If we vegans get tired of talking protein, we can always switch the subject to iron. One of my favourite ways to ensure I get a good amount of iron is by drinking blackstrap molasses (stir a teaspoon or two into a cup of warm water).
This by-product of sugar cane processing is also packed full of other nutrients that are beneficial, no matter your diet of choice.
Check out some of these health-boosting benefits:
• As many a meat eater may tell you, animal meat is loaded with iron. What they likely won’t mention is that blackstrap molasses provides more iron for less calories and is totally fat-free.
• When you’re pregnant or menstruating your need for iron increases. Two teaspoons a day gives about 15 per cent of the daily recommended iron intake. Add raw green to your diet to really pump up your iron.
• Blackstrap molasses is a great source of calcium. Calcium is essential to life (and doesn’t come from cows milk as the marketing hype suggests). I recently heard that, besides strengthening bones, calcium binds and removes toxins from the colon and helps with prevention of migraine attacks.
• It’s also an excellent source of copper and manganese and a great source of potassium and magnesium.
My blackstrap molasses of choice is from Wholesome Sweeteners. It’s fair trade, organic and of course, vegan.
If drinking molasses isn’t your thing, check out these delish-looking gingerbread cakes from fab recipe site Vegan Yum Yum, just in time for Christmas. When I make my batch, I’m going to substitute crushed flax instead of the egg replacer. I’m also not into margarine, so will check out some more natural vegan alternatives.
Gingerbread Cakes
Makes 9 small layer cakes
2 Cups Flour
2 tsp Ginger
2 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1 Cup Molasses (unsulphured, like Grandma’s brand)
2/3 Cup Hot Water
1/2 Cup Earth Balance Margarine
1/2 Cup Sugar
1 Ener-g Egg, optional
Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting
8 oz Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese
1/4 Cup Earth Balance Margarine
1 lb Confectioner’s Sugar
2 tsp Vanilla Extract
Zest from 1 Lemon
Preheat oven to 350º F.
Mix the flour, ginger, cinnamon, salt, and baking soda in a large bowl until well combined.
Prepare two 8×8 baking pans as follows: grease the pans with margarine. Lay a square of parchment paper down in the inside of the pans, cut to fit the bottoms. Grease the paper as well. Use some of the try mixture you just made to flour the pans, shaking/tapping out any extra.
Whisk molasses and hot water together.
Cream the margarine and sugar. Whip the mixture with the optional Ener-g egg until light and fluffy.
It seems this is my week to write about actress Natalie Portman. Since penning the article about the protein myth and how being famous doesn’t make you an expert, I’ve noticed there’s a lot of debate about whether Nat is a vegan or vegetarian.
From here, I got to wondering why we vegans care so deeply about celebrity diet choices, particularly once they’ve mentioned they’re one of “us”. And why we want to let meat eaters know their diet choices aren’t optimal for their own health, the health of animals and the planet.
My reasoning came down to this: it’s because we have learned and lived what it means to be animal-flesh-and-product free. It’s like finding the buried treasure, the golden ring, the never-seen-before episodes of Seinfeld. It’s so damn exciting that we want to let the world know, wake up the sleepy and declare our new found clarity and meaning to anyone who’ll listen. And we also want celebrities on our side. They have a bigger reach, they can influence more people. People actually listen to them.
But I also believe the every day person (like little ol’ me) can reach millions too, through tolerance and understanding, but also more importantly leading by example. Everyday actions that come from a kind place add up to be big actions of positive influence. Look at Oprah. She took one step at a time, doing what she believed in while practicing tolerance and understanding. Her little steps added up to be a worldwide phenomenon. Her success, it seems to me, came out of a deep desire to help others and her willingness to let others see her faults. To show that she is human, just like you and me. Most of us vegans were meat eaters and dairy drinkers too at some point in our lives, unless, of course, we were lucky enough to have vegan parents ourselves.
So that’s just it. Just because I’m vegan doesn’t mean I’m right about everything, or have the answers to the world’s diet woes (although I’m certain I could guide and greatly help those who ask for it). And just because Natalie Portman is on her journey between vegetarianism and veganism doesn’t really matter either. It’s the kind actions we take, every day, that add up to make a big difference. If we all lead by positive example, who knows, eating animals could be a habit of the past sooner than we think.
But for the record, in Natalie’s words herself, and thanks to Jonathan Safran Foer’s book Eating Animals, she is indeed vegan.
I’ll admit I’ve been guilty of thinking certain celebrities know everything. As if they’re born with an inner knowing of the best way to do things; carrying with them buckets of life-enhancing advice, pouring it out to star-struck interviewers who pass on their golden words to beguiled fans.
But as I was watching Top Chef the other night, I was jolted out of my celebutastic faze when guest judge, vegetarian Natalie Portman, stared at a plate full of vegetables and remarked something along the lines of: “Where’s the protein? As a vegetarian I find it hard to get my protein and this dish doesn’t supply it.”
Say wha? Does the widely adored once-vegan not know that vegetables, especially the raw variety, are packed with enzymes, which are amino acids that contain protein? And that you can actually have too much of the stuff? That it’s just a big ol’ myth that those on a vege-based diet will never be golden protein children like our meat-eating pals? That man made protein powders are über bad for you? That protein is a word that has been over-hyped and over-sold by companies trying to make big bucks from us unsuspecting plant people? Apparently not.
While I still think Nat is a great role model for those considering a plant-based diet, I know that my favourite celebs, vegan, vegetarian or otherwise, aren’t always armed with the right or best info. It’s up to me to do my research, and not whip out to the shops to pick up the latest vegan-tastic product, that’s guaranteed to make me live longer and stronger, just because a movie star told me to.
