Have you thought about going vegan but needed some support? Didn’t know where to start? Perhaps you went to this past weekend’s Vegetarian Food Fair in Toronto an omnivore and left inspired. Maybe you’ve have decided that with the new season or the Jewish new year it’s time to begin new habits?

Meghan’s next group transition program (formerly known as the daunting-for-some “5 days vegan”) begins this Friday.

About the program

In Meghan’s words (emphasis mine):

The Veggie Transition (Formerly entitled 5 Days Vegan)

Only good can from adding more plant-based foods into our diet. There is not a single study out there that could argue that point. The challenge however is that so many people have forgotten (or maybe never knew) how easy and delicious these foods can be.

The purpose of this Veggie Transition Program is not to convert you to being 100% vegan. The idea and intention behind it is simply to ease a transition to healthier way of eating, to introduce you to new foods. I am simply attempting to open your eyes (stomach, taste buds and likely bowels) to a new way of eating, for a short time. You can than take what you like of it, leave what you don’t and still get the benefit. In most cases (I said most) doing something a little bit, is better than not doing it all.

To join the program

(adapted from the Making Love in the Kitchen website):

• Get yourself a copy of the guide.

+ Optional Group Involvement

• Signify that you are on The Veggie Transition team by posting a comment on the Making Love in the Kitchen Facebook Fan Page
• Leading up to and on September 17th through the duration of the 5 day transition program, Meghan and her team will be coaching you along in a variety of ways:
  • They’ll post questions and moderate discussions on the Facebook Fan Page Discussion Board
  • Meghan and Co. will support your transition activity via Twitter Coaching (Tweet and search tweets with the hashtag #vegtransition)
• Share your posts and videos! Meghan’s team encourages you to document your experience either via a blog journal or perhaps video diary.  Sometimes being accountable makes all the difference and they want to follow your progress.  Please post links to blogs/videos on the Fan Page and they’ll make sure the group gets to see them for more group support!

Click here for more information and here to buy the tutorial.  If you buy it from my website I get $1.12 – or 8% – from each sale. It’s not much financially but it makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

Jews might notice that the second day of the transition is Yom Kippur so if you intend to fast anyhow that’s two meals that you don’t have to eat.  It kind of feels like cheating.   (On the other hand it’s easy to eat everything in sight when you break the fast when you should eat light and slowly – I’ll do a blog post about prepping and recovering for the fast this week.)

It’s the perfect time of year to change eating habits and transition.

Who knows, you may get vegan super powers.
(That’s a nerdy Scott Pilgrim reference.)

• Healthy cooking for Passover? All it takes is tweaking [JTA]

• Mazon’s (USA) Childhood Nutrition Seders. [via JTA> Jewish Public Affairs> MAZON US]. I’d like to see an initiative like this locally

• Good to the last plague [Washington Jewish Week] Until last year I’d never seen this haggadah. I think it’s an American thing (?).

• The Ultimate Passover Guide for Vegetarians and Vegans [The Jew and the Carrot]

• Recipes: Gluten-Free Matzo Balls [Gluten-Free Bay] It’s from 2007, but my friend Lisa shared it & I wanted to pass it on.

• Kosher wine, beyond sweet red [Chicago Tribune]

• Gefilte fish: baked, not boiled [Toronto Star]  …With a little history lesson on gefilte fish in there.

• Although it’s not food related: Passover Quotes, Greetings, And Passages For Passover 2010 [Huffington Post]

More to follow, no doubt.

Wishing my Jewish friends a happy and meaningful pesach. I leave you with the new acoustic version of the smash YouTube hit, “20 Things to Do With Matzah.” starring William Levin and Michelle Citrin.
(Thanks to Esther K. for the video.)

Lured out, we checked out the various vendors and marketplace. Attempting to avoid the vast array of fake soy products I had only a nibble of fake soy when my father got a plate from King’s Cafe (vegetable dumplings, soy “drumsticks”). Instead I noshed on kiwi, dipped into hummus and babaghanouj from Sunflower Kitchen (it’s my favourite line of hummus for its lack of preservatives and I know the owner), sampled and bought gluten free granola from In the Raw and savored gluten free daily free raw “cheesecake” from Living Sweets.

In the corner of the Brigantine Room I found Vita-Mix Corp.’s booth and inquired about price (show discount? tax free?), stating that I’ve wanted one for years. The lady beside me had just finished saying the same thing. The booth staffer stated that she’d wanted one for years and finally realized that “saving up for it” wasn’t going to happen (we agreed that people don’t put money away for purchases even when intentioned) sucked it up and put it on the credit card. Months later she went to work for the company. I’d suck it up if I hadn’t just bought this MacBook. Oh priorities.

I also sampled Mrs. Beans coffee (their website URL results in a 404 error but maybe that’s just right now). They serve fresh roasted, fair trade and organic coffee grown by small scale farmers in Guatemala, Ethopia, Rwanda, Mexico, Peru and Columbia, roasting small batches in an eco friendly hot air roasting system. I’ve heard that once roasted, coffee goes stale within a few days – less than a week. Mrs Bean’s weekly delivery service guarantees one fresh cup for coffee for 7 days with each serving individually vacuum packaged. Check their URL again to see if it’s up and get more information. (Here is where I’m glad that I take promotional material with me if I think I might read it.)

Was the coffee good? YES! And, I realized, for those who drink coffee regularly (I don’t) it costs less than or about the same as a Starbucks habit. A 14 day supply costs $1.50 per day. Of course, if you drink more than one cup a day or pour your coffee into a huge mug that’s a whole other issue entirely.  The coffee was also good paired with New Moon Kitchen cookies (my dad bought three bags because the were 3 for $10 – or in other words, he let himself be manipulated ).

