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The Lazy Vegan:
Introduction: Who's a Lazy Vegan Then?
by Robert Allen and Martina Watts
Why a healthy diet based on our nutritional needs is
essential to our wellbeing: An A-Z of the foods we need to
eat, where they came from, how we use them today, what
their nutritional value is, how to grow them and recipes on
how to use them
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Foods to be kept in constant stock:
Beans:
Beans (tinned, dried and fresh):
haricot (aka baked) beans
blackeyed peas
chick peas
fava (broad) beans
soya beans
kidney beans
runner beans
peas
Bean sprouts
Soya curd (tofu)
Biochemical:
Calcium fluoride
Sodium chloride
Sodium sulphate
Silica
Condiments:
Black Strap Molasses
Fermented and pickled foods, especially
miso (soy and barley)
salted black beans
chinese cabbage
Organic vegetable stock
Peanut butter
Sauerkraut
Soya Sauce
Mushroom (Pearl River brand)
Thick (Pearl River brand)
Thin (Pearl River brand)
Japanese (any)
Yeast extract
Yoghurt
Fruit (dried and fresh):
Apple
Apricot
Banana
Chilli
Fig
Lemon
Orange
Peach
Pear
Pineapple
Prunes
Tomato (tinned, dried and fresh)
Grains:
Barley (including flakes as cereal)
Cracked wheat/bulgar
Oats (including flakes as cereal)
Polenta (dried maize/corn)
Rice (brown and white)
Rye
Wheat (including flakes as cereal)
Wheat germ (including as cereal)
Herbs (dried and fresh):
Angelica
Balm
Basil
Camomile
Chive
Comfrey
Cress
Echinacea
Lovage
Marjoram
Mint
Nettle
Oregano
Parsley
Rosemary
St John's Wort
Tarragon
Thyme
Legumes/Lentils/Peas:
Dal (lentils)
chana
toor
urid
Legumes
Peas
Liquids/Tissanes:
Balm (leaves)
Borage (leaves and flowers)
Camomile (flowers)
Nettle (young leaves)
Rosehip (fruit, including seeds, skin and pulp)
Sage (leaves)
Soya milk
St John's Wort (leaves and flowers)
[freshly made fruit juices]
[vegetable water, retained after boiling potatoes, etc]
Nuts:
Almond
Hazelnut
Walnut
Oils:
Olive
Sesame
Sunflower
Roots:
Arnica
Carrot
Dandelion (including dried, roasted and ground to make
coffee)
Garlic
Ginger
Horseradish
Onion
Potato
Shallot
Seeds:
Asafoetida (also a root)
Cardamon
Cinnamon
Clove
Coriander
Cumin
Fennel
Fenugreek
Mustard
Nutmeg
Peppercorns (black, green, red and white)
Pumpkin (including as cereal, and ground in bread)
Sesame
Tumeric (also a root)
Seed sprouts
Sunflower (including as cereal, and ground in bread)
Vegetables:
Brocolli (including sprouting brocolli)
Cabbage
Caulifower
Chard
Courgettes
Dandelion
Leek
Spinach (tinned and fresh)
Sea:
Carrageen (aka Irish moss)
Dulse/Dillisk
Kombu (aka Kelp)
Nori (aka Laver)
Wakame (aka Kelp)
Wild food:
Blackberries
Blueberries
Redberries
Cherries
Blackcurrants
Redcurrants
Whitecurrants
Damsons
Gooseberries
Hawthorn
Juniperberries
Loganberries
Mushrooms
Raspberries
Rosehip
Rowanberries
Strawberries
Other:
Breads
Noodles
Couscous
Pasta
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INTRODUCTION: WHO'S A LAZY VEGAN THEN?
Food grown organically is more nutritious than intensively
farmed produce because the soil it is grown in is richer in
nutritional content. Food taken from the garden or farm to
the kitchen and prepared to retain its mineral and vitamin
content is also more nutritional than produce bought in the
global supermarket after being carted half way round the
world. Bioregional organic produce - personal, communal or
industrial - sadly is a utopian dream for those of us who
advocate such a society.
In Britain, for example, at the end of the 20th century a
little more than two-thirds of organic produce was
imported. Even north America, which has had a healthy
organic gardening and farming tradition since the late 19th
century, has to import produce from Europe. Most of us live
in towns and cities where the green bits, especially in the
western world, are called parks or potential real estate.
