Vegan Food and other Bloody things..

I've been thinking that I should make some interesting vegan food for myself, as I am the only one who eats vegan food everyday in my home.

I have had the thought of doing..

Vegan Soy Mince Shepherds Pie

Using ingredients such as, soy mince - it is supermarket available in Australia, is in a see through plastic resealable bag, has a dry crumbly texture, and you soak it in hot water for about 5 mins to fluff it into a chewy edible texture of soy mince.

Mashed potatoes. Self explanatory. I have a bag of the organic variety and am finding good recipes and thinking of them myself to use up the potatoes this winter, in nice, warm, filling meals.

Frozen peas. the essential pie ingredient! And easy!

And vegan gravy, also available in the supermarket in the health food section or aisle, the size depends upon the health food eaters of your area.

The pie crust is a wheat free, dairy free one, that is frozen form. It was also bought from the supermarket, in the small part where the frozen goods are for vegans, or vegetarians.



Seeing as there is very little out there for vegans in the takeaway places, chips don't even get a mention as there is not enough in just a potato chip to sustain energy or provide enough nutrients. Discounting most middle eastern places with their cheap snacks of falafel balls, but the difference in quality and taste really varies, especially when it tastes a bit like they have fried it in pig fat or something else animal based!! The protein level is not negotiable for vegans! It must be in forms that are of substance beyond a few mashed chickpeas in falafel balls. The need for separate to meat and dairy using kitchens and entirely unique take away and eating out places that are vegan only is great. You'd be surprised who actually is a vegan these days. I talked to a man whilst waiting for the bus home, last year who was on a vegan diet for health reasons. He had a high cholesterol level and other physical problems.

I have tried being vegan for about a year the first time I tried it. Mostly. The protein and B12 requirements are not that hard to fulfill. I take a Vit B supplement everyday with breakie that has B12 in it. The B12 is vital for vegans because vegetarians, depending upon their choices still get B12 from certain diet sources that vegans have decided not to eat. The biggest amount of B12's source is of course meat. Which to me is spiritually wrong, ethically wrong, not ecologically responsible, and also of questionable farming practices. Such as using antibiotics on the animals to try to quick fix health instead of giving something like garlic in the feed, which is well known with horse feeding. The hooves of the cows impact upon the land, and also the cows in their many thousands on ranches the size of tens of thousands of acres, all producing the stuff from their behinds that contributes to the ill effect of the ozone layer and the greenhouse effect.

The treatment of cows is another matter, they are stamped with branding irons, forced to stand in cattle trucks, transported with huge amounts of fuel. Stressed out systems and lives. The spiritual aspect is because of my sensitivity to the animal as an anda, an energy being. Anda is a term for spirit in a Nordic language - from the Scandinavian area of the world. How can I live with myself or with a disrespected spirit body after eating an animal? To me it is like eating a pet animal and that is wrong.

When I travel in China or any place where they eat tofu and soy beans, I will be safe in the knowledge of what I am eating. A travel book I was reading at the library that I didn't take home as I just flicked through, was recommending that, whilst in India it was best to become vegetarian because they did not refrigerate the meat that was being sold and it had flies nearby and was uncovered. I think it is fine to expect some flies, and vegetables and lentils and chickpeas and such certainly also are an easier option, although the Ghee is offputting to me as I would have to cook with something, and that may be all they have, maybe peanut oil, I don't really know. But to eat from an Indian restaurant would not be done unless the person assured me it was not ghee they cooked with and the chances of that would be very slim in India I would imagine.

It is much easier to be a vegan in Australia where I live, not out somewhere in the bush with nothing else but bush tucker and a small shop selling tinned food, maybe live on baked beans unless they were of the cheese or ham variety. Now that would be interesting to try vegan wild fooding it..maybe I should once I get to a stable health level. How appropriate for me as a horse year to need to be at a stable level! As a Libran I am also all about finding balance. Especially when I get dizzy spells! Ha!

Thats just from my low blood pressure which began to happen a few years ago.. in 2002, I actually was a meat eater, and eating anything when I had the worst blood flow problems. I got up in the middle of the night, walked through the dark kitchen and lounge, began to see multitudes of tiny stars, hearing fizzy sounds.. lost my balance, just fell over backwards, just like that. That happened a few times.

