Bread, eggs, milk, cheese

Stop buying them from the supermarket, please

Why do we eat stuff that isn’t food…and why can’t we stop?

A FEW weeks ago I had the great pleasure of attending a talk including scientist-du-jour, Dr. Chris van Tulleken, author of the best-seller “Ultra-Processed People”, which tells the truth about the horrors of ultra processed foods and what they do to us.

He was great to listen to, inspirational, even, and while I didn’t grab a signed copy of his book, he speaks so much truth. There are tonnes of great quotes from the book, but here’s a good one:

“In pursuit of making this quantity of food, agribusinesses have invested in a handful of high-yield crops and products, typically grown or produced on land that should be tropical forest, using agrochemical inputs – fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides, and lots and lots of fossil fuel of course. Supported by government subsidies, this approach has led to a global glut of commodity crop production, and declining food diversity.”
― Chris van Tulleken, Ultra-Processed People: Why We Can't Stop Eating Food That Isn't Food

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He describes the weird diet most of us subscribe to, are forced to consume, and argues that while we keep being told we just need to make different food choices to live long, healthy lives, we're actually living in a food environment that makes it nigh-on impossible.

He argues strongly that we deserve the right to know what we eat, what it does to our bodies and the right to good, affordable food.

Too right. Preach brother.

And here’s a secret, dear reader. Plant-based people are waaay ahead when it comes to avoiding all that nasty ultra-processed chemical crap. We naturally tend to cook more wholefoods, more real foods, and less processed stuff.

But beware, those food manufacturing mega-corps are eyeing up the growing plant-based market, and creating frankenfoods by the plantpotfull.

Stare into the snacks…

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My own diet did get trashy, having returned to the UK after 20 years in a secret facility for geniuses, when I discovered an enormous range of ready-made vegan products, like burgers, steaks, sausages, pies….the list goes on. It was exciting and interesting to try them all.

But over the last 18 months I’ve increasingly gone back to a similar diet to the one I had in the 90s…more wholefoods, more real foods, less processed stuff. And I think many people are now moving that way too.

And as part of that journey, I started looking more closely at the ingredients in plant-based milk (98% water, people), bread (let’s just say it lasts for two weeks in the bread bin, and just shouldn’t) and vegan cheese (fat, chemicals, flavourings in the more industrialised versions), for example, and I didn’t like what I was reading.

There’s a couple of goood sayings I’ve picked up from somewhere or other….firstly, ‘if you wouldn’t rub it on your skin, why would you eat it?’ (but that makes me think of poo, on reflection), and the other, probably much better saying is “If you can’t pronounce it, don’t eat it.”

Don’t have a cow

There is too much crap in our food. I gave up meat around the time of the CJD/BSE outbreak among cattle in the UK, a horrifying and terrifying time, especially if you were a cow. Back at that time, I not only felt deeply upset seeing the effects of the disease, but it also opened my eyes to our food systems. They’re broken.

What I’m trying to say, in a long-winded way, is that a good vegan diet can easily avoid all the processed crap we shouldn’t be eating anyway. And a good vegan diet sticks two fingers up to BigAg, to BigFood (is that a thing?) and to the food systems dominated by a few chemical companies, enormous conglomerates and planet killers.

Supermarket Sweep

So, something I think most vegans - especially older ones - have far more interest in than the meat-eating masses is trying to create their own milk, cheese, bread, etc - perhaps stemming from the days when these products (in vegan variants) weren’t widely available. And making your own food from scratch is as much about not supporting the mega-corps that dominate the food systems and helping the environment, as necessity.

If what’s stopping you from making your own ‘staples’ at home is time - and that was a problem for me - then I can help. Over the years I’ve discovered fast, easy and cheap recipes that make you realise you *do* have time to cook from scratch - and feel like a cool homesteading pioneer, too.

Milk moans

A half a litre carton of plant milk can go for as much as £3 or more in the UK. Most milk cartons are diffficult to recycle - comprising paperboard, plastic and sometimes aluminium - and I find most of the milk has a weird twang anyway, or too many additives.

The easiest home recipe for oat milk (better for you, less environmental impact, and oh, the fibre!) I’ve developed involves oats, water, a splash of vanilla, a pinch of sea salt and a dash of a sweetener. Blend, strain, bottle. That’s it.

Recipe below. And don’t get me started on those $200 plant milk machines that seem to be popping up everyhere. FFS.