House gardens of an appreciable size and allotments are few
and far between.
Even for those of us who have the means or the madness to
grow our own foodstuffs nothing less than a small cottage
industry would produce all the ingredients needed for a
proper vegan and vegetarian diet. To achieve that the
grower, naturally with an organic philosophy, would need
the appropriate climate to produce an abundance of the
necessary fruit and vegetables and legumes and herbs plus
edible roots and tubers and leaves and flowers. Knowledge
of the botanical sciences, herbalism and aromatherapy,
nutrition and natural medicine, plus the culinary arts of
the west and the east would also be essential.
This is the dilemma for the modern vegan. Personal
philosophy and politics dictate that foodstuffs should be
grown and processed locally. Reality and circumstance
dictate that foodstuffs, which have probably traveled
thousands of miles, are purchased in stores, supermarkets
or co-ops. This should not prevent the serious vegan from
attempting to grow some vegetables, a few spuds, start a
herb garden and use the local organic co-op (if you have
one and if not start one).
Depending where you live, reasonably priced organic fruit
and vegetables should be available locally. And no matter
where you live, you should be able to grow from organic
seed your own range of herbs - from basil to rosemary - in
your kitchen.
If you have an oven and even if you only have a two-ring
cooker you can make your own bread. It need not be yeast
bread, unleavened bread has sustained humanity for a very
long time. Flours made from grains, legumes and nuts are
available from both western and eastern stores. You might
be a lazy vegan but hopefully we can spark your imagination
and help you to create the diet for your personal
circumstances. And don't think for a moment we want to stop
you dreaming about that little personal utopia or communal
bulk-buying schemes or any other kind of communal activity.
For the produce you can't grow yourself or purchase
locally, depending where you live, you need to find out
what is available and then decide whether your conscience
will allow you to buy. Free-traded produce is now available
and in most instances is organic.
If you are fortunate enough to live in the fertile valleys
and plains and on the mountain slopes where the climate is
conducive to the growth of traditional vegan foodstuffs and
you already follow a vegan diet you probably don't need
this book either. But if you are now reading this book you
probably live in the cities of North America or western
Europe and it will be difficult for you to find the range
of foodstuffs you need for a nutritious vegan diet from
local sources.
Ideally we advocate bioregionalism and hopefully you can
find all the foodstuffs you need for a healthy vegan diet
locally. The recipes here are flexible to bioregional
solutions. Those of you familiar with vegan cuisine will
therefore not be surprised to see that the influences for
the recipes are mostly Asian, from the regions of the world
where fish and meat has always been scarce or taboo. Not
that we should be dying for protein in the form of animal
or marine flesh anyway.
The other major influence is that of the gatherer-hunter,
recipes and cooking methods that sustained humanity for a
long time. Students of history will know that the
migrations and wars that followed the melting of the ice
between 10,000 and 12,000 years ago were the consequence of
one simple action - the quest for food - as the human
population which then numbered only ten million began the
gradual and subtle split into two camps - nomads and
settlers. The peoples and tribes who settled in the eastern
lands around and beyond the Mediterranean and Caspian seas
and the Euphrates, Tigris, Nile, Oxus and Indus river
valleys and flood plains did so because the climate and
soil allowed them to gradually cultivate wild seeds and
roots. They started growing tubers like taro and yams and
then vegetables and fruit and herbs in a garden culture
while domesticating goats, pigs, ducks and dogs. Grains and
legumes followed as a field culture developed.
Howwever this is not the place for a debate about the
beginnings of agriculture and civilization and the change
from the hunter-gatherer way of life that had sustained
humankind, in all its previous forms, for three and a half
million years. It might be the place, however, where we
tweak your vegan sensibilities and make you realise that a
gatherer-hunter diet is more beneficial than a strict vegan
diet. Such a diet would include a small amount of fish,
poultry and eggs. Strict vegans among you will excuse this
heresy.
The foodstuffs that make up the ingredients for the recipes
in this book are readily available and reasonably priced in
stores, largely run by peoples from the Asian and Indian
continents, in the major towns and cities of North America
and western Europe. These stores, which provide cereals,
grains, legumes, pulses, nuts, herbs, spices and
vegetables, exist essentially to sell foodstuffs which have
been crucial elements of the human diet for millennia.
