Mexican Horchata

Horchata is a traditional rice drink first developed in Spain and modified in Mexico. This is a delicious, sweet drink that has been around for thousands of years and is best served cold. Plan ahead when making it, as it requires some advanced preparation (the rice needs to soak overnight).

Ingredients

1 cup long-grain rice

Hot water

4 cups non-dairy milk

1/4-1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Ice for serving

Place the rice in a bowl and add enough hot water to cover the rice completely. Let cool, and then place the rice in the refrigerator and let it sit overnight.

The next day, drain the water from the rice. (The rice will still have some crunch/texture; it will not be completely soft, but it’s fine.)

Place 1/2 cup of the rice, and 2 cups of the non-dairy milk in a blender, and blend until the rice is all ground up. Add the rest of the rice and milk, and blend for another minute. Finally, add the sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon, and blend until the rice is all ground up and the ingredients are completely combined.

Strain through cheesecloth, a fine sieve, or a small strainer, and serve over ice.

Yield: 5-6 cups

Food Lore

In Spain, Horchata or Horchata de Chufas is made from chufas (tiger nuts), water and sugar. Originally from Valencia, it is served ice cold as a refreshment. In Central American and Mexican cuisine, Horchata is a rice-based beverage served at home and in restaurants. (Some restaurants do add cow’s milk to their Horchata, so ask before ordering.)

This recipe is included in my new cookbook, The Joy of Vegan Baking: Compassionate Cooks’ Traditional Treats and Sinful Sweets, due out in October 2007.

People often refer to non-dairy milks, such as soy and rice, as "alternatives to" or "substitutes for" cow’s milk, and the dairy industry scathingly calls them "imitation milks." By definition, the words "alternative" and "substitute" imply that the thing they are being measured against is the superior choice; that is, you choose the "substitute" when you can’t get the real thing, and so on.

However, I don’t like the use of these terms when referring to non-animal-based foods for a number of reasons. By all calculations, meat, dairy, and eggs are superior in no way – not in terms of health, not in terms of taste, and certainly not in terms of ethics. And if we step back for a moment, we’d see that animal foods are actually the alternatives to plant foods, and we’d remember that cow’s milk is actually a substitute for human milk.

ANIMAL PRODUCTS REPLACE PLANT FOODS

When animals were first herded and domesticated for human consumption, about 9,000-10,000 years ago, they essentially became the alternatives to plant foods. Plant foods were the foundation of the human diet for a long, long time - long before people started domesticating non-human animals. (READ: Plant foods were the foundation. I’m not saying humans didn’t eat "meat" at all.) Fast forward thousands of years to our own "modern" culture. With millions of dollars, the animal exploitation industries convinced people they need to consume the flesh and secretions of animals, and fruits, vegetables, beans, mushrooms, nuts, seeds, herbs, and spices were pushed off to the sidelines and sold as garnish, and meat, dairy, and eggs, with their powerful lobbies on Capitol Hill, enjoyed government support, subsidies, and protection.

Thanks to the dairy industry, whose government-sponsored advertisements pose as public service announcements, humans are continually sold the idea that we need cows’ milk to be healthy. This stuff is sold as if it contains some magical formula designed just for human bodies. The truth is it is a perfect formula, designed just for growing babies — bovine babies, that is.

HERDING ANIMALS - DUPING HUMANS

Cattle are herd animals, which means they are easy to control because they move together and stay together. In other words, "cattle" meet certain requirements that make it easy for humans to contain them. Let’s not kid ourselves into believing that humans struck nutritional gold when they started drinking cows’ milk. Cows’ milk — just like soda — is a commercial product that is sold to the public by the dairy industry that has billions of dollars behind it in advertising and enjoys government protection from false advertising laws.* Whether it’s cow’s milk, goat’s milk, sheep’s milk, buffalo’s milk, rat’s milk, or dog’s milk, it is totally unnecessary for human survival and health.

Not only are we the only animal that drinks another animal’s milk, we are the only animal that drinks it into adulthood. All female mammals produce milk for the same reason: to feed and nourish their offspring. At a certain age, depending on the mammal, the infant is able to move onto solid food and is weaned off of the mother’s milk — every mammal, that is, except humans.

