What is Ethical Eating?

[Can someone please explain to me why blogger won't let me publish posts with pictures anymore?]

      I've mentioned Ethical Eating a number of times on this blog, and I wrote about it a good bit over at Cheap Wine and Cookies.  The Ethical Eating phenomenon is spreading fast around the world, but many people are still in the dark as to what, exactly, this movement entails.  I am here to tell you.

      Ethical Eating is NOT a diet.  It is not a "never eat this;" "only eat this;" "carbs are the devil;" "grapefruit is the answer;" or any other random consumerist weight loss phenomenon.  Weight loss is completely off the radar of Ethical Eating.  It isn't a goal; it isn't a discussion point; it barely even figures in.  Except that, when practiced with any degree of devotion, Ethical Eating does result in weight loss and increased health, but that is more of a bonus than an aim.

       Ethical Eating is a lifestyle of mindfulness of the effects our food choices have on us and the world around  us.  It is at once simple and exeptionally complicated.  It's simplicity is in it's personal nature.  You don't need a book or a kit or an app (though there are plenty of apps you can use to help you out if you want; I've downloaded a couple, but always forget to use them).  You just think before you eat - or, I should say, consume - because really the decision should come even before you purchase the product,  not only before you eat it.  You look at the food and you are mindful of everything that went into bringing that product before you, and you consider whether you feel it is ethical to consume it based on those circumstances.

      The complexity comes in trying to wrap your brain around just how much STUFF there is behind every food or beverage you might consume: the health consequences for you and your family - is it covered in pesticides? Is it processed? Full of extra sugar, fat, salt, colors, and preservatives?  Has it been artificially ripened or had the nutritional value otherwise stripped away?  What about the producer?  Was it produced by a major corporation?  A sustainable farmer?  Local or far-flung?  How far was it transported to get to you?  How were the farm workers involved in it's production treated?  Were they paid a fair wage?  Were they exposed to toxic chemicals?  Were they children?  If it contains animal products, how were the animals treated?  Were they tortured and pumped full of chemicals?  Were hundreds of thousands of baby chicks thrown into a grinder alive in the egg factory?  All that sort of fun stuff.

      And then the headache sets in.  This apple is local but not organic, but this one over here is organic, but was shipped from Mexico...

      Don't worry; it's not quite as mind numbing as it seems at first.  And once you actually start practicing Ethical Eating, you find yourself wondering how you ever consumed some of the things you once did.  It becomes second nature.

       And yet I still haven't given you a great definition of Ethical Eating.  Truthfully, there isn't one overall definition.  I haven't even been able to find a reliable source for who invented the word, but it is clear and largely accepted that the UUA is responsible for fleshing out, implementing, and popularizing the Ethical Eating movement (in addition to probably coining the term).  They even published the FREE comprehensive Ethical Eating Guide - an beautiful Ethical Eating resource and the first step for anyone looking to eat more ethically.  Seriously, it's free, and it's amazing.  Download it now.  I'll wait.

      Got it?  Ok, on we go...

      The UUA is the go-to source for Ethical Eating in formation.  It is not the only source.  Ethical Eating is not a fad or a consumer product, and as the movement grows, many people and organizations are jumping on board and adding their own take, but for my part - and I've been actively studying Ethical Eating for years - the UUA is the first and most complete source for Ethical Eating information. 

      It's about mindfulness of food choices.  And it is a really beautiful thing.  It's not a hassle.  It's not a chore.  It is a to be more closely connected to your life, to your health, and to your world.  What starts out as a simple contemplation of where your food comes from opens doors to a connection with life many  "average Joe consumers" never contemplate or experience.  And it is different for everyone - another beauty of it!  Whether your food conscience leads you to be vegan or to visit your local pig farm, it doesn't matter, the point is the awareness.

      I challenge anyone - everyone - to try it, wholeheartedly, for one month.  I promise it will change the way you look at a whole lot more than food.  And if you're eating like "average Jane consumer" right now, you'll probably get that added bonus I mentioned above (a slimmer waist).