My blood circulation is really poor, really weak, so I am going the path of chilli and garlic eating to try to rescue the flow to bring it up to a better level. When I don't have cold extremeties, hands and feet of ice everyday all the time, then I will know I can trust that my level is there again. For the low blod pressure I am using liquid chlorophyll in juice every day. I could drink that up to 3 times a day if I wanted to, maybe if I was at the bp 58 top numbers, point like before in 2006, when I was constantly dizzy.

Apparently you're in a coma when you reach 50, so I keep nudging death level when and if I ever get that low again. Just gotta do my breathing and do things that make me breathe. I am very delicate at the moment and it takes a lot of nothing and then a little of something to overbalance me again. Yet I am in the delicate stages of what I know to be something new and healthier each day! To push myself to run about ten metres is over my limit..I would pass out probably. I tried it the other day, running up the long driveway to get the bus that stops outside the top of the driveway. Being the country there is one bus each hour. I missed it, but luckily mum was going in to the shops anyway and gave me a lift. I can walk a fair way. It hurts but to walk is nice. Say to the shopping centre and back, about 2 km trip.

I'll be right, I can be living healthily and a full life again.. I can do a lot of physical exercise without fear once I build it up to a new health. My body will thank me and hopefully is already.

Ecologically dreaming...

The point I am at now, environmentally, is to reconsider my ways of living, and how they affect the earth.

I tried the ecological test online about my footprint. I scored really badly, for every person living like me on the earth, we would need almost 5 earths! Even though I can count on my fingers how many times I have driven a car. Twice learning to drive, once driving for a man on a main road when it wouldn't start, once driving for a friend in the country when she couldn't see clearly, once around the country roads and off the road to learn to deal with spinning and control of the car. That's it. It's because I use things from new, not keeping things, even though a fair amount of my stuff is from second hand shops, but not all. Because you want things to work properly, and you want a proper thing to draw on, and you want a warranty for a laptop so you can get it repaired under warranty and insured.

It often becomes an issue of money. Affordability, or if you don't want to spend a lot of money on organic groceries because you won't be able to eat that much more, not like when you can buy vegetables and fruit cheaper. Or if the shop only has a few organic foods to buy fresh. It isn't a problem to buy organic pasta sauce or tinned tomatoes, but to buy the tomatoes fresh and organic is so expensive, or non existent in the supermarkets, particularly as you get further away from the city and suburban areas. Which is encouraging to some to buy seeds and plant organic, instead. Not me though, even though that is a dream. A dream because I have no established place to live. I rent or live at my parents. To transport plants in pots is hard because I have no car! And no licence to drive a car. Thus I am leaving that until I am established firmly in my own home.

Try the eco footprint test from the link below..
http://www.myfootprint.org/

Also I consider leaving it all and living from the basics. Making my own clothing, growing my own food, hunting for meat and fish, prawns, crabs. Living in a tropical place like Cairns Queensland and not needing to think of heating. Always with a source of saltwater to swim in, bathe in if necessary, bless myself in. Enjoy! Live the romantic life of nothing much. Pick mangoes from the sides of the roads. Not have to wear much clothing, except the envisioned white dresses made from recycled cotton. Recycled from the second hand shops clothing stocks, that are seemingly endless, although I never have seen any of the clothing that is seen on the pages of fashion clothing. Where does all of that go? When the fashion is over and done with? Where do all the hours of work put into creation give something back to the person who makes it? Where do all the dye washoffs go once they have finished dying pieces and bolts? Things like sequins, buttons, feathers, fur, wool, cotton, nylon fibres, things that fall off clothing and rendering it imperfect. Polluting the earth.
http://salvosstores.salvos.org.au/donate/

Were you ever wondering what happened to all your electronic equipment once it has reached its expiry date? I don't know where it goes myself. Okay I've looked it up. In Australia, a company called ewaste, which charges to take your computers, and other electronic waste to get it properly recycled, without it becoming part of the landfill soup.
http://www.ewaste.com.au/

A scary eco sci-fi novel about electronic waste and pollution I read last year is called Watermind, by M.M Buckner. The story is very adrenalised!! I don't want to give anything about it away..so read it if you are intrigued.
Watermind

I won't be leaving for Cairns tonight or tomorrow. I have to rid of the collection of things I have now accumulated responsibly. And then go freely to live the dream. It must happen this way as I have to deal with reality instead of ignoring it all and pretending I can live freely without having dealt with the loose ends first.

Buddha, God, and Ceridwen bless
Samantha Aungle