Despite the fact that humans don’t continue drinking human milk after being weaned, we’re told we have to drink cows’ milk. And despite the fact that calves naturally stop drinking cows’ milk after they’re weaned, humans have been duped into believing that they must drink it as adults. Our own physiology supports the cessation of milk-drinking in that - at about time time when we should be weaned off of breast milk - our bodies stop producing lactase, the enzyme that enables us to digest lactose, the sugar that’s in mammalian milk. One of the reasons the majority of the world population suffers from lactose intolerance is because we’re not able to digest it. Drinking milk - human or otherwise - into adulthood makes absolutely no sense, but it makes really good business and very good money.

TAKING BACK THE WORD

The dairy industry has made attempts to own the word "milk" and stop non-dairy milk companies from using the word; they loathe the use of the word "milk" in any other context outside of that which refers to the stuff they take from cows and sell to humans. (Perhaps they would prefer human women to say "breast beverage" instead of "breast milk.") Besides referring to the fluid that a female produces when she is lactating, the word "milk" also refers to the liquid extracted from various plants, whether they are nuts, grains, seeds, or fruits. Many of these milks have been around for thousands of years in different parts of the world. The milk from these plants are hardly "alternatives." Rather, they stand on their own as delicious and much healthier choices for human consumption.

SOY
Soy milk originated in China, a region where the soybean was native and used as food long before the existence of written records. Later on, the soybean and soybean foods were transplanted to Japan. Soy milk is reputed to have been discovered and developed in the Han Dynasty in China about 164 B.C. Cow’s milk is definitely the "alternative" to soy milk, particularly in the East. Sadly and ironically, however, the consuption of cow’s milk now exceeds that of soy milk in Japan. The advertising arms of the North American dairy industry reach far and wide.

RICE
If you’ve ever been to a traditional Mexican restaurant, you’ve had the pleasure of imbibing Horchata, a delicious sweet beverage made primarily of rice, sugar, and cinnamon – and often almonds. The Mexican Horchata is based on the Spanish Horchata de Chufa, which was traditionally made from a grassy plant called the Chufa or tiger nut and has its origin in ancient Egypt and Sudan.

NUT
Almond milk – by far my favorite! – was used widely in the Middle Ages in regions stretching from the Iberian Peninsula to East Asia. It was prized for its high protein content and its ability to keep better than milk from animals, which soured if it wasn’t used right away. Milk derived from other nuts also has a long history, including that of walnut, cashews, peanuts, macadamia, and hazelnuts.

COCONUT
The milk of the young coconut is referred to as coconut water or coconut juice and is absolutely delicious and drunk as a beverage. It’s been a popular drink in the tropics since the discovery of the coconut palm tree! (Early Sanskrit writings reveal that the people of India were using coconuts as a staple for food.) It’s naturally fat-free and low in calories with high nutrition content. (Coconut milk is the thick sweet, milky white substance derived from the meat of a mature coconut and is often used for cooking and not for drinking.)

FOLLOWING THE COWS’ LEAD

The bottom line is we have no nutritional requirement for the milk of another animal. Though we have nutritional requirements for nutrients such as calcium, we can do what the cows do and get our minerals from the green leafy stuff that grows in the ground. That news, however, hasn’t quite made its way to our living rooms and classrooms. The kale growers don’t seem to have the money for multi-million-dollar ad campaigns (got kale?); the chard lobby has yet to be formed; and the broccoli farmers just haven’t gotten around to producing glossy marketing materials (I mean - "educational" materials) for young children in school to compete with those that the dairy industry have been supplying to teachers for decades. Get them while they’re young, and you’ve got them for life.

Though humans have been drinking the milk of animals for thousands of years, there is enough evidence now to support the detrimental effects it has on our bodies. Just because we’re in the habit of doing something doesn’t mean we should continue. Just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should.

(*The California Milk Advisory Board was sued by animal advocates and organizations for falsely representing the condition and treatment of dairy cows in the state. Because the California Milk Advistory Board is the marketing arm of the California Department of Agriculture and thus a government agency, it is exempt from false-advertising laws. The case was thrown out, but not before the judge acknowledged that California cows "probably aren’t happy and that if the ads implying that they were happy had been made by a private individual, false-advertising laws might apply.")