      Some people feel like Ethical Eating is restrictive.  They get all focused on the "can't."  "I can't have meat."  "I can't shop at my regular grocery store."  And all sorts of similar nonesense.  And none of that "can't" is true.  We still eat meat about once a week.  We are just very mindful of where it comes from.  We shop at a regular local grocery store, we just don't buy things we think are unethical there.  We shop at the Farmer's Market because we love it, not because it is some sort of "rule" of Ethical Eating.

      Some people worry that Ethical Eating will be too expensive.  It's not.  Or, I should say, it doesn't have to be.  I'm currently working on a much longer post on the ins and outs of Ethical Eating on a Budget, but for now, I'll simply say that people who believe Ethical Eating is expensive are focusing too much on one part - whether that be organics, local, Fair Trade, humane meat, whatever.  They forget that by combining and balancing all those factors, Ethical Eating can actually be cheaper that standard consumerism - especially when you figure in the amount of nutrition you get from Ethical Eating compared to many of the alternatives.  And there are also reduced medical costs, but there will be more on that in the future post.

      This is taken from the UUA's Ethical Eating Statement of Conscience:

"We acknowledge that aggressive action needs to be taken that will ensure an adequate food supply for the world population; reduce the use of energy, water, fertilizer, pesticides, and hormones in food production; mitigate climate change; and end the inhumane treatment of animals. These steps call for an evolution of our eating habits to include more locally grown, minimally processed whole foods. We acknowledge that this evolution must respect diversity in cultures, nutritional requirements, and religious practices.

Some of us believe that it is ethical only to eat plants while others of us believe that it is ethical to eat both plants and animals. We do not call here for a single dietary approach. We encourage a knowledgeable choice of food based on understanding the demands of feeding a growing world population, the health effects of particular foods, and the consequences of production, worker treatment, and transportation methods. We commit to applying this knowledge to both personal and public actions. [...] Therefore, we affirm that the natural world exists not for the sole benefit of one nation, one race, one gender, one religion, or even one species, but for all. [...]

As individuals and as congregations, we recognize the need to examine the impact of our food choices and our practices and make changes that will lighten the burden we place on the world. We also recognize that many food decisions will require us to make trade-offs between competing priorities. These priorities include: taste, selection, price, human health, environmental protection, sustainability, adequate food supply, humane treatment of animals used for food, and fair treatment of farm and food workers."

       Please, please, visit this page for a plethora of Ethical Eating resources and mountains of information (most of it in simple, "bite sized" portions ;-P).

      Ethical Eating has it's detractors.  There are people who (usually without doing any actual research into the subject) like to proclaim that Ethical Eating is elitest, hipster, hippie, or philisophical blather.  I've never found one of these people who actually gave Ethical Eating and honest try, or really did any actual research into it.  They read some book reviews, maybe maybe watched Food, Inc. and were made so insecure by the implications of it all, that they strike out against it.  Mostly, I feel sad for these people.  They are people afraid of change.  Afraid of truth.  And usually blatantly insecure about various things.

      And it is to those detractors in particular (as well as to everyone else!!!) that I recommend this enlightening and skillfully crafted article by Alan Richman.

      Alan Richman was not a detractor, but he was far from a believer.  He believed Ethical Eating to be elitist and hipster.  But instead of attacking the movement blindly or simply ignoring it as a fad, he took the 30 day challenge:

"I wasn't seeking audiences with our Aristotles, writer-philosophers such as Michael Pollan. I wanted our artisans. My plan was to listen to them, ask to be led through the riot of morality that has overwhelmed this seemingly honorable cause, find a way to sort through a dizzying and growing array of ethical beliefs: local, seasonable, sustainable, organic, biodynamic, green, environmentally friendly, nontoxic, grass-fed, and labor-friendly, to note most. In addition, I decided that for the thirty days of my trip, I would try to eat not by whatever feeble guidelines of ethical eating I might have picked up in the past few years—primarily avoidance of mushy farm-raised fish—but by paying attention to those I met. No matter where I went, I asked this fundamental question: What does ethical eating mean to you?"

       The article is a wonderful read.  And come on; it's Alan Richman.  Go.  Again, I'll wait.

