Biggest losers

We love to watch The Biggest Loser. We've been watching it for like 6 years and I really miss Jillian. Bob's still there though. I've often wondered how he feels about promoting products like ground turkey (Bob Harper is a vegan, as far as I know). I probably would make that compromise too, for a job like he's got. There's no getting around conflicts like this and you have to decide for yourself where to draw the line. For all the healthy habits the show promotes, however, they accept sponsors from the dark side. For example:

-Disposable diaper manufacturers: I think it's the popular brand (name rhymes with Hampers) that shows happy babies and toddlers giggling in broad daylight because they're wearing 'sposies with "TWELVE hour protection." I think we know who's being protected for 12 hours - parents. I'm hoping at least this is for nighttime use, although from the commercials it would appear it's for allowing kids and their caretakers to be in denial of elimination for an entire day. Don't tell me someone isn't tempted to do this on a long car trip, a to skip a few bathroom/diaper changing breaks because the label says the kids should be OK for 12 hours.

-Extra sugar-free gum: It's probably fairly harmless, but healthy? Would Bob chew it?

-Cheap ground turkey: sure, it's lean meat, but as the flesh of miserable, factory-farmed mutant animals I can't call it healthy. Or wholesome. Would Bob eat it? I like this article about turkeys which is written from a diner's perspective - not a vegetarian one - and even a meat eater can be disturbed by the industry and its creepy products as well as the poor Frankenbirds.

But back to Pampers or Huggies or whatever. I hate to use the phrase "slippery slope," because all slopes are somewhat slippery, but how did so many parents come to, um, depend on these? And  pullups designed to help kids as old as 5 avoid using a toilet - these will surely have serious effects on this generation. Will we have them for grownups to wear in meetings so they won't have to hear the obnoxious phrase "bio break" during a 4-hour, 800-slide presentation about Six Sigma and ROI?

Cucumber salad recipe

I made this for a family reunion party, and people flipped out over it. I thought it was pretty good, but was surprised to see it actually become a topic of conversation. So here's the recipe, which I came up with on the fly using whatever I could find to put together:

1 or 2 cucumbers, chopped into little pieces (I removed the seeds)

1 cup chopped fresh peas, pods and all

1 can artichoke hearts, chopped (just plain, not marinated in dressing)

1 can garbanzo beans, rinsed

handful snipped fresh cilantro

1 cup (or more) cooked little pasta noodles, like anellini (little circles), tiny shells or orzo

1 tsp celery salt (I would have put snipped celery leaves in it if I had any)

salt and pepper

about 3 tbs lemon juice

1 tsp basalmic vinegar (it has to be a pretty good, sweet vinegar; if you don't have a good one leave it out rather than substitute red wine vinegar)

about 3 tbs. olive oil
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And here are the other things I put on chopped cucumbers in the summer:

1. Lemon juice, pepper, salt and mint
2. Lemon juice, pepper, salt, chives and dill
3. White vinegar, a little apple cider vinegar, salt, tbs. sugar, sliced onion (Masher's recipe)

EG likes all these. He eats up the lemony ones and then drinks the juice left in his bowl, which he says looks like pee. Then he goes around saying he drinks pee and laughs hysterically. I should probably explain this to his teachers in case he says it at school, lest they think he's so dehydrated at home he has to drink urine to survive.

Not everyone is going vegetarian anytime soon.

The most common weakness I hear former vegetarians or lacto-ovo vegetarians admit to is cheese. I understand. It's tasty, it's satisfying and it's ubiquitous. Masher and EG still eat it; they get a pizza with cheese on their half and none on mine. I didn't really have any issues giving it up, but I probably would face a challenge if I had nut allergies. I eat seeds and nuts every day. I also buy Vegan Gourmet brand "cheese" sometimes, but not to fill a void left by the real thing. It's a closer to being a garnish than a main ingredient. Overcheesing is an easy trap for converts, but if I were asked for guidance in transitioning to a plant-based diet I'd rather see them eat a tiny bit of meat occasionally and sever their relationships with dairy.