*Listen to my podcast episode on my favorite non-dairy milks

If we’ve heard it once, we’ve heard a thousand times: Eat Your Vegetables! From the day we moved onto solid foods until we moved out of the house, we heard this culinary command at least three times a day. Yet at some point, we tuned it out.

A new study American Journal of Preventive Medicine confirms this: Americans are eating fewer vegetables than ever. Researchers evaluated data from two large national health surveys and reviewed how many people ate three or more servings of vegetables a day. (French fries counted!).

In the first survey, 35% met the goal; in the second survey, 10 years later: 32%. So, why are we ignoring the most consistent message of our childhood? I have a few ideas.

In the many years I have been teaching vegan cooking classes, I have discovered that so few of my students know what to do with a head of broccoli or a bunch of kale. Many don’t know why white rice is white or that vegetables contain protein (38% of the total calories in asparagus, for instance, is protein). Most of us were raised on a meat-centered diet, where vegetables played a minor role and either came from a can, were boiled to death, or were drowned in cream sauces and butter. It’s no wonder we didn’t get hooked on veggies.

We’re also ridiculous creatures of habit, and as the researchers discovered, most people demonstrate very little diversity when choosing vegetables. Here’s a secret: when I switched to a plant-based diet, I actually found more options. With meat, dairy, and eggs out of the way, a world of plant foods opened up. There is an inaccurate assumption that a plant-based diet is limiting, and vegans are often asked – in exacerbated tones – “What do you eat?” The implication is that non-vegetarians eat a huge variety of foods, but in truth, most of us rotate the same dishes over and over - and over again.

We tend to look in one direction when it comes to how, what, and who we eat. We order the same things in the same restaurants, we prepare the same meals at home, and we rarely use those spices that are collecting dust on those cute little spice racks hanging on our kitchen walls. We're often completely unaware of what's even in the other direction. That's one of the reasons the transition to a plant-based diet can be daunting and exciting at the same time: an entire world of new foods, cuisines, ingredients, menu items, and recipes open up that weren't in view before. People often feel overwhelmed by the process, but that's what's so exciting about it: the options are endless.

I've seen so many people discover how much more expansive a plant-based diet is than an animal-based one, as they realilze that animal-based products continually displaced plant foods in their daily meals. They discover that every time they chose meat, dairy, or eggs, they were not choosing healthful plant foods.

In the many years I've been doing the work of empowering people to make informed food choices and debunking myths about veganism, I have had the pleasure and privilege of witnessing thousands of people change their diets, change their minds, and change their lives. And as I guide them through this process of transformation, I remind them that as we begin to make new food choices, not only do our options expand but our palates (as do our perceptions and minds) change as well. When we get heavy, fat-laden, processed products out of our diets and replace them with healthful, whole vegetables, fruits, mushrooms, nuts, seeds, grains, herbs, and spices, our palates become resensitized to taste and we begin to crave the things we never thought we would.

Here are a few other tips and tricks I give to my students and podcast listeners about incorporating more plant foods into their diets:

1. Shop by color. (Ketchup doesn’t count!) The health-promoting antioxidants are in the colors of plant foods.

2. Add diversity. Try a new vegetable from the farmer’s market each week.

3. Buy a steamer basket. Steaming veggies is a healthful age-old method of cooking vegetables.

4. Make vegetable-rich stews. Add a can of beans (rinsed and drained) and a veggie bouillon cube.

5. Prep in advance. If we chop up vegetables before storing them in the fridge, we’re more inclined to eat them. Take 10 minutes to chop when you arrive home from the market.

6. Prioritize. We all complain about how we’re too busy to cook, but I wonder: if we don’t have just 15-30 minutes a day to nourish our bodies and create healthful meals for our families, then perhaps we need to re-structure our priorities.

7. Re-sensitize your palate. Our palates may need some time to become re-sensitized to less fat and salt. Remember: it takes 3 weeks to change a habit. Just stay committed and trust that a process is taking place.

8. Keep essentials on hand, including various vinegars, tamari soy sauce, dried herbs, dried spices, fresh herbs, garlic bulbs, fresh ginger root, lemons. Simple ingredients are all you need for delicious vegetable preparation.

9. Increase pounds. Aim for a pound of raw and a pound of fresh vegetables every day; even if you fall short, you’ll be way ahead of the curve.