      So that, in a nutshell (a really, really big overstuffed nutshell) is what Ethical Eating is.  In the future, I'll be writing about what Ethical Eating is to Me, how Ethical Eating Ties in to My Religion, and Ethical Eating on a Budget - for starters.  In the meantime, please do not hesitate to send me any questions, either as comments to this post or email them to CheapWineandCookies [atsymbol] gmail.

      I will leave you with this.  For those of you who think Ethical Eating is simply a trend or a fad, the global implications and the amount of suffering - human and animal - that is tied up in our way of eating is lost on you.  Ethical Eating is giving a name to a very old movement:

"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing's going to get better.  It's not." Dr. Seuss

"Vegetarian food leaves a deep impression on our nature. If the whole world adopts vegetarianism, it can change the destiny of humankind." Albert Einstein

The American fast food diet and the meat eating habits of the wealthy around the world support a world food system that diverts food resources from the hungry. A diet higher in whole grains and legumes and lower in beef and other meat is not just healthier for ourselves but also contributes to changing the world system that feeds some people and leaves others hungry.
-- Dr.Walden Bello

"Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages." Thomas Edison

"We don't usually think of what we eat as a matter of ethics. Stealing, lying, hurting people - these acts are obviously relevant to our moral character. In ancient Greece and Rome, ethical choices about food were considered at least as significant as ethical choices about sex." Peter Singer and Jim Mason.  

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." Mahatma Gandhi

"I am in favour of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being." Abraham Lincoln

"We consume the carcasses of creatures of like appetites, passions and organs as our own, and fill the slaughterhouses daily with screams of pain and fear."  Robert Louis Stevenson

"People often say that humans have always eaten animals, as if this is a justification for continuing the practice. According to this logic, we should not try to prevent people from murdering other people, since this has also been done since the earliest of times." Isaac Bashevis Singer

The fact is that there is enough food in the world for everyone. But tragically, much of the world's food and land resources are tied up in producing beef and other livestock--food for the well off--while millions of children and adults suffer from malnutrition and starvation.
-- Dr.Walden Bello

"Alas, what wickedness to swallow flesh into our own flesh, to fatten our greedy bodies by cramming in other bodies, to have one living creature fed by the death of another! For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seeds of murder and pain cannot reap the joy of love." Pythagoras

"Those who, by their purchases, require animals to be killed have no right to be shielded from the slaughterhouse or any other aspect of the production of the meat they buy. If it is distasteful for humans to think about, what can it be like for the animals to experience it?" Peter Singer

“I saw few die of hunger; of eating, a hundred thousand.” Benjamin Franklin

Every Last Drop

      One of the big focuses in our home for the last couple years has been on reducing the amount of waste (namely trash) we produce.  We've always been avid recyclers, but even that system has it's issues, so we also try to buy products with little or no packaging or reusable packaging, and use re-usable bags, cups, dishes, water bottles, etc instead of disposable.  We've also come up with a variety of uses for our organic matter waste (read: kitchen scraps), of which we have quite a lot since we eat tons of veggies.

      We get every last drop of nutrients and use out of every thing.  We compost, we regrow, we feed it to the chickens (which is actually part of the composting process, but that's a different post), and now, we make broth:

       I read about this recently on another blog (was it yours?  I tried to link to the post, but it failed, let me know and I'll happily credit you) and it was one of those forehead smacking moments.  I figured it had to be pretty easy to make your own broth, and as it turned out, there was just one minor, super obvious step I was missing.

      This is a great way to get even more nutrition and added value out of your veggies, and it can even speed your composting along a little.  Plus, if you use even half as much veggie broth as we do, it's a huge money saver.

      The first step (the obvious step that somehow just never occurred to me) is to freeze all your random veggie odds and ends.  Everything that gets piled up beside the cutting board when you're making dinner (except anything you're going to regrow) - mushroom stumps, carrot greens, onion peels, veggie ends, herb twigs - pretty much anything, even if it's a little dirty - it's going to get boiled and strained anyway.  Um, but not fruit.  Unless you want fruity broth.  Which would be interesting ...  Hmmm... 

       You just keep adding stuff to the freezer container(s) until you have roughly enough to loosely fill your crockpot or whatever pot you want to make the broth in.

