegansociety.com/news/blog/veganism-and-companion-animals

leftatthetrafficlights

@Krakkkers - it's an interesting question which I'm happy to give my opinion on.

The pertinent part of the article that @tooldle directed you to (just in case you can't access it) is as follows:

What about guide dogs?
The ownership of guide dogs and service dogs for the disabled forms a controversial topic in the vegan community. The definition of veganism is a way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose.

Therefore, it may be impractical – or impossible – for an individual to live without a service dog at the current time. In the future, we can hope to see more forms of animal-free help for disabled individuals, including human companions.

Personally, I don't agree with guide dogs - I spent years working for a sight-loss charity and being very involved with guide dogs and they have a pretty crappy life in my opinion. A couple of my colleagues who had sight-loss and were vegan felt the same and chose not to have a dog, as did a few of my non-vegan colleagues with sight-loss.

I hope that helps!

I would like to address the idea/belief that wool and honey don't harm the animal though as this is a frequent misunderstanding!

In the UK, it is predominantly sheep who are exploited for their wool. At least a third of it comes from lambs who have been killed for meat and the rest is taken from breeding ewes. ‘Lambswool’ which either comes from lambs slaughtered for meat or from the first shearing of a lamb kept for breeding – is considered softer and therefore more desirable for clothing than the wool of older sheep. The UK farms 106 different breeds of sheep and depending on the breed’s characteristics, they are farmed in three different ways: hill, upland and lowland. All sheep breeds eventually end up being killed for meat. All males (except those kept for breeding) and lowland females under the age of one are killed for lamb, and when older ewes (female sheep) stop producing as much wool or their fertility drops, they are killed for cheap meat.

Conventional beekeepers aim to harvest the maximum amount of honey, with high honey yields being viewed as a mark of success. When farmers remove honey from a hive, they replace it with a sugar substitute which is significantly worse for the bees’ health as it lacks the essential micro-nutrients of honey. In conventional beekeeping, honey bees are specifically bred to increase productivity. This selective breeding narrows the population gene pool and increases susceptibility to disease and large-scale die-offs. Diseases are also caused by importing different species of bees for use in hives. These diseases are then spread to the thousands of other pollinators we and other animals rely on, disputing the common myth that honey production is good for our environment.

The honey industry, like many other commercial industries, is profit-driven where the welfare of the bees is often secondary to commercial gain. Mass breeding of honeybees affects the populations of other competing nectar-foraging insects, including other bees. Overwhelmed by the ever-inflating quantities of farmed bees, the numbers of native bumblebees have declined.

Krakkkers

Interesting and complicated stuff, didn't know about the lambs wool things.
Living in rural Lincolnshire i had always assumed the (adult) sheep were pretty happy to get rid of there fleeces in the summer.
The was a woman on the Joe Rogan podcast talking about bee colonies which was fascinating.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zr2yeYkysk0

leftatthetrafficlights

We harvested the last of the summer veg yesterday so dinner was a rocket and grape salad, mixed grains and scarlett runner beans with baby courgettes in a dijon sauce 

KajiKita

leftatthetrafficlights said:

We harvested the last of the summer veg yesterday so dinner was a rocket and grape salad, mixed grains and scarlett runner beans with baby courgettes in a dijon sauce 

Ah, I was wondering what the flavouring would be 😊
How did you make the Dijon sauce? A white sauce base with just Dijon mustard or something a bit more?

KK

leftatthetrafficlights

Just stock and dijon mustard 😁