Although not as nutritious as the ancient grains, legumes
and pulses which grew wild on hills and low mountain
slopes, the variety of modern species from Asia and India
offer the 21st century vegan a rich choice of foodstuffs -
especially if they are organically grown. The discerning
vegan will find in some of these stores wild varieties of
wheat, barley, lentils, chickpeas and peas that still grow
in Iran, Palestine and Syria.
The problem with western veganism and vegetarianism is its
profile. Most vegan and vegetarian cafes and restaurants
prepare meat-free versions of traditional meat dishes -
vegan sausages, vegan roasts, vegan burgers, vegetarian
lasagna, vegetarian chili, vegetarian pie. Sausages -
whether they are called chorizos, frankfurters or salamis -
are a very old meat food, often cured for long storage,
made with various meats, usually pork, and often with a
combination of blood and oats or spices. Roasts are chunks
of meat, and burgers, well let's not get into a discussion
about burgers and the clearing of rain forests and the
waste of arable land for cattle fodder and heart attacks.
No let's leave that one. Let's also forget about making
lasagna, chili con carni and shepherds pie without meat.
Sausages made from tofu and vegetable fat are not sausages.
Roasts made with lentils and soy mince and nuts are not
roasts. The same goes for lasagnas, chilies and pies made
with soy.
Vegetable soybeans are used as a substitute for meat
because they are high in protein, as well as the B
vitamins, but in the western world they are used in a
manner that is absurdly alien to the people who have been
cultivating this versatile legume for millennia. Indigenous
to tropical Asia, soybeans weren't introduced to the west
until the middle of the 19th century and are now grown
extensively in the US where the majority of the crop is
used in many processed foods, but we're getting away from
our argument here - and that is simply soy beans in their
multifarious forms do not make a vegan diet.
Neither do lentils and nuts. And there's more to the range
of vegetables than broccoli and spinach. Okay so broccoli
sprouts kill cancer cells and young spinach leaves are rich
in minerals and vitamins but the benefits of raw foods do
not begin and end with broccoli, spinach, the odd soybean
sprout and a mouthful of rocket. The vegan diet is not all
about museli and brown rice and rabbit food! Personally we
like the odd young dandelion leaf (well a good handful) and
dandelion roots make a delicious tisane that is good for
the kidney, but we digress.
Many vegan and vegetarian recipes are variations of meat
dishes because too many chefs and cookery writers have been
taught to cook by chefs who are obsessed with the Latin
culinary tradition - one that is rich in meat and dairy
produce. Add to this the number of amateur veggie chefs,
clever veggie cookery writers and well meaning
nutritionists who can't cook never mind write. This is a
contributory factor to the reasons why vegan and vegetarian
food has a bad name. Many vegan and vegetarian dishes are
either meat-free adaptations of popular dishes or legume
and grain-heavy platters. The result is a hotch potch of
menus and recipes that produce mostly tasteless, stodgy
messes a domestic animal would turn its nose up at.
But this is all nonsense you say, food is food and anyway
vegan food is highly nutritious whether it is a nut roast
or a mess of legumes and vegetables or a burger made from
soy flour!
There are a number of books that focus on raw foodism,
veganism, vegetarianism and their relationship to biology,
nutrition and animal rights. Some of these books are very
good and the recipes are fun to make.
We are offering up The Lazy Vegan to you because we believe
vegans and vegetarians, being just as busy as everyone
else, need a guide to produce simple meals and food using
local and easily available produce - foodstuffs that
provide the body with its necessary biological and
nutritional requirements, whether for dietary or personal
political reasons. This is a problem for young vegans and
vegetarians, and people who suffer allergic reactions to
certain foodstuffs or who need to avoid foods for specific
health reasons. It is not easy being vegan in the western
world, especially if you live on a meager income or have
the misfortune to be among the millions who commute into
large cities to earn that meager income. It's a little
easier if you are vegetarian and don't mind mayonnaise on
your cheese and rocket salad bagels or like Margarita
pizzas. If you're a vegan or have a special diet the high
street, the bus or railway station, and the airport can
often be unforgiving places.
So this book should help you
plan your diet, prepare foodstuffs and cook nutritional
meals that you can eat at home and take away with you. All
it needs is a little bit of organization and a spare Sunday
or evening in each week. This book will also explain why it
is important to furnish a vegan/vegetarian kitchen with
utensils that are low on energy but high on heat retention,
why a raw food diet is more beneficial than any other and
why it is necessary to learn the basics of nutrition and
organic gardening to start with.
