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Vegans/vegetarians?

pillars said:
anything that tastes good. I like trying new things.
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Here’s a great general purpose Asian sauce ( Thai peanut sauce) Its great on rice noodles, pasta (cold or warm) or as a dipping sauce for raw or grilled veggies. I will often sauté any veggie I have in the fridge and make a complete meal with the rice noodles. The base sauce only has three ingredients and is super simple.

I-cup peanut butter
3-cups pineapple juice
2-tablespoons of sweet chili sauce.
Put into a blender and mix or whisk well.
The above is enough sauce for one pound of pasta or rice noodles.

This base sauce can be enhanced, I often use a little fish sauce or sesame oil, dried hot pepper or a dash of coconut milk. One important note: this sauce doesn’t do well if you heat it to much, it will thicken to much but warming it is fine. Cold Thai peanut noodles are very traditional and there are thousands of variations, this base version works for me because of the simplicity and I almost always have it in the fridge along with precooked rice noodles or pasta for a quick lunch or dinner.

This is also very budget friendly and very filling.
 
pillars said:
About a year ago, my son became a vegan and I became a vegetarian. It's been an adventure as it has required me to learn a whole new way of cooking.

This is the recipe we made last night, which was tasty!

Vegan Shepherd's Pie with Lentils and Mushrooms | VegKitchen.com

Any other vegans/vegetarians out there who are interested in sharing recipes?
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As a vegetarian you probably eat eggs and dairy so you are probably fine. Without B12 a human will go insane and die. There is no way to get B12 naturally without eating animal products.

There are some vitamins pills that are GMO B12 from bacteria. Apparently in the past there have been some problems with those.

My X-wife was a vegetarian and she had several friends who were vegans. The one exception they made was top quality vitamins supplements such as B and Omega 3 that were not 100% vegan.

Just a suggestion, do your research.
 
I haven't eaten beef or pork in over 30 years. I don't miss it. There is a killer vegetarian restaurant I go to all the time as well as Thai and Indian food places. Not hard to get a good meal without meat.
 
woodsman said:
I do pretty much the same once a week, typically on Wednesday. The usual meal on that night will be soup or a salad and a nice baguette.

You brought back some horrific meal memories with the traditional friday fish reference. My Mum couldn't cook very well and we would have the same canned tuna casserole each and every friday. My siblings and I considered this meal as penance for any possible sins we may have made during the week.

My Dad was always conveniently late coming home on Friday but he knew of our pain. I think it was the late 60s we got the ok to stop this practice other than lent to easter or if a holy day falls on a friday.

Funny, I eat fish once a week, take a guess which day, I was brainwashed and 50+ years later I still can’t eat canned tuna.
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i had to look it up; Friday meat restrictions were rescinded (other than during Lent) in 1966, so you have a good memory.

i was a kid in the 1980s, so we observed the meat restrictions for the most part only during Lent. i started doing that again about six or seven years ago. just kind of feels comfortable. during the rest of the year, it's sometimes Fridays, and sometimes not. today is my meat free day this week because it just kind of happened that way.

as for tuna casserole, tuna salad, and most things tuna, i have never really liked it. sort of odd, because i do like canned salmon, as long as it's served as a salmon patty.
 
pillars said:
I don't know if you are into Indian/Southeast Asian food, but my son, husband and I thought this soup was quite good:

https://www.budgetbytes.com/2017/02/golden-coconut-lentil-soup/


Golden Coconut Lentil Soup

INGREDIENTS
1 Tbsp olive oil (or coconut oil) $0.13
1 yellow onion $0.32
2 cloves garlic $0.16
1 inch fresh ginger (about 1 Tbsp grated) $0.13
1/2 Tbsp ground turmeric $0.15
Pinch red pepper flakes $0.02
2-3 carrots $0.33
1/2 lb red or yellow lentils (about 1 cup) $1.35
4 cups water $0.00
13.5 oz can coconut milk $0.99
1/2 Tbsp salt (or to taste) $0.05
TOPPINGS (OPTIONAL)
1/3 cup large, unsweetened coconut flakes $0.16
1/4 bunch cilantro $0.10
2 cups cooked jasmine rice $0.38

INSTRUCTIONS
Add the olive oil to a large pot. Dice the onion, mince the garlic, and grate or mince the ginger (I use a small-holed cheese grater). Sauté the onion, garlic, and ginger in the olive oil over medium heat for 2-3 minutes, or until the onions are soft and transparent. While the onions, garlic, and ginger are sautéing, peel and slice the carrots.