10. Be reasonable. Though fresh is always best, frozen vegetables (and sometimes canned) are better than no vegetables at all.

Finally, call your mother and give her the opportunity to say “I told you so.”

(Visit Compassionate Cooks' website for resources and recipes on healthful eating.)

Like tuna salad? Then you'll love Colleen's Better-than-Tuna salad: all the taste, without the fish.As much as we don't like to admit it, much of what we do on a daily basis is out of habit, including the way we eat and the food choices we make. They may be borne out of familial, cultural, social, personal traditions, but they're habits nonetheless. At the notion of "giving up" cheese or stopping eating chickens or fish, people balk, "I could never give it up. Don't take away my cheese. I love fish too much." As a vegan cooking instructor, I've heard 'em all.

I've also seen thousands of people change their diets from one based on animals to one based on plants, and the transition they experience winds up being a lot easier than even they anticipated. Whatever you want to say about how humans eat, the fact is we're not true carnivores. We don't crave flesh the way a lion does: we have neither the strength, claws, teeth, or desire to take down our prey with our bare hands, and we wouldn't die without meat, as would a true carnivore.

The truth is whereas we don't crave the flesh of an animal, we do crave texture. We crave flavor. We crave fat. We crave salt. We also crave satisfaction and familiarity, bringing an entire emotional history to the table when we sit down to eat. When someone says "I tried to eat vegetarian, but I just craved meat," I tell them with confidence that it wasn't meat they were craving. It may have been salt, it may have been fat, it may have been calories, but it most certainly was not the flesh of an animal. Anyone who's ever lived with a true carnivore (i.e. a domestic cat) knows how a carnivore reacts when he spots his prey: teeth chatter, tail flickers, mouth waters. If this happens to you when you spot a bird in your yard or a steer grazing peacefully on the hillside, frankly, I don't want to know.

When we embrace the endless plant options available to us, we recognize a world of foods we didn't even see before. Though we may experience a transition as we let go of certain habits, we can also anticipate the excitement and joy of reshaping old traditions and creating new ones. There's nothing wrong with seeking out familiar-tasting and familiar-looking dishes that we may have enjoyed in the past, because it is the texture and familiarity we still have a right to enjoy.

This "Better Than Tuna Salad" is an example of a dish that provides familiarity and gustatory pleasure without the ethical, environmental, and health concerns associated with eating aquatic animals.

Better-than-Tuna Salad
Serves 4-6, depending on serving style: sandwiches or side dish

1 can organic garbanzo beans/chick peas, drained and rinsed
1/2 cup (or more) eggless mayonnaise (Wildwood’s Garlic Aioli, Nayonnaise, or Vegenaise are great options)
1 red bell pepper, finely chopped
3 scallions (white and light green parts), finely chopped
2 carrots, finely chopped
2 stalks celery, finely chopped
1-2 tablespoons fresh parsley, finely chopped
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped (optional)
1 tablespoon prepared mustard
1/2 teaspoon sea salt or to taste
Black pepper, to taste

DIRECTIONS

1. Add the chick peas to a food processor or blender and grind them down into small pieces. You can even grind them down so it becomes somewhat like a thick puree. The ultimate texture is up to you. Grinding the beans is optional, but I find that it’s easier to eat it as a sandwich this way; plus, it really does resemble tuna in taste and texture when the beans are ground up. It's best if you use the "pulse" button on your food processor so you can control the ultimate texture of the beans.

2. In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients and mix well. Season with salt, pepper, and the amount of aioli/eggless mayonnaise you desire.

Serving Suggestions:

*Wonderful as a sandwich filling on a hard roll or stuffed in a pita
*Serve on crackers as an appetizer or party dish
*Serve as a side salad – great for picnics and BBQs!

Variation Suggestions:

*Of course you may also use beans made from scratch, as opposed to canned beans.
*Use cubed, steamed tempeh for a “Better Than Chicken Salad."
*Use potatoes for a tasty potato salad.
*Use mashed extra firm tofu for an “eggless egg” salad.
*The walnuts are optional, but they add a really nice texture.
*You may sprinkle some kelp flakes in as well, to really add to the “fishy” flavor.