Bitchin’ ‘bout bread

Bread is the staff of life. I love good bread, and have been known to try to buy a sourdough loaf from the farmer’s market for upwards of £6, (I think that might be the most middle class sentence I’ve ever typed) only to discover they meant half a loaf.

It may well contain ‘starter’ from the late 18th century, but that’s only flour and water your great great granny forgot to throw away. Modern supermarket bread is scary, and most lasts for way longer than it should. There’s been a hoo-haa in the UK press lately about the major supermarkets not really baking on site, rather shipping in prepared dough - and even prepared loaves - and heating them up a bit in store to give the bakery area that special enticing smell. Arseholes. The supermarkets, I mean, not the smell.

Bread is flour, water, yeast, salt. I make my own, increasingly more often since I discovered a no-knead recipe that you lob together at night and cook in the morning. There’s no need for a giant plasticky bread making machine, you’ve got an oven.

My five minute bread recipe is also below.

Eggsasperation

Eggs are not vegan, but a lot of baking and cooking requires something akin to an egg. Over the years, I’ve seen the rise of fake egg products, got eggcited, tried them, and not been very impressed.

One brand has started selling beautifully packaged (albeit in one of those awkward to recycle cartons) aqua faba. That’s chickpea water. I’m not even yolking. You know, the stuff most of us throw down the sink as we drain a can of chickpeas? Or keep it, with elaborate plans of making mayonnaise or meringues, only to throw it down the sink a week later anyway.

And it’s £2.10. The watery gloop you normally throw down the drain from a 90p can of chickpeas is now being sold seperately for £2.10. We need help! Oh, but wait, it’s not chickpea water, it’s “Liquid Chickpea Extract”. That’s ok, then.

What a clucking liberty.

‘Liquid Chickpea Extract’ reminded me of this scene from ‘Idiocracy’

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Other fake egg vendors are selling magical powders that you add water to. They’re mostly cornstarch, potato starch or tapioca starch, three of the most common and cheap food products around.

It’s no secret that chia seeds and linseeds expand in water, forming a gelatinous gloop, as does fenugreek, but that’s another recipe for another newsletter.

So if you want a cheap, quick replacement egg all you need is one part seed to two parts water, leave it for ten minutes and add it to the recipe. No fancy packaging, no nasty ingredients.

Crack’d, a trendy UK ‘no-egg egg’ product, again packaged beautifully, is water, pea protein, and black (eggy) salt, basically. But look at the ingredients list:

Water, Pea Protein (3%), Corn Oil, Thickener (Methyl Cellulose), Pea Starch, Gelling Agent (Gellan Gum), Flavourings, Firming Agent (Calcium Lactate), Dried Inactive Yeast, Acid (Lactic Acid), Black Salt, Acidity Regulator (Potassium Bitartrate), Colour (Beta Carotene), Stabilisers (Calcium Carbonate, Guar Gum, Cellulose Gum), Vitamins (D & B12), Dextrose.

Looks like it’s over 90% water to me, folks. The first ingredient is always the biggest constituent.

More cheese please

Cheese is a tough one. While there are admirable attempts to mimic the umami and that apparently addictive dairy cheese flavour, most processed supermarket vegan cheese is made of coconut oil or nuts, flavourings and something yeasty. Most is highly fattening and not too good for you.

Even worse, in my humble opinion, some of them taste a bit phlegmy. I think it’s the taste of soaked cashews. You’ve been warned.

Lately, I’ve been enjoying Honestly Tasty’s ‘Bree’, but my long-term veggie sister really didn’t rate it. Maybe it just reminds me of the ‘‘real’ taste of brie, given that it’s salty, gooey and has a rind…

Some time ago, I discovered the wonderful ‘Sweet Potato Soul’, Jenné Claiborne. Her sunflower seed-based cheese spread keeps me very happy, and again, is cheap, quick and all good ingredients. Recipe below.

And in more recent times, I’ve discovered a cheddar cheese replacement which is pretty good, and it’s steamed, which I think is interesting. Again, the recipe’s below.

And the final element in my cheese arsenal is a sauce. Simple, cheesy and the right level of gloopiness to cover pasta, top a lasagna or dip a tortilla in. Maybe I should sell it at enormous profit in a fancy carton?

I honestly think that vegans are better cooks. Throughout my life I’ve tweaked, adapted and altered recipes to make them vegan, tastier, or more interesting. It takes thought, effort, inspiration and creativity.