Natalie searches for her protein
One of my big lessons over the past few years is never believe what you read in the mainstream media. Why? Because more often than not there’s an underlying reason why these outlets promote certain stories over others — and that reason usually boils down to cold hard cash. Give love to a particular industry or product and watch those advertising dollars flood in. Just check out any mainstream magazine and count how many big brand products appear in the editorial pages. Then count the ads from said company.
And what about those big old media conglomerates that feed us mere mortal readers with “facts” and “expert” opinions across newspapers, television and the Internet? Why do they get to decide what’s news or not? And why is 99 percent of it downright negative?
Case in point: this morning I woke to read an article from one of my favourite real news sites Natural News about how Amercia’s Associated Press have waged a war against alternative medicine in a series of stories, stating that “10 years and $2.5 billion of research have found no cures from alternative medicine”. Say what? I really don’t know where to begin with you, AP.
Here’s an excerpt from the Natural News story:
The AP, it seems, has decided to ally itself with pharmaceutical medicine and spend its time and money hiring writers who promote drugs and discredit anything natural. A recent story by Marchione, for example, claims that statin drugs help prevent swine flu! It’s quite clear that AP is following a specific agenda to destroy the reputation of natural medicine while boosting public perception of pharmaceuticals. And yet, in reality, it is Big Pharma that has delivered no cures. But the sick-care industry has delivered America into financial bankruptcy and helped our nation become the most diseased population in the history of human civilization. AP feels no need to report on that inconvenient truth. Rather, it sees its job as encouraging yet more pharmaceutical use in America while destroying the credibility of far safer and more effective natural therapies that could help turn around America’s health. The Associated Press is sadly misinformed about natural medicine, and yet their stories are syndicated across thousands of newspapers and millions of web pages each day.
What’s sad about this situation is that millions of people take the voice of mainstream media as gospel, without a second thought. I used to be one of them. Then I woke up. So, in light of mainstream media’s latest antics, I’ve compiled a list of top 5 tips to help stay mentally healthy, no newspaper subscription required.
Top 5 Tips for Staying Mentally Healthy
1. Turn off the evening news and cut off the daily newspaper subscription. If you must get your daily dose of mainstream news, look at it from an entertainment point of view. You’re the only one who can decide what’s news and what’s not;
2. Question any information you’re given. Just because someone is labelled as an expert, guru or has the word professor in front of their name, doesn’t mean what they say is true or right for you;
3. Put aside 20 minutes or so each day for meditation or quiet time. Clearing out mental clutter is a sure fire way to add clarity and greater purpose to your life;
4. Transition from a diet of animal flesh and animal-based products to a plant-based wholefood diet. Meat, dairy and anything else animal-derived not only pumps pesticides, parasites and disease into your body, it also creates a breeding ground for negative, foggy thinking. Raw organic wholefoods are packed with life-giving enzymes and all the nutrients a body needs (that includes protein);
5. Mainstream media may tell you to load up on the sunscreen and hide from the sun, but this is a recipe for a health disaster. Many sunblocks are laden with cancer-causing chemicals that bake right into the bloodstream through the body’s largest organ, the skin. Getting at least half an hour of sunshine every day is vital to good health and healthy thinking. The sun has been revered by cultures worldwide as a life-giver and isn’t the cancer-causer mainstream media has dubbed it to be.
Remember the food pyramid we were taught to memorise to ensure we got the right amounts of the right foods for good health? Well, as you may or may not know, that popular pin-up was influenced heavily by the dairy and meat industries. The goal of the chart was to generate big business, not optimal health.
But it’s not all bad news. Health Ranger Mike Adams has developed a guide that’s free from food industry corruption. It lists all the foods that will do a body good, and all those that will cause disease. It’s simple to navigate and it’s free to download.
One point worth mentioning is that the chart does list soy as a “good food”, which it’s not unless it’s fermented. You heard it right, tofu isn’t good for you, nor is soy milk. Most soy is genetically modified and, according to Dr Mercola, it stops the body from digesting protein. It also impairs thyroid function. Find out more about the evils of soy in the video below:
With articles out there like this one from Donna Fish at the Huffington Post, it’s really important vegans help to educate others about what it actually means to live meat, dairy and animal-product free.
With a headline of “Help! My Daughter’s a Vegan” only perpetuating the false belief that veganism is unhealthy and nutritionally lacking, the media is doing little-to-nothing to dig up the real health facts. What results is an empty, uninformative article that flippantly suggests a meat based diet is superior to a vegan one. This, in fact, as many vegans know, is untrue.
Rather than me bang on about how a healthy vegan diet can transform lives in so many positive, healthful ways, I think it’s best I turn to Olympic athlete Carl Lewis on the transformation he experienced when he became vegan.
“Can a world-class athlete get enough protein from a vegetarian diet to compete? I’ve found that a person does not need protein from meat to be a successful athlete. In fact, my best year of track competition was the first year I ate a vegan diet. Moreover, by continuing to eat a vegan diet, my weight is under control, I like the way I look. (I know that sounds vain, but all of us want to like the way we look.) I enjoy eating more, and I feel great. Here’s my story.”
“We’re trying to overcome the crunchy-granola reputation. Our image needs to be polished. People think that a vegan diet is a sacrifice, that it’s tasteless and unappealing. It’s not. They think you can’t get enough protein, calcium or iron. You can.” — Priscilla Feral, national president of Friends of Animals and author of The Best of Vegan Cooking. Priscilla was quoted in a story, Turn Over a New Leaf: Vegan Diets are Moving Solidly into Mainstream, on the Hartford Courant news site.