Copyright © 2007 Compassionate Cooks, LLC – All rights reserved - More recipes, resources, and information can be found at Compassionate Cooks' website.

According to the USDA's annual statistics survey, 10 billion animals are killed for human consumption every year in the United States. (Worldwide, I believe it’s 45 billion.) However, it is more accurate to say that “10 billion land animals are killed for human consumption every year"; otherwise, we’re disregarding the billions of aquatic animals killed for the same purpose – to satisfy human appetites. Although the number of aquatic animals killed for consumption in the United States goes unreported, annual estimates are more than 17 billion in the U.S. alone, and sport fishing and angling kills another 245 million animals annually. So, basically, we’re talking about over 27 billion animals – both land and aquatic – being killed every year in the U.S. so humans can eat them. We’re not talking about human survival – we’re talking about appetite. And these numbers don’t count the millions of aquatic animals killed every year as incidental catch.

Incidental catch, or "by-catch," refers to unintended or unwanted animals caught by the fishing industry. It is estimated that by-catch-related mortality is causing population declines in 13 out of the 44 species of marine mammals that are suffering high death rates from human activities. Commercial fishers use a number of techniques for ensnaring animals, from setting miles of line and baited hooks (called longlines) to catch animals such as sharks, swordfish, and tuna, to using large nets to catch schools of fish. These large nets are towed underwater by what are called trawlers. A trawler is a fishing vessel designed for the purpose of operating a trawl, a type of fishing net that is dragged along the bottom of the sea (or sometimes just above the bottom at a specified depth).

UNEARTHING THE OCEAN FLOOR
A single pass of a trawl removes up to 20% of the seafloor fauna and flora - legally. And the fisheries with the highest levels of by-catch are shrimp fisheries: 80%-90% of a catch may consist of marine species other than the shrimp being targeted. 80%-90% of the animals caught in these nets that are targeting shrimp and prawns are actually non-target animals – they’re by-catch.

Shrimp are bottom-dwellers, which is why trawling nets are used to – remove them from the ocean. Since even jumbo shrimp are really small, the nets used to catch the shrimp are very fine, which means these nets scoop up all the animals – all the life – found on the ocean’s floor. According to a 2003 U.S. News and World Report article on fishing and its detrimental affects on the oceans of the world, every pound of shrimp that’s caught results in the killing of ten pounds of other marine life. According to the Worldwide Fund for Nature, in the Gulf of Thailand it can be 14 pounds of by-catch per pound of shrimp.

Now, a lot of the dead by-catch is made up of tiny animals that people don’t have emotional attachments to; that is, they may not be as cute as baby seals or dolphins, but they contribute to the oceans’ biodiversity and they have a right to be there – to live.

The other thing to consider is that the dredging along the ocean floor also breaks up coral and the habitats of bottom-dwellers. And because the same areas are dredged again and again, it’s not like these habitats and inhabitants have time to recover before being destroyed again. Fish populations, communities, and ecosystems are being destroyed so humans can eat shrimp cocktail.

The animals termed as by-catch are often discarded back into the ocean already dead or dying. Many are half-alive and die slow, unnecessary deaths. Trawl nets in general, and shrimp trawls in particular where the discard may be 90% of the catch, have been identified as sources of mortality for many species of concern, including endangered animals and cetaceans, such as whales, dolphins and porpoises. Sea turtles, already endangered, have been killed by the thousands in shrimp trawl nets.

It's hard to get exact number, but another way to put this is that anywhere between 6.8 million and 27 million tons of fish could be being discarded each year. We may be looking at the one fish on our plate or the 5 shrimp in our seafood salad, but countless numbers of animals were dredged up and killed for the individuals we see on our own plates.

CETACEANS (WHALES, DOLPHINS, PORPOISES)
I've been focusing primarily about the by-catch caused by trawling nets and shrimp nets, but there are other commercial fishing methods that also result in by-catch. Nets tend to kill cetaceans (dolphins, porpoises and whales), and longline fishing kills birds, for instance. As for the first group, an estimated 300,000 cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) die as by-catch each year, because they are unable to escape when caught in nets. We may not think cod fish are particularly cute, but most people get pretty emotional about whales, dolphins, and porpoises. If we don’t consider the cod, perhaps we can consider the animals for whom we do have sympathy.