Add the turmeric and red pepper to the pot and sauté for a minute more. Add the carrots to the pot, sauté for a minute more, then add the lentils and water. Place a lid on the pot, bring it up to a boil over high heat, then turn the heat down to low and simmer for 20 minutes.

Toast the coconut flakes while the soup simmers. Add the coconut flakes to a dry skillet and place it over medium-low heat. Stir continuously as the flakes heat until they are about 50% golden brown (1-3 minutes). Remove the flakes from the hot skillet immediately to stop the toasting process.
After 20 minutes the lentils should be soft and broken down. Stir the coconut milk into the soup. Use an immersion blender or carefully blend the warm soup in small batches until about half of the soup is puréed (or all of it if you want it completely smooth). Once blended, begin adding salt, 1/2 tsp at a time, until the soup is properly seasoned. I used 1.5 tsp or 1/2 Tbsp of salt. Also adjust the red pepper flakes, if desired.

To serve the soup, ladle about 1.5 cups into a bowl and top with 1/2 cup cooked rice, some fresh cilantro leaves, and a sprinkle of toasted coconut flakes.


We skipped the coconut and added 1.5 cups of frozen peas. It was mellow, delicious, quick to prepare, and so pretty. Also, turmeric is very good for your digestive system.
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I rarely cook with coconut milk because it's so high cholesterol, but this looks good aside from the fact that it cries out for at least cumin and coriander powder.

I make a Punjabi variant of this dish that is really good, using split lentils, and onion/chili/tomato paste (blenders are awesome), but I also add Indian spices (red chili powder and/or paprika, garam masala powder, amchoor powder, and dried fenugreek leaves) and a load of mustard, turnip, collard, or similar greens. Then the usual garlic/ginger paste or minced, with tumeric tumeric as you fry the onions. Serve with It's pretty good.

I'm also going to try a Persian version of this dish, called "adasi." I've come to love lentils because they're so cheap, healthy, and tasty.
 
Vegan ~20 years. The important thing is beans, greens and nuts to cover essential amino acids every day; each covers a few and together they cover them all. Nori (sushi seaweed) and Cholora (another seaweed) provide B12 and a vitamin supplement. There is also speculation about the body synthesizing B12.

Anything fried in coconut oil then add coconut milk to make a thick sauce is awesome.
 
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FieldTheorist said:
I rarely cook with coconut milk because it's so high cholesterol, but this looks good aside from the fact that it cries out for at least cumin and coriander powder.

I make a Punjabi variant of this dish that is really good, using split lentils, and onion/chili/tomato paste (blenders are awesome), but I also add Indian spices (red chili powder and/or paprika, garam masala powder, amchoor powder, and dried fenugreek leaves) and a load of mustard, turnip, collard, or similar greens. Then the usual garlic/ginger paste or minced, with tumeric tumeric as you fry the onions. Serve with It's pretty good.

I'm also going to try a Persian version of this dish, called "adasi." I've come to love lentils because they're so cheap, healthy, and tasty.
Click to expand...

So, what I actually like about this recipe, because we eat a lot of highly spiced food, is that it's a really mellow recipe...just a bowl of comfort food. I actually crave it.
 
Helix said:
i had to look it up; Friday meat restrictions were rescinded (other than during Lent) in 1966, so you have a good memory.

i was a kid in the 1980s, so we observed the meat restrictions for the most part only during Lent. i started doing that again about six or seven years ago. just kind of feels comfortable. during the rest of the year, it's sometimes Fridays, and sometimes not. today is my meat free day this week because it just kind of happened that way.

as for tuna casserole, tuna salad, and most things tuna, i have never really liked it. sort of odd, because i do like canned salmon, as long as it's served as a salmon patty.
Click to expand...

I’m not sure what was more important, the Canon rules or real life, you wouldn’t want to be a family that didn’t follow them. Being the postcard Irish American family certain norms needed to be followed and the penance of fasting on Friday was one to be sure. My mother used to bless the Tuna casserole in the Irish tongue/Gaelic and thru dinner quiz us with the dialect.

I often think back to those days, meals other than celebrations weren’t meant for pleasure, they were just fuel to sustain you.
 