       Then, when you have a spare 5 minutes (seriously, it takes no time at all), you just toss it all into the slowcooker with as much water as you can fit, leaving a little room for it all to simmer.  Add a touch of salt (you really don't need much, but a little will help the simmering and flavor-releasing process), and turn it on high overnight (all day, 6-8 hours, whatever works for you and your slowcooker).

       This can also be done by boiling everything in a pot on the stove, you'll just have to watch it a little closer.

       The next day (or after whatever time period you've settled on), you simply strain and squeeze.  I put a cheesecloth "sock" over the top of this bowl, dumped the whole crockpot in, then lifted out the sock and squeezed out every last drop of goodness.

If you ask me, that is one tasty looking shade of brown.

       And when it's all strained, pour it into some handy re-used jars and freeze or refridgerate, depending on when you intend to use it.

      I got two and a half full jars of broth to freeze, plus a cup or two I used immediately, from one crockpot of veggie leftovers.  So I basically made more broth than I would typically get in one $3 - $4.00 container of broth at the store for FREE, and I got more use out of the veggies we had grown/purchased, AND I still got to compost the leftovers after making the broth!  With almost no time or effort at all.  Rock.

       One last word of advice:  watch out for sand.  I throw everything into my freezer container, like I said, including parts that might be a little dirty like mushroom stumps.  This isn't a problem since everything gets boiled, but remember when you're pouring the broth into jars to do so slowly so that any sediment remains settled at the bottom and doesn't go into your jars.

      And an additional effortless tip for eating more ethically:  Switching out veggie broth for meat broths is imperceptible in most recipes but is lower fat, lower sodium, higher nutrition, and is one less dime in the pocket of the sick, inhumane factory farms.

      If you want to get really fancy with it, you can also be more specific about the veggies you use for this - for instance, you could make an amazing all-mushroom broth.

      Please let me know if you try this!

     

An Easy Switch

      One of my biggest goals with this blog, something I tried with Cheap Wine and Cookies but didn't really pull off, is to present a lot of small steps to a more sustainable, healthy lifestyle.  While the transitions that we have made in our home may sometimes seem large and sweeping, and while our goals are ultimately not those of the mainstream, every little change in every single life helps.  And most of the changes we have made have been done is small steps.  So I will try, as often as possible, to offer strategies and tips for small steps that anyone can take to move themselves toward a healthier, more sustainable lifestyle.

       The step I'm posting today is one I've posted about before.  It's so simple and small, that people don't think much of it, but the impact can be truly huge.  This simple little step is to switch the meat out of your meals - especially if you get your meat straight from the grocery store. 

      NOW, before you give me that glazed over look - this is NOT just another vegetarian rant.  YES, I feel very strongly about both the disgusting treatment of meat animals in our culture as well as the sickening health effects of the amounts of meat our culture consumes and the crap that's in it, but that's not the point of this post.  If you want a little more information on the meat issue, please look here, here, and here.

       There are a million reasons to substitute meat out of a meal once in a while - from the Ethical issues listed above, to cost, to just needing a change of pace.  Over the last year or so, I've become pretty adept at switching out meat in various ways (and I'm not talking about just replacing it with fake meat, though if I'm feeling time pressed, that works, too).  Today, I want to share a very simple, cost effective, easy, and cheap way to sub meat:

      Flavored Chickpeas!


      The beauty of this idea is in it's versatility.  To be cliche' about it - the possibilities are endless.

      You start with chickpeas - lately we've been making the switch to dried beans of all kinds to avoid the chemicals and waste issues associated with cans, but canned chickpeas, which are much easier to find, work fine).  Either soak and prep dried or open, drain, and rinse the canned peas.

     Then you just toss them in the sausepan with a bit of watever flavor you want - see more on this in the recipe below.  The other night, we had BBQ chickpea salads instead of having BBQ chicken salad.

      To make the BBQ chickpeas, I just put the chickpeas, about 1/4 cup BBQ sauce (one with no high fructose corn syrup or hydrogenated oils), and about 1/4 cup of pineapple juice to the pan and mixed it all around.  I could just as easily used water or broth to thin the sauce, but I was in a pineapple kinda mood.