SHARKS - THE TRUE VICTIMS IN THE HUMAN-FISH RELATIONSHIP
In the case of the shark by-catch in the tuna industry, "data for Pacific longline tuna fisheries are limited, but available data indicate that shark catches are often as high as tuna catches and more than 50 species of sharks and fish are captured as by-catch in West Pacific tuna longline fisheries." (Incidentally, in defense of sharks, it has been estimated that a staggering 100 million sharks are caught every year, have their dorsal fins cut off - to serve in soup, and are thrown back into the ocean to die a slow death.

SEABIRDS - MANY ON THE BRINK OF EXTINCTION
As I mentioned earlier, seabirds are also inevitable "by-catch" victims, as they dive for the bait planted on long fishing lines, swallow the bait along with the hook, and are pulled under the water where they drown. Around 100,000 albatrosses are killed by longline fisheries every year, particularly where tuna are fished, and because of this, many species are facing extinction. This is very prevalent in the waters off Chile, where sea bass is aggressively hunted by boats towing fifty-mile longlines.

According to the Pew Oceans Commission, Patagonian toothfish long-liners killed around 265,000 seabirds between 1996 and 1999; in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands, where the total breeding population of the black-footed albatross is 120,000 birds, annual fishing-related mortalities of 1,000 and 2,000 birds are significant; and longline fisheries in the U.S., including the Pacific cod fishery kills some 9,400 to 20,200 seabirds every year.

In subsequent posts, I'll address the dolphins, sea turtles, seals, and other marine mammals who are also written off as "collateral damage." Look forward to more on the un-sustainability of farm-raising fish, on the evidence of fish intelligence, and much more related to our pursuit of gustatory pleasure. Check out my previous post for the reasons to obtain Omega-3 fatty acids from plant sources rather than fish (hint: the fish obtain these fats from plant sources, too!)

Humans have no nutritional requirement for the flesh or secretions of other animals. Like the non-human animals we eat, we can go straight to the source - to the plants - for all the nutrients we need to survive and thrive.

In my 15+ years of animal and vegetarian/vegan advocacy, I have answered countless questions – some smart, some thoughtful, some antagonistic, some ridiculous, and some over and over and over. Some people seem to think that by virtue of being vegan you hold degrees in nutrition, philosophy, anthropology, animal husbandry, ecology, and the culinary arts and often proceed to cross-examine you on each of these topics. Every vegan or vegetarian has been on the receiving end of someone trying to find a flaw with your lifestyle choice, and it can be exhausting at times.

Luckily for me, I love communicating - through talking (just ask my husband), writing (is anybody reading this?), and other means - and I never get tired of expressing the joy that comes from living a life that reflects compassion, kindness, and non-violence toward others. I am amazed, however, at the questions that arise in people once they encounter a “vegan.” Questions are great; don't get me wrong. But, it's as if people don't start thinking about health, nutrition, and animal rights until someone says the word "vegan” or even “vegetarian."

Despite the very real health concerns associated with the human consumption of animal fat, animal protein, and animal's milk, how many of us express genuine concern for our friends, coworkers, and family members as we watch them eat this stuff several times a day? How many of us have asked fellow meat-eaters where they're getting their fiber, complex carbohydrates, magnesium, potassium, folate, vitamin A, phytochemicals, and antioxidants, such as vitamin C and vitamin E — nutrients that people are truly deficient in. These nutrient deficiencies are not because people are eating too many vegetables; it's because they're not eating enough!

As a group, vegans tend to eat more vegetables than non-vegetarians. Yes, there are some junk-food vegans, but that doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with veganism in and of itself; rather it’s a comment on the fact that whether you’re a non-vegetarian or a vegan, there are healthy and unhealthy habits within the entire spectrum. But the general perception that nutrient deficiencies exist in a plant-based diet and not in a meat-based is not only false, it completely ignores the fact that Americans are simply in the worse health they’ve ever been. The population of vegetarians in North America is under 5%, so when we read the studies about increasing rates of heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, etc., we’re reading about non-vegetarians – not vegans.