Not a vegan or vegetarian, but My wife has decided to observe "meatless Mondays", so some of the stuff in this thread may end up being attempted by us.
 
pillars said:
So, what I actually like about this recipe, because we eat a lot of highly spiced food, is that it's a really mellow recipe...just a bowl of comfort food. I actually crave it.
Click to expand...

Fair enough. There's a lowly spiced version of dal that the Parsi community in India eats, which is just butter, salt, tumeric, and split yellow peas (sometimes with a little cream and sugar) blended into a smooth dal soup. It's a nice almost French variation.
 
ecofarm said:
Vegan ~20 years. The important thing is beans, greens and nuts to cover essential amino acids every day; each covers a few and together they cover them all. Nori (sushi seaweed) and Cholora (another seaweed) provide B12 and a vitamin supplement. There is also speculation about the body synthesizing B12.

Anything fried in coconut oil then add coconut milk to make a thick sauce is awesome.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately Cholora and nori do not provide a form of B12 that can be utilized by human beings, and if it was absorbable, a human would have to consume about 14lbs of Cholera and/or nori daily to meet the needs of most human bodies. The B12 in Cholora and nori has an additional 3 molecules which block absorption. A quality vitamin supplement should do the trick. However, since we have no standardized measurements and enforcement of supplement contents, methods for determining appropriate B12 (and other nutrients) in supplements remains questionable. Cholecalciferol (Vitamin D3) and Docosahexaenoic Acid (DHA) can only be sourced from ungulates. Both are produced by the symbiotic gut bacteria carried by ungulates, not the ungulates themselves. The good news (for vegetarians but not vegans) is that consumption of very small amounts of fresh soft cheeses or whole milk, less than 2 ounces per week, can supply more than sufficient amounts of these amino acids. The relationship between these amino acids and pancreatic diseases, like pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer are not understood, but both, along with diabetes type II are common for both vegetarians, and particularly vegans. Steve Jobs was a vegan, and it is well known he suffered first from pancreatitis and later pancreatic cancer. Approximately 4 other amino acids found in ungulates and nowhere else have been isolated, but their effects on human health have not yet been determined. Pasteurization does not seem to effect the quality of these amino acids. There is no understanding of why, isolated people in terms of diet who have no exposure as groups to these amino acids, manage to avoid complications from their absence in their diets. Whether genetic mutations, for or against, other food combinations, lifestyle behaviors or other factors intervene is unknown. The problem with dietary food studies is that they isolate a particular substance for study with no accounting for the gestalt. As well, the unrealities of these studies are also no help. Give a mouse the equivalent of 100 cups of coffee per day, that mouse will die from a caffeine overdose. Likely, so will you or I, yet coffee is now recommended for its flavonoid and antioxidant content, even tho some antioxidants may not be beneficial, instead cumulatively toxic.

Other recent studies have shown coconut oil, currently popular in health food circles, isn't much better than butter. While diets rich in coconut oil show lower cholesterol (particularly LDL's) and Triglycerides than diets rich in butter, the differences are minimal. Keeping in mind that cholesterol is an essential building block of mammalian life, it may not be quite the villain it has been made out to be. And Triglycerides manufactured by the liver from excess blood sugars, may be much more dangerous than dietary Triglycerides. Triglycerides are also one of the lipids used by the body to store energy. For both cholesterol and Triglycerides, the real issue may be balance in the system. Here again food studies become suspect. This past summer a report claimed eating cheeses helped prevent atherosclerosis, heart attacks and strokes. The study was underwritten by the American Cheese Association of Wisconsin. :)

Here's a bit of good news, recent studies do show that vegetarians do enjoy a longer life span than meat eaters. However the benefit may be not from food choices so much as lower calorie diets. Vegetarians tend to enjoy lower calorie intake than us omnivores. The 316,600 or so centenarians around the world are all omnivores. Some of them are long term drinkers and smokers. That tells me, I don't know diddly. But if it tastes good to me, I'll likely eat it more than once.
 