     Either way, you're going to want whatever you're using as a marinade to have a consistancy thinner than BBQ sauce but thicker than water (ideally - really, you can do whatever you want).

      Then I just simmered the chickpeas in the sauce, stirring occassionally, until the sauce had reduced, thickened, and been mostly absorbed by and coated the chickpeas. 



      In the meantime, I prepped the salad from the plentiful greens out of our back garden.  Soooo pretty.

      Then I just scooped the chickpeas onto the salads and BAM:

 

      Beautiful and super delicious meal.  Healthier, easier, cheaper, and more humane than meat. 

      MacGyver had to kick his up a notch by making his own dressing, sauteeing some pineapple in a little BBQ sauce and juice.  MacGyver likes to one up me.

      Other sauce ideas for the chickpeas:

Mexican
      They make an AWESOME addition to tacos, burritoes, and the like.  Just simmer them in taco seasoning (cumin, onion powder, garlic powder, paprika, pepper, cayenne pepper, optional salt, and maybe a bit of cilantro or oregano) like you would taco meat.  OR simmer them in salsa.  OR simmer them in both!  So easy and delicious!  I've made these a few times.

Curry
      Whatever your favorite curry sauce is, whether it comes in a jar or whether you make it from scratch, simmer the chickpeas in that for an amazing curry dish.  Sooo good.  Better than tofu, in my opinion.  You can also make the sause yourself with curry powerder or paste and coconut milk or water.

Dessert
      Ok, so this one isn't a meat replacement, but it's super yummy.  Sautee up the chickpeas with some apples, cinnamon, allspice and/or nutmeg, molasses and/or brown sugar, and some vegan butter (recently we've been using Smart Balance) for a super yummy dessert that's more nutritious and less fattening dessert.  AMAZING over vanilla gelato or HUMANE ice cream like Organic Valley.

Teryaki
      Simmer in thinned out teryaki sauce, use in stir frys, wraps, or salads.

Italian Herbs
      Choice italian herbs (rosemary, oregano, garlic, whatever you want), in some water, simmer, yummy.  You can also make nomeat balls out of these!

The possibilities go on and on.  Any ideas you can offer that I haven't thought of here?

For more recipes like this one, please check out my Recipes page!

Reduce, Recycle, Regrow

      If you're on Pinterest*, I'm sure you've seen the latest wave of pins on regrowing celery.  The first time I saw one of these pins, I was completely ashamed of myself for not having known this before.  Talk about an easy, useful way to reduce waste and save money!

       So, of course, I tried it immediately, and it worked like a charm!  After cutting the bottom off a bunch of celery, I simply plopped that bottom in a cup of water, and viola!  New celery were starting to grow the very next day!

      A day or two later, I was chopping up some romaine lettuce for a salad, and figured, well the bottom of that bunch looks just about the same, same style of root.  Why not?  Plopped the bottom in a little cup of water, and BAM!  More romaine starting to grow the very next day. 

      Next, I tried baby bok choy.  That also worked beautifully.  The week after that, it was full sized bok choy - also a hit.  Soon, we had little cups of starter plants lining our kitchen sill.  Once they started to get a little bigger, we *ahem* MacGyver put them into re-used pots with some soil to await their planting in the garden here in a week or two.

This is our kitchen sill today - one bok choy, one romaine, and one celery - all less than a week old (look at that bok choy grow!!!), and I find the halloween cups amusing.


       We go through a lot of veggies in our house, so we already have a lot of these little buggers going, and I don't plan on stopping.   At this rate, we'll have plants in so many different stages that we won't need to buy celery, romaine, or bok choy anymore.

      Even better?  This makes buying organic even more of a value.  I mean, I don't stress too much if I can't find a certain item in organic once in a while, but if I'm regrowing it, it becomes a lot more worth it.  And really, it's not hard to find most of these things organic. 

Some of the newly repotted plants waiting for a place in the garden.

      Another tip:  to keep your celery nice and straight, you'll have to put something round around the plants.  Websites suggest cutting the top and bottom off a 2 litre bottle, removing the label, and putting that around them.  It looks like a great idea - if you drink pop.  We really don't, so I think we're going to go with little wire cages.