Many cheeses aren't actually vegetarian unless they contain vegetable rennet. Enzymes used to turn milk into cheese are often sourced from sheep stomachs, so if you get technical about your definition of lacto-ovo you'll only get the vegetable rennet kind. Even so, the only way to get cow cheese is create a calf who will become a by-product and go to slaughter as either a calf, a steer or a cow. I've talked to dairy farmers and there's no way around it. It just doesn't seem worth using all the resources needed to create cheese. According to Mark Bittman's review of "The Meat Eater's Guide to Climate Change and Health" by the Environmental Working Group, " Of 20 common proteins and vegetables analyzed, cheese has the third highest greenhouse gas emissions." We just don't make that association, because it isn't made out of the cow herself, even if it is made *by* the cow. Bittman is a meat eater who chooses to investigate the sources of his food. It's not as fun as it sounds, as he also discusses in his attempts to visit some of the larger farms in the Midwestern U.S.  But that's another topic.

I still don't understand what bottle calves drink. If it's formula or milk replacer, isn't it made out of cow's milk?

Here's a futuristic option, which fascinates me: make meat in a lab. We're talking about any meat, any kind of muscle, which means even human steak would be possible.  I'm not interested in eating meat anymore no matter how it's made, but it's an option that would (gasp!) eliminate ranching while providing beef. I wonder what other scientific or medical side effects could be beneficial from making muscle. A lot of people reacted with disgust at the idea, which is bizarre considering how nauseating a slaughterhouse is. I want to give the guy credit who pursued this with little support and whose interview first made me aware of it, but I can't find or remember his name. Masher read the interview with him on a flight several years ago.

I've read or heard the phrase "Animals aren't people" many times, which is sort of true in that non-human animals aren't people, but let's remember people are animals. We're in the taxonomy. Pigs aren't people as fish aren't birds. We're complicated but we're not that much more special.

Sources:
More weight on less meat:  http://bit.ly/o25e9R
Follow Mark Bittman on Twitter: @bittman

Will lab-grown meat save the planet? http://www.slate.com/id/2191705/

My dog's vegetarian diet

My dog has been vegetarian for about a year and a half. It took a little research to find these supplements and recipes so that I could be confident that she's getting the nutrition she needs. In the past she's eaten Wellness and Natural Balance kibble, both of which I think are good brands. But she was prone to ear infections and some kind of gunk that would build up in her ears if I didn't keep cleaning them with salicylic acid. She hated having her ears cleaned and would have to be baited with treats and tackled. She'd wake us up a few times a night shaking her head and making her ears go flappity flap flap. So the vet said to try a simple diet to see if she had a food allergy. I did, and the flapping and irritation ceased. Her ears became naturally clean somehow.  She was on a chicken and/or fish and eggs diet before she went veg. She still gets duck and chicken eggs, plus the insects she catches (I can't stop her). I found that whether her diet is vegetarian or not, as long as it's simple and homemade she is healthy. She always had a nice coat, lots of energy and ideal weight, but the ear thing seems to be associated with any brand of commercial food.

Her current diet consists of recipes combining Vegepet supplements with a selection of these ingredients:

-Quinoa
-Brown rice
-Millet
-Flax seeds, ground
-A green vegetable like spinach, kale, green beans or broccoli
-Garbanzo beans
-Lentils
-Oats or whole grains not listed above
-Nuts, ground
-Olive or canola oil (or coconut oil when I can afford it)
-Chicken or duck eggs if she's lucky

Now I don't have to put on plastic gloves, prepare meat that nobody else in the house eats, and disinfect everything the raw meat touched. I can go back to my regular habit of leaving the kitchen dirty. It's not hard to prepare and pretty cheap, especially since these are all things the whole family eats and we buy them in bulk.

Disclaimer: I'm not a vegan

I'm hoping this blog will generate some traffic and my comments on products will help producers of vegetarian products, especially vegan ones, to reach their market(s). But I'm not a vegan by any definition because I make exceptions for:

-Eggs that come from my friends' chickens and ducks
-Anything Masher, the one who gave up meat when we got married, makes me even if he puts butter in it