For many veganism is not just a choice. It is daily life.
Many are taken off meat and dairy products by their doctor
or nutritionist for health reasons. Saturated fats (found
predominantly in meat, dairy, palm and coconut) influence
inflammatory process and can have a profound effect on our
immune systems. To avoid damage, we need to include in our
diets essential fatty acids and natural vitamins and
minerals.
Human beings are voracious and rarely satisfied. We tend to
overeat. Food affects mood which in turn determines what
and how often we eat. Our food choices are often not ideal
and may lead to feelings of guilt, sluggishness and make us
angry, aggressive or dissatisfied. Vegans need to watch out
for excess carbohydrates, simple sugars and processed foods
lacking in fibre and protein which can upset blood sugar
and lead to health problems.
Yet all a vegan or vegetarian needs for a healthy diet is a
burst of creativity and a rough understanding of the
ecological sciences. Sadly young vegans/vegetarians and
many of the older variety do not take a holistic approach
to their diet, do not attempt to learn why they must plan
and prepare the food they eat. This is understandable. We
all live fast lives and processed foods - meat and
non-meat, dairy and non-dairy, which are usually
carbohydrate-rich - dominate our daily routines. If we do
not eat we lack energy and we instinctively know that
carbohydrates and meat are quick hunger fixes. There are
many people who are vegetarian who are not necessarily
environmentalists. Vegans, generally, tend to be concerned
with animal welfare but not all are. Parents, usually, are
neither.
But you don't have to be an eco-warrior or a hippy
to care about the foodstuffs you put into your body. Rice,
wheat, maize (corn), potato and soy are the staple
carbohydrate-rich foodstuffs for the majority of the six
billion people who inhabit the planet - rice feeding almost
two thirds of the human population.
It has been that way
since the beginnings of civilization. According to Wenke,
"all civilizations have been based on the cultivation of
one or more of just six plant species: wheat, barley,
millet, rice, maize and potatoes". In the poorer countries
one, two at the most, of these staples is all they have to
choose from but they try as hard as they can to supplement
their diets with oils and nuts and seeds and roots and
leaves and extracts and ferments, and as we have noted food
from the sea (the great oceans have always been humankind's
favored source of food) - because these people know hunger
and the effects of malnutrition. Conversely in the richer
countries, where all these staples are available as well as
an abundance of red meat, poultry and fish, the health of
the general population - particularly in some parts of
north America and western Europe - is getting worse as more
and more people become overweight and obese.
The irony here
is that our ancestors, even in recent times of migrations
and wars, had a more variable diet than we do. Domesticated
food has almost totally replaced wild food in our diets and
this is to our detriment.
Shepard, in Nature and Madness,
attributes malnutrition a major role in our declining
mental and physical health. "It is widely observed that
domesticated varieties of fruits and vegetables differ from
their wild ancestors in carbohydrate/protein/fat ratios as
well as vitamin and mineral content." Wild wheat, for
example, is 24 percent protein compared to 12 percent for
domesticated wheat. Humans are, by nature, omnivorous. The
hunter/gatherer, noted Shepard, "ate dozens of kinds of
flesh (including invertebrates - insects) and scores of
kinds of roots, nuts, vegetables and leaves."
In his
research on civilization and nutrition Zerzan observed that
"the world's population now depends for most of its
subsistence on only about 20 genera of plants" while our
hunter/gatherer ancestors choose from 1500 species. The
vegan and vegetarian diet is also a rich harvest, even
without flesh of any kind. It is based on more than
cereals, grains, legumes and salads. It is a gatherer
activity. Herbs, nuts, roots, seeds and fruit have a
significant role to play in the vegan diet. Once the vegan
understands this, the quest for foodstuffs and
nutritionally rich meals will become an instinctual habit.
Humans need between 40 and 50 nutrients for good health.
Many of these are available in meat of one kind of another.
If you don't want to or can't eat meat you must find these
nutrients from other sources and that is the point of this
book. The Lazy Vegan is merely a pointer in the right
direction. The rest is up to you.
- – Robert Allen and Martina Watts
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The above is an extract from the book The Lazy Vegan, publication date TBA
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