A recipe can - and should - be a guideline. Make them your own. And the recipe for a good diet should be simple: eat natural, eat well and eat mindfully.

The rising interest in how bad ultra processed foods are, and how we can avoid them can only be a good thing. And as more and more people realise what’s good for them, I hope we move ever closer to a plant-based planet.

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RECIPES

Easy Five Minute Oat Milk

Ingredients

• 1 cup of rolled oats (I normally use any old oats, to be honest)

• 2-3 ccups of *cold* water

• A drop or two of vanilla essence

• A splash of maple syrup or soaked, pitted date

• A pinch of sea salt

Preparation

• Blend everything for about 40 seconds. Any longer and it goes slimy. Use water that’s not cold and it’ll go slimy too. We don’t want slimy. No siree.

• Strain the blended oat milk through a nut milk bag, very fine sieve or cheesecloth. Or an old pair of y-fronts. You do you. Don’t mush or mess with the pulp left behind. If you squeeze your nut bag, it will make the milk slimy. And make your eyes water.

• And that’s it. Some people recommend straining it again, but I can’t be arsed.

• Bottle it. It’ll keep in the fridge for ages, but I tend it find it only lasts about two to three days in our house.

Oooh Baguettes! in Five Minutes*

[*I hate those recipes that get you all excited, thinking somehow you’re going to be sitting five minutes from now with a warm, fresh, homebaked baguette in your arms. This is one of those recipes, sadly. Truth is, it does take five minutes to bung the flour and stuff together, but then you have to leave it overnight, and then cook it for 25 minutes in your hottest oven, which, if it’s anything like mine, takes about 20 minutes to heat up. So this five-minute recipe is actually an epic 12 hour-or-longer journey, sauced at either end with a tiny bit of activity.]

This recipe makes great bread. And it’s one of those recipes that I followed to the letter and it worked well. Make it last thing at night - it only takes two minutes to prepare. The only tough bit, for me, is getting the proved dough out of the bowl and shaping it. It’s a work in progress. The last two loaves I made looked like giant croissants…

Ingredients

• 475 - 500gms of good bread flour of choice

• 1-2 tsp salt

• 1 packet of active dried yeast, 7gms/ 2 tsps

• 365g filtered water

• 1 tbsp sugar of choice, optional

• Flavouring of choice - like garlic powder or herbs - optional, add after proving

  Preparation

• Mix your yeast with warm water in a jug and leave to one side

• Mix the flour, salt and sugar if you’re adding it, in a large bowl. Give it a really good mix.

• Add the water and yeast mixture slowly, stirring with a wooden spoon. After a couple of minutes it should gently come together as a sticky blob. Add the water and yeast mixture slowly, as you don’t want to add too much, making it too wet.

• Cover the bowl (I use a damp teatowel) and leave it to rise overnight - ideally up to ten hours, but around 7 or 8 hours is enough.

• In the morning, whack your oven dial up as high as it will go. Take the bottom rack out, cover it with parchment/ baking paper (I use a silicon mat thing), and this will be what you use to cook your bread babies on.

• Flour a surface, and gently, gently, ease the dough out of the bowl onto your floury surface. I invested in one of those metal dough scraper thingies, but it’s easier to use a bendy silicon spatula here. You want to be gentle to avoid collapsing the air bubbles in the dough, as much as possible.

• Add a generous sprinkling of any added ingredients you might fancy, then a good smattering more of flour.

• Shape the dough (as best as you can) into a large rectangle shape, then cut the dough in half lengthwise, forming sort of - kinda- almost baguette shapes.

• Transfer the two loaves to your baking paper-lined baking rack.

• Pull the ends to stretch into a better baguette shape.

• Put an oveproof tray filled with water or ice cubes in the bottom of the oven, which will create steam, and make the crust extra crispy.

• Bake the loaves for 25 minutes, or until they look a golden brown.

Cheddar Cheese Style Stuff*

[*The good people of Cheddar might be repulsed by this, But it’s easy, straightforward and tastes pretty darn good.]

Note: You need a good blender and a steaming basket/ steamer to make this stuff.