This is not to say that every vegan is in superior health to every non-vegetarian, but I do think it would behoove us all to shift our criticism of plant-based diets to the problems with our daily consumption of meat, dairy, and eggs. Of course, everyone should be concerned about getting proper nutrition, but we’ve become so obsessed with single nutrients that we make it all much more complicated than it needs to be. We’ve also been bombarded by slick, expensive marketing campaigns by those who have the most to gain by our consumption of animal flesh and secretions that we’ve lost sight of the fact that the nutrients we need are actually plant- (or bacteria-) based.

Let’s take a look at calcium, as an example. The dairy industry has convinced the public that in order to obtain and absorb calcium, we need to drink cow’s milk. (Goat’s and sheep’s milk are growing trends and touted as health food, and if you go to other places of the world, camel’s milk is considered manna from the gods. And it’s true – if you’re a baby camel.)

Calcium is a mineral found in the ground. While it’s true that cow’s milk contains a lot of calcium, it’s because cows eat grass. Grass – like all green-leafy plants, such as kale, chard, collard greens, mustard greens, and beet greens – contain high amounts of calcium. However, since most dairy cows are raised on dry lots and not given grass to graze on, their feed is supplemented with calcium. Their feed is supplemented to provide the calcium they’re not consuming, the females are continually impregnated in order to keep her lactating (her pregnancy is as long as that of a human), her babies are taken away and either killed immediately (if they’re male) or killed a few years later after a life of servitude (if they’re female) – all so humans can drink this “calcium-rich” fluid meant only to nourish the mammal’s offspring. Ethical concerns aside, just from a resource perspective alone, this is an incredibly wasteful process.

Not only do grown cattle stop drinking the milk of their mothers, humans also stop drinking human milk after they’re weaned and thriving on solid foods. In fact, there have been countless comedy sketches about how repulsed adult humans are at the notion of drinking human breast milk. If the marketing campaign for such milk were as large as that for the cow’s milk industry, perhaps things would be different. Humans have absolutely no nutritional requirement to drink the milk of another animal – whether that animal be hoofed or clawed; in fact, the link between cow’s milk and many preventable Western diseases, including diabetes and certain types of cancer is indisputable, such that we are actually harming ourselves with this seemingly innocuous secretion.

Humans do, however, have a nutritional requirement for calcium, but – in the case of Americans, at least, — though we drink more cow’s milk than any other nation, the average diet contains 40-50% of the recommended daily allowance. The best way to consume calcium is to go straight to the source, just like the cows do: to those dark green leafy vegetable I named above, as well as broccoli, beans, and seeds. It is the absence of calcium-rich plant foods as well as the presence of calcium-leeching animal protein in people’s diets that lead to such low calcium levels.

Another nutrient we obsess over is Omega 3 fatty acid, and most people identify fish as the primary source of this essential fat. Fish oil supplements are flying off the shelves, and people are eating more fish than ever. Aside from the considerations of the fish themselves and the fact that people are eating too man Omega 6 fatty acids from processed foods, there are definitely health concerns over the human consumption of these aquatic animals, not to mention the environmental concerns over how they’re “raised” or caught. Nearly all fish and shellfish contain traces of methylmercury, a toxin that’s poisonous to the brain and central nervous system. No fish is completely free of mercury and other pollutants, and the “fattier” and larger fish just absorb more of them. Like mercury, other pollutants, including PCBs, accumulate in fish and in the body tissues of people who eat fish regularly. These pollutants can remain in your body for decades, creating a higher risk of serious diseases, including cancer.

Though we would never drink polluted water, fish – where the toxins are the most concentrated – is one of the most polluted things we eat. In terms of Omega 3s, it’s true that the flesh of salmon contains high amounts of such Omega 3s as EPA and DHA, but it’s only because they’re eating the plants that contain these fats. Like the cows consuming the calcium from plants, fish eat phytoplankton and algae – the plant foods that contain these fats. Whereas you have the mercury contamination in the wild-caught salmon, you have an absence of Omega 3 fatty acids in farm-raised salmon, as well as a number of other considerations that have to do with “raising” animals in confinement. The bottom line is if the fish don’t get Omega 3s, the person eating the fish doesn’t get Omega 3s. Killing animals to get the nutrients that are contained by plants in the first place is – as in the case of dairy – unnecessary (and thus cruel) as well as terribly inefficient and wasteful.