      This really is a quick and easy way to save some money in the veggie buying department.  And there are a lot more to come.  I just wanted to touch on this one to show that not every step you take has to be labor intensive or costly.  In reality, a lot of them are just this quick and simple.  And a lot of them - like this one - actually save you money.

      And every little bit helps - both you, your health, your wallet, and your planet.

* As most of you have already heard me bemoan, Pinterest is now blocked at work, which makes me very, very sad.  I have not yet come up with a work related reason to get them to unblock it.  Apparently "It sucks up WAY less of my time than Facebook - which isn't blocked" isn't good enough.  :-(

Eating Our Own

      I am not a vegan, and I don't claim to be.  I am not even a vegetarian.  And I don't claim to be.  Most of the time the meals I prepare are vegan or at least vegetarian, but I myself can claim neither of those labels.  And there are reasons for that.  Reasons that have become even more clear to me in the last few days.

      I practice Ethical Eating.  Like veganism or vegetarianism, Ethical Eating is a lifestyle.  But Ethical Eating is unlike veg'anism (that's the either/or term for vegan or vegetarianism) in the same way the Unitarian Universalism (which largely spawned the Ethical Eating movement) is different than most other religions:  It isn't about hard and fast rules.  The focus is on a continuing pursuit.  It is about education, it is about constant steps forward.  It is about striving.

      Sadly veg'anism has become very much about rules.  It has become a "religion" from which one can be summarily excommunicated for failing to meet the self-righteous standards of other self proclaimed veg'ans.  A couple days ago my friend Lindsay Nixon, author of Happy Herbivore, one of my very favorite cookbooks, wrote a post on her blog questioning whether or not Honey could be used by vegans.  A simple enough topic, and grounds (in my opinion) for a lively discussion.

     Well, let's just say that "lively" isn't exactly the word I would use for what ensued from there.

      As a result, the next day she renounced her V card.  Lindsay no longer claims to be vegan.  Score one for the self-righteous vegan fundamentalists?  I think not.  Because what sort of backward-ass movement strives to shrink it's membership?  How exactly does chasing away the author of an awesome and well known cookbook further your cause?  In short,

W.T.F.???

      I think Lindsay put it quite well in her post: "why are these vegans taking the time to run around and tell people trying to be vegan they're not vegan enough, instead of using that time and energy helping someone who isn't vegan at all? Is veganism some cool club that I'm not worthy to get into? Do we really want to make it about exclusivity rather than inclusivity? Someone said to me once, and I think this is painfully true, for cruelty-free dieters, vegans sure are cannibalistic!"

      I never have and never will understand backbiting idiots who turn on their own (remember Catty B*tches?  If you missed it, it's worth the read).  It seems to me that they're kind of loosing sight of the goal here.  I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the ultimate aim to have an overall positive impact?  To reduce the amount of cruelty caused by our consumption?  And to improve our collective and individual health while we're at it?

      At the very least, that's MY goal.  For some people, apparently, the point is to prove how much better they are at "being vegan."  Whatever.  Have fun.  But please keep the hell away from me.  I'm trying NOT to make Ethical Eating look like the niche of crazy extremists.  As Lindsay said, "As plant-based eaters, we are a minority. We need to stick together and support each other."

      And THAT, my dear friends is what Ethical Eating is all about.  Sticking together, and moving forward.  Whether you're taking big steps or little steps, every step counts.  My current struggles to cut out all foods containing inhumane eggs and cheese are no more or less significant that the person trying out Meatless Mondays (or, like us, Meatless weekdays!  You'd be absolutely shocked by how easy and satisfying it is).

      Whether you are a vegan or a vegetarian.  Whether you call yourself one or not.  Whether you claim to pursue the goals of Ethical Eating or you just want to make the best health choices for yourself and your family.  Whatever your reasons, and whatever steps you take.

      Because every step is a step.

      And lets not lose sight of that.

      What steps have you taken?  Which were the hardest?  Which were your biggest triumphs?  What are you struggling with now.  THIS is a safe place for any step on your journey (unless you promote cruelty, then you're just a jackass, obviously).  Tell us where you stand.