Ingredients

• 500ml Unsweetened Plant-Based Milk (I use soy milk)

• 50g Nutritional Yeast (or a nudge more if you fancy, go on)

• 120g Odorless Coconut Oil (I’ve tried leaving this out to reduce the recipe by about 1m calories, but it’s not the same, and do check you’re using the right - odourless - coconut oil)

• 9g Kappa Carrageenan (for setting and meltability) (This is derived from red seaweed, comes in powder form, and is used to set stuff. It’s a godsend in cooking and baking. You can buy it online)

• 120g Potato Starch (or starch of your choice)

• 2tsp Salt

• 2tsp Apple Cider Vinegar (for tang) or 1tsp ACV, 1 tsp lemon juice

• 1tsp Turmeric (for colour)

• 1tsp Garlic Powder

• 1tsp Onion Powder

• 1tsp Smoked Paprika (optional for a smoky hint)

• 1 tsp Mustard powder (I like a little heat)

• 1 tsp brown miso paste (I think it needs this extra umami hit. Alternatively, you could add a chopped sun dried tomato or mushroom powder)

Preparation

• Lob all the ingredients in a blender - milk first - and give it a good whizz

• Pour into a heatproof container or two - I use old butter pots, or takeaway containers. It’s good to use something with a lid. The important thing to consider is the container size and depth, as they must fit into your steamer,

• Place the container of cheese into your steaming basket, and steam for 40 minutes. Don’t have a moment and spill the uncooked cheese into the steamer and the hot water, like I once did.

• Leave it to cool in the fridge, ideally overnight.

• This magical orangey stuff will slice, grate and melt.

*Note this recipe originally came from a lovely man on Instagram, Tomaso Mannu, Mensch Chef. He’s worth a follow.

Sunflower Cheese Spread

The beautiful Sweet Potato Soul shared this recipe via her insta page, @sweetpotatosoul. It’s an umami slap, and goes great on a cracker. She calls it vegan cheese, I call it a spread, and if you don’t blend it very well, it’s a bit of a crunchy spread.

Ingredients

• 1 cup of sunflower seeds (I like to soak them in warm water for at least a few hours, to try and soften them - then they blend better, but you don’t have to if you can’t be bothered/ forgot)

• 1/2 cup of nutritional yeast

• Juice of half a lemon, or a good Tbsp of bottled lemon juice

• 1 tsp Dijon mustard, or English Mustard powder, depending on the vibe

• 1 tsp of garlic puree, or powder, but the puree is so. much. better.

• 1 tsp of good miso paste, brown or white

Preparation

• Blend the heck out of all the ingredients. Ideally, until it’s smooth.

• Use a soft silicon spatula to scrape the mixture down the sides of your blender, and blend again.

• Push the cheesy mush into a mould - a metal ring is a good choice, and then you can add any other flavours you fancy, or just eat it as is. It does get firmer with time in the fridge.

Suggested additional flavours - sumac, Ethiopian spices, black pepper, dill, jalapeno…

A Warning - while sunflower seeds are a good source of potassium and phosphorous, and also contain protein, iron and calcium, 100g of these seeds contains a whopping 576 kcal, 50g (of which saturates 5.2g) of Fat , 8.6g of Carbohydrates (of which sugars 3g), 9g of Fibre – and a whopping 22g of Protein.

So in my book, this cheese is a bit of an indulgence, as it’s so calorific, and usually gone in seconds. Fantastic source of protein and fibre though.

Cheese Sauce

Everyone should have a good cheese sauce up their sleeves. Hopefully not literally. Throw this on pasta, cauliflower, tortillas, toast, whatever…

Ingredients

• 3-4 Tbsp Plain (All Purpose) flour

• 2 cups unsweetened plant milk (around 430ml)

• 1 Tbsp Dijon mustard

• ½ cup nutritional yeast (30g)

• Dash of lemon juice

• 1 tsp turmeric

• 1 tsp salt

• Ground black pepper, to taste

Preparation

• Add the milk to a pan over medium heat, and while it’s warming, whisk in the flour, a little at a time. I like adding it through a tea strainer, so it’s fine. Most recipes call for a tonne of oil, (as in, making a roux) at this stage, but I reckon it works fine without it.

• Keep at it until it gets thick, then turn off the heat and add the other ingredients.

• If it’s not thick enough, add a tsp of starch of your choice, or a sprinkle of kappa carrageenan.

Bonus recipe - Raw Chocolate

Because supermarket vegan chocolate is mostly nasty.