In this case, too, we can cut out the middle man and go right to the source. Flax seeds are the most concentrated source of Omega 3 fatty acids, and they don’t contain mercury. They’re healthful, beautiful, easy to digest, and relatively inexpensive in terms of the bang you get for your buck. Buy the seeds whole in the bulk section of your natural foods store (brown or golden), and use a coffee grinder to grind them. When they’re whole, they can be stored in the cupboard, but once they’re ground, they need to be stored in the fridge or freezer. Stick them in a container, and add two teaspoons a day to your morning smoothie, oatmeal, cereal, salad, or soup. (Incidentally, if you don’t grind them before eating, you’ll find what an effective laxative they are.) Walnuts, hemp seeds, and chia seeds are also high in Omega 3s, or you can go straight to a DHA supplement.

Finally, it’s worth mentioning B12, since that’s often another nutrient people point out to demonstrate that humans need to eat animals to survive. It’s true that B12 is found primarily in meat and eggs, but this vitamin doesn’t occur in the flesh of living animals, so why is it so prevalent in meat and eggs? The reason is that B12 grows on bacteria. It’s not an animal-derived nutrient; it’s a bacteria-derived nutrient. There tends to be B12 on meat, because meat is – how shall I say this? – the flesh of once-living animals. I’m being tactful here; forensics experts on your favorite medical show say it more plainly than that.

Though we all used to consume some B12 from the ground when we ate our vegetables and thus ate some soil, we now scrub our veggies clean because we’re (justifiably) concerned about pesticides and toxins. We’re also depleting our soil of nutrients, decreasing the chances even more that we’ll consume B12 the old-fashioned way – through the soil. It’s important to note that B12 deficiency is present in vegans and non-vegans, alike, so we should all make it a priority to ensure we’re taking it regularly. Because of all of these factors, the best way to ensure we get B12 is to just take it as a supplement; it’s found in most multivitamins, and many cereals are fortified with it.

The point here is to demonstrate that far from being deficient in essential nutrients, plant-based diets are actually brimming with them. It’s simply inaccurate to say that we need to consume animals and their secretions to survive and thrive. Rather, we need essential nutrients, all of which exist in and are available to us through plants. The bottom line: your mom was right. Eat your vegetables!

Steamed Kale with Tahini Dressing

It’s safe to say that kale is the most nutrient-dense food on the planet. This calcium-rich vegetable is enhanced by the calcium-rich tahini, a paste/butter made from sesame seeds. Serves 2

Ingredients
1 bunch kale (curly, dinosaur, or Lacinato)
½ cup tahini
¼ cup (more or less) water
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon Bragg Liquid Aminos (or tamari soy sauce)
1 large pitted medjool date, chopped or 2 deglet noor dates
1-2 garlic cloves, chopped

Directions
Wash the kale well by submerging it in clean water a couple of times. Use a sharp knife to cut out the ribs of the kale and coarsely chop the leaves. Prepare the tahini dressing by blending all the dressing ingredients together. You can make it thicker and use it as a sandwich spread or thinner to use as a sauce, as with the kale. Pour over the kale, and enjoy!

Asparagus and Carrots with Walnut Dressing

You can use this dressing with other steamed vegetables (broccoli, kale, etc.), but I really love it with asparagus and carrots. It’s very simple but absolutely delicious and full of Omega-3-rich walnuts. Serves 4

Ingredients - Vegetables
10 asparagus spears, with thick ends removed
4 carrots, peeled and finely sliced into 1-inch matchsticks
1-2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

Ingredients – Dressing
¼-½ cup walnuts
2 teaspoons white/light miso or 1 teaspoon red miso
2 tablespoons mirin
2 teaspoons tamari soy sauce
2 tablespoons white wine
2 tablespoons rice vinegar or any white vinegar

Directions

1. Steam the asparagus and carrots for 5-7 minutes, until softer but still crispy. Squeeze the lemon juice over the cooked veggies, and set aside.

2. Using a food processor, blend together the walnuts, miso, mirin, tamari, white wine, and rice vinegar.

3. In a large bowl, mix the carrots and asparagus with the dressing, and arrange on a serving plate.

What is Mirin?

Mirin is a kind of rice wine similar to sake, but with a lower alcohol content. It has a slightly sweet taste and is a common ingredient in teriyaki sauce.

More recipes can be found in our online cookbook.