START WITH 1 THING

[Johnz]

Did anyone else watch Racing Extinction the other day? As a marine biologist I am well aware of all the issues raised but this is a powerful and sad movie. Highly recommended. Its tagline is 'Start with one thing' to reduce your impact on the environment. For me, I think I am finally done with eating animal products. I had mostly given up on meat already but I think I'm ready to go vegan now. It just seems increasingly selfish to me.

What would be your thing?   

You can watch the movie here:http://www.moviesub.net/watch/racing-extinction-2015/6648.html

[Rusco]

Ok, I haven't seen the movie and think I'll not watch it due to obvious material shown maybe on it(?). I'm  such a softie nowadays.

Going vegetarian or vegan is everyone's own decision and may work for someone and some not. In general I appreciate the decisions people choose when it's concerning diets in a way or another. If you'll turn vegan I hope you don't have allergies that could prevent you eating f.e wheat glutein or soya, although it's possible to get it work without glutein too.

I'm not fully vegan but have been vegetarist for 23 years. I'd see that a vegetarian diet works when you combine elements from different cultures around the world and do a lot of things yourself like steaks etc. It's also good to support local providers if there are some and join a circle that buys stuff directly from providers and you don't need to pay a gross profit for the shops.

An example about good vegetarian diet includes: mushrooms, berries, seeds, root vegetables, different types of grain; brans, millet, rapeseed and olive oils and fresh fruits. Then there's a wide availability of different kinds of soya products and tempeh, miso, quorn, quinoa and seitan. Sea weeds, inactive yeast flakes, linseeds and sesame seeds. All these have high rates of vitamin and protein. You can produce seitan by your own by getting glutein wheat and Gram wheat.

Something which is good to know: products fermented with lactic acid bacteria like sauerkraut, carrot juices etc. can accelerate human body's own B12 vitamin production at some rate. It's not 100% fully same vitamin but mimics it a lot. (You can ferment nearly any root vegetables by your own too.) An industrially produced B12 vitamin that's available inside pills is actually not synthetically produced B12 but grown in mold farms.

Wish you luck and delicious times. 

EDIT: forgot to mention beans

[Johnz]

Thanks Rusco!

It's a good film. You should watch it. It's more sad than depressing (if you appreciate the difference) and it gives the viewer hope which I think sets it apart. So it's not like Earthlings for example. It's more in line with Cowspiracy which is also a good film to watch.

I've been on a low meat diet for a number of years now but have now decided to ditch all meat and dairy as well. The environmental impact of life stock is just too much and on top of that you have animal welfare issues.

Thank you very much for your food suggestions. Interesting re vitamin B12. I didn't know that. I enjoy Asian food a lot which makes things easy as it's usually dairy free anyway. I'm also lucky that we can grow just about all fruit and vegetables locally and year round where I live. So that makes things easier. I know I won't miss milk and eggs much but cheese and yoghurt will be harder. I haven't tried saitan yet. What does it taste like?

Just had stir fried noodles with tofu and veges for dinner. Very nice!

Thanks again for your advice

[Rusco]

You're welcome, Johnz.

Depending on your occupation, do you do it for living? I know this goes a way off-topic but I'll try to aim this back on the line later . Being a marine biologist must be a very interesting occupation. I used to know an old friend who's also marine biologist. Haven't heard about him in many years but once I saw him on TV as he was interviewed about a situation in the Gulf of Finland and Gulf of Bothnia. There're lot of cargo ships and oil tankers crossing and pollution coming from agriculture. The gulf should get a salt pulse and there are many oxygenless areas that are vast in size. Well, what I've heard we actually do have the pulse right now but it's not as big as it should be to normalize things... (There's a research vessel called Aranda that follows the situation. They do a scientific exploration about seas and travel overseas.)

I've been worried about the affection what the Fukushima disaster may have caused to seas at the Pacific Ocean, as many of the seaweeds that are edible as a nutrition (wakame, kombu, nori etc.) are collected from the Pacific Ocean. With seaweeds there are so many vitamins like A, B, C, D and E. Some of them are also sources for iodine and good if one has to keep an eye on the working of thyroid gland. We really have to hope that the officials and food industry probe carefully the contents in a case of raised radioactivity.

I haven't tried saitan yet. What does it taste like?

Seitan tastes like a kind of mix of mushroom and meat. It depends on how do you make it up what spices will you use. It's possible to make it stiff like chops are, or softier, or even VERY soft like chewing gum is. Most of people make it up by using glutein wheat + Gram wheat or soya wheat.

But you can do it also from basic whole grain wheat flour: making seitan with this method takes longer time (1-1,5 hours longer) as the dough has to be knead as long time as all of the starch content are "washed" away (proteins stay) from wheat flour by changing the water where you knead the dough in the bowl. With this recipe the content is a bit different than with using glutein wheat.

You're lucky when you have available all that Asian food culture there. Well I also use cheese and yoghurt and admit I've always liked 'em a hell lot. There's also a strange thing with heritable genes around here where I live that dairy products don't make a stomach pain to adults. People used to have cattle so long time that we're able to drink many litres of cow milk per day without any pains.

[Rusco]

Some preparing instructions:

http://www.onegreenplanet.org/vegan-food/how-to-make-perfect-seitan/

Here's a step-by-step Youtube video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=s9vHa66Bm5E

[Johnz]

Oh thanks a lot for all this info and sorry for long gaps between posts. I don't always have internet access here.

I run extended sailing trips here in New Zealand and use them as a platform for whale research. Being a marine biologist is both amazing and very depressing. However, there is also some good news so it's not all bad and any day spent on the ocean is a good day in my book.

I am not aware of the salt pulse that you mentioned but I know that ships pollute more than people realize because they run on heavy fuel and are coated in toxic anti-fouling paint to stop marine growth. However, most pollution in the sea comes from the land (agriculture, storm drains etc).

Fukushima wasn't as bad as many people think and is nothing compared to all the other stuff we pump into the ocean every day that nobody worries about. Flame retardants (chemical compounds that stop plastics from burning) are a serious threat to the marine environment. Things like Fukushima or whaling get completely blown out of proportion by the mainstream media. For example, ingestion of plastics and entanglement in fishing gear kills over half a million whales and dolphins per year. Commercial whaling kills less than 5000. The former allows us to feel good about ourselves and point the finger at the 'bad' Japanese (one of ca. 37 nations that hunt whales by the way) while the latter is something that we are all guilty of. So we don't hear so much about it. The real problems are hard to tackle. Anyway, I'm rambling now but we really need to take better care of the oceans if we want to have a decent quality of life in the future.

Thanks again for your tips. I will gibe Saitan a go. It sounds interesting.