I made this last night for the first time, and it’s bloody good. It’s so easy, bursting with antioxidants and magnesium, and tastes richer and more indulgent than most of the artifically sweetened, odd tasting supermarket chocolate.

Ingredients

• 50 grams cacao butter ( I got some buttons, easier to handle, melt quick)

• 3 tablespoons maple syrup

• 35 grams cacao powder (seems like a lot, but it works)

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• Pinch sea salt

• Any toppings - spices, nuts, etc

Preparation

• Line a small/medium container with parchment paper and set aside. I decided to use a silicon baking mat, to make a sort of bark.

• In a heat proof glass bowl (I don’t have one, I used a soup bowl) set over a pot of simmering water (the bowl shouldn't touch the water), gently melt the cacao butter.

• Once it’s melted - be patient - turn off the heat and whisk in the maple syrup until it becomes smooth, and a golden colour, the consistency of soft butter. If you don't whisk it for long enough you risk separation.

• Add the cacao powder, vanilla, and salt and whisk again until combined. I found adding a little of the cacao powder at a time helped avoid a dusty disaster.

• Pour your chocolate into the lined container and top with any desired toppings.

• Cool to room temperature before freezing, then break into pieces and store in a sealed container in the freezer for up to a month.

I sprinkled mine with smashed raw cashews and a sprinkle of organic coconut sugar, which is like toffee..

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Stuff You should Know - and Care About

Vegan meat sales grow at Lidl after products put on the meat aisle

It seems Lidl Netherlands has been trialling putting plant-based meats beside all the carcasses in 70 of its stores, over the last six months, resulting in a 7% sales increase.

And there are more positives - customer feedback was appreciative, they are thinking of selling fake meat in bigger packets, and the discount supermarket chain has also announced that by 2030 it wants 60 per cent of its protein sales to come from vegetable proteins.

The winds of change are blowing…

Bullfighting banned in Colombia

The barbaric, horrific and in my humble opinion, downright peculiar ‘sport’ of bullfighting has been banned in Colombia, after years of advocacy work from animal rights activists including PETA Latino and Colombia Sin Toreo.

The government says the bullrings will be transformed into venues for ‘cultural, artistic, or sporting events’ over a three-year transition period.

King Charlie painting gets an activist makeover

That contraversial red painting of the UK King, Charles, was given a special maekover by Animal Rising activists. On diplay in a London gallery, the duo glued an image of British cartoon character Wallace, from the “Wallace and Gromit” comedy series over his head, with a speech bubble that read: “No cheese Gromit, look at all of this cruelty on RSCPA farms.”

The protest served to highlight that the RSPCA - that’s the Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals - patronised by the King - is approving farms under it’s RSPCA Assured scheme which are operating with great cruelty to animals.

Animal Rising released a damning investigative report which revealed instances of severe animal cruelty at all 45 farms visited by the group. The farms were randomly selected, with investigators finding cruelty and suffering at every single one. The scenes include dead and dying baby chickens, dead pigs left in farm walkways, and salmon being eaten alive by sea lice.

The report details an alleged 280 legal breaches and 94 breaches of DEFRA regulations.

I don’t particularly like the painting, I’m not a royalist, and yet, Im a bit conflicted. Has this action raised the news regardinmg animal cruelty, and will people sit up and listen, or just tut at the animal activists ‘causing trouble again’. Does this sort of thing - just like ‘Stop Oil’ simply serve to alienate activists in the mindds of the blinkered masses?

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Cause of the Week

Another right Royal treat in the UK this week, with the annual Trooping of the Colour, which marks the monarch’s official birthday with a bit of marching and stuff.

But the King’s Guard’s caps are made from Canadian black bear fur. And it takes the skin of at least one bear to make a single cap.

Hundreds of guards wearing bear fur are participating in the Trooping the Colour ceremony – and each cap represents the death of at least one magnificent bear.

Help end the use of these beeautiful, living, feeling beings for this purely ornamental headgear. PETA is calling on the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) to stop using real bear fur for the ornamental headpieces worn by the King’s Guard and make the ceremonial caps out of modern, high-quality faux fur instead. Please help put pressure on the MoD by urging the Secretary of State for Defence to switch to faux fur.

Click here to add your name to the PETA petition.

Reader, if you’ve made it this far, thanks froom the bottom of my heart. Let me know what you liked, loved or hated. Let me know how your recipes went. Let me know your own recipes. And I hope you have a beautiful week ahead.

Love and light

Will