OldFatGuy said:
Unfortunately Cholora and nori do not provide a form of B12 that can be utilized by human beings, and if it was absorbable, a human would have to consume about 14lbs of Cholera and/or nori daily to meet the needs of most human bodies. The B12 in Cholora and nori has an additional 3 molecules which block absorption. A quality vitamin supplement should do the trick. However, since we have no standardized measurements and enforcement of supplement contents, methods for determining appropriate B12 (and other nutrients) in supplements remains questionable. Cholecalciferol (Vitamin D3) and Docosahexaenoic Acid (DHA) can only be sourced from ungulates. Both are produced by the symbiotic gut bacteria carried by ungulates, not the ungulates themselves. The good news (for vegetarians but not vegans) is that consumption of very small amounts of fresh soft cheeses or whole milk, less than 2 ounces per week, can supply more than sufficient amounts of these amino acids. The relationship between these amino acids and pancreatic diseases, like pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer are not understood, but both, along with diabetes type II are common for both vegetarians, and particularly vegans. Steve Jobs was a vegan, and it is well known he suffered first from pancreatitis and later pancreatic cancer. Approximately 4 other amino acids found in ungulates and nowhere else have been isolated, but their effects on human health have not yet been determined. Pasteurization does not seem to effect the quality of these amino acids. There is no understanding of why, isolated people in terms of diet who have no exposure as groups to these amino acids, manage to avoid complications from their absence in their diets. Whether genetic mutations, for or against, other food combinations, lifestyle behaviors or other factors intervene is unknown. The problem with dietary food studies is that they isolate a particular substance for study with no accounting for the gestalt. As well, the unrealities of these studies are also no help. Give a mouse the equivalent of 100 cups of coffee per day, that mouse will die from a caffeine overdose. Likely, so will you or I, yet coffee is now recommended for its flavonoid and antioxidant content, even tho some antioxidants may not be beneficial, instead cumulatively toxic.

Other recent studies have shown coconut oil, currently popular in health food circles, isn't much better than butter. While diets rich in coconut oil show lower cholesterol (particularly LDL's) and Triglycerides than diets rich in butter, the differences are minimal. Keeping in mind that cholesterol is an essential building block of mammalian life, it may not be quite the villain it has been made out to be. And Triglycerides manufactured by the liver from excess blood sugars, may be much more dangerous than dietary Triglycerides. Triglycerides are also one of the lipids used by the body to store energy. For both cholesterol and Triglycerides, the real issue may be balance in the system. Here again food studies become suspect. This past summer a report claimed eating cheeses helped prevent atherosclerosis, heart attacks and strokes. The study was underwritten by the American Cheese Association of Wisconsin. :)

Here's a bit of good news, recent studies do show that vegetarians do enjoy a longer life span than meat eaters. However the benefit may be not from food choices so much as lower calorie diets. Vegetarians tend to enjoy lower calorie intake than us omnivores. The 316,600 or so centenarians around the world are all omnivores. Some of them are long term drinkers and smokers. That tells me, I don't know diddly. But if it tastes good to me, I'll likely eat it more than once.
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I believe the bioavailability of seaweed B12 is still up for debate, as well and the amount needed. I take a vitamin anyway. Your cautions seem well intentioned.
 
ecofarm said:
I believe the bioavailability of seaweed B12 is still up for debate, as well and the amount needed. I take a vitamin anyway. Your cautions seem well intentioned.
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I believe eating should be an adventure, but healthy eating is paramount. Now, if we could really know what healthy eating means?
 
OldFatGuy said:
I believe eating should be an adventure, but healthy eating is paramount. Now, if we could really know what healthy eating means?
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Healthy eating is about more than just myself. It's about ecologic and social impacts.
 
ecofarm said:
Healthy eating is about more than just myself. It's about ecologic and social impacts.
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Certainly parts of the picture, but not the definition of healthy nutrition that we all need.
 
ecofarm said:
Vegan ~20 years. The important thing is beans, greens and nuts to cover essential amino acids every day; each covers a few and together they cover them all. Nori (sushi seaweed) and Cholora (another seaweed) provide B12 and a vitamin supplement. There is also speculation about the body synthesizing B12.

Anything fried in coconut oil then add coconut milk to make a thick sauce is awesome.
Click to expand...

Coconut oil is fantastic
 
pillars said:
About a year ago, my son became a vegan and I became a vegetarian. It's been an adventure as it has required me to learn a whole new way of cooking.

This is the recipe we made last night, which was tasty!

Vegan Shepherd's Pie with Lentils and Mushrooms | VegKitchen.com

Any other vegans/vegetarians out there who are interested in sharing recipes?
Click to expand...


I'm a vegetarian and have a lot of recipes I'd enjoy swapping. Thanks for this one, which looks amazing.

I'll post some of mine later.
 
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