Other offerings that I didn’t try included vegan truffles,  ice cream and vegan cupcakes, tea and Jamaican patties.

At last year’s event I discovered some cool products and found the fair to have a more diverse group of vendors. I also liked the selection of presenters better last year. Planning an event of this magnitude isn’t easy, though, and when you’re trying to please everyone you take your chances.

Photo credit: saguarostrength from 2009 Vegetarian Food Fair Flickr Pool

Whereas I only got a photo of the human pea but saw the human banana BlogTO‘s Jen Brailsford got photo of the pea, the banana and… whatever the heck that is. A carrot?

After wandering around I sat by the water watching the people and boats and the airplanes flying into the island airport. Then it was a quick stop back to the Sunflower Kitchen booth to buy our dips before going home.

Numerous people have criticized the festival saying that there was too much fake meat. I can understand that but here’s my take on it: There’s something to be said for playing it safe for the masses and trying to please more people. Usually, and despite the fact that I try to, I’m of the opinion that you shouldn’t try to please everyone. However, at an event like this  there can be something for everyone.

They could preach exclusively to the converted (the current vegetarians and vegans), potentially intimidating everyone else and giving off the vibe that the outdated notions of vegetarianism is true. Or, they can offer something challenging to those people AND also make it accessible to the rest.

If fake meat is what it takes to ease them in than it’s a start. That’s Vegetarianism 101. Vegetarianism 201, however, should be “Now that you’ve made the transition, let’s decrease the amount of soy and increase the amount of vegetables and grains”.  I admit – shamefully when I speak to some people – that I sometimes like soy meatballs on my salad. However, I cook a lot with my favourite grain, quinoa.

(I’ve also been eating vegan dinners all week because of the bounty of local produce and the fact that after a summer of letting vegetables from the CSA and farmer’s market go to waste I’m trying to make an effort to use them.)

An idea: Borrow from the conference model of presentations being rated beginner, intermediates and advanced.

What other bloggers are saying about the Vegetarian Food Fair:

• BlogTO: Vegetarian Food Fair Makes Me Rethink My 3am Greasy Cheesburger Hangover Habit
• Meghan/Making Love in the Kitchen: I knew she’d be criticizing the soy but I found samples of grains, dips and other non-soy products
• Ash/Dancing Through Life: Disappointed by the Lack of Vegetables at the Vegetarian Food Fair
• Evolving Wellness: Vegetarian and Vegan and Raw! Oh My!

• Treehugger proposes a weekday vegetarian diet [Treehugger]

• Ever wonder why lemon makes milk curdle? It involves protein, negative charge and bondage (er, bonding). [The Kitchn]

• Also from The Kitchn: Tip: Use Cinnamon Sticks As Skewers when grilling fruit. Now I want a barbecue just for that purpose.

• Creating satisfying food is central to home cooks and chefs — as well as to companies that have produced foods that have helped lead to the obesity epidemic. Mark Bittman on Making Food Satisfying. [New York Times]

• In his article Bittman links the article “How the Food Makers Captured Our Brains“. It’s fascinating. Quote: “[Kessler] offers descriptions of how restaurants and food makers manipulate ingredients to reach the aptly named ‘bliss point.’”

• New Web Search Tool Shows What Pesticides are on Your Food

• According to this newsletter, the average child gets 5+ servings of pesticides in their food and water each day and the pesticide Atrazine is so toxic it is banned in Europe, but it is used so widely in the U.S., that it is found in 71% of the U.S. drinking water. (Thanks to my mother for forwarding me the newsletter. I went to the online archive so that I could share it with you.)

• One woman’s changing relationship with food and what she’s learned in the process of doing so while getting healthier. [In The Raw] There’s some great tips in there. The theme of conscious eating comes up (in my life) again and again I forget to exercise it, in part because I eat while doing other things. She touches on multitasking while eating.

• “Flapjack Fiasco” [This is Why You're Fat]

• Food porn: Grilled Cheese with Fresh Cherries [The Kitchn & Rachel Ray]

• Torontist on Toronto’s a la Carte food cart program. Not all good news.

• Meghan weighs in on milk and advises you not to drink conventional milk. [Making Love in the Kitchen] Milk bad. I know this and yet I can’t seem to give up cheese even though avoiding cheese would fit the reason I rarely eat meat.

• Food industry propaganda: New Organic Logo Will Provide More Opportunities For Organic Producers. [Canadian Food Inspection Agency] “Canada’s Organic Products Regulations (OPR)…set out rigourous standards for the certification of products as organic by accredited certification bodies. Products that meet the production requirements and contain at least 95 per cent organic content may be labelled as “organic” and feature the new Biologique Canada Organic Logo.

No links for tomorrow likely because I’ll be away from a computer all day. However, I do need to write a post about Food Share’s open house from last weekend. I’d forgotten.

Perhaps you’ve heard of turkuden, perhaps not. Here’s a description from the web page linked in the previous sentence:

What is turducken? It is a chicken stuffed inside a duck which is then stuffed inside a turkey. The term turducken comes from the combination of tur(key), duck, and (chick)en.

What happens when you make a turduken made with soy beans and wheat gluten (other than problems for celiacs)?

The answer is Tofucken.

And no, I’m no’tofucken kidding.  I came upon it in a post on Serious Eats called “Tofucken, the Vegetarian Turducken, and Other Interesting Meat Marriages“. My reaction when I read the post: Laughter, the thought “I MUST blog this and share as widely as possible”, and more laughter. Then I started blogging and bad puns such as “no’tofucken” popped into my head. Then I laughed some more at my own puns and at the word “tofucken”. Serious Eats picked it up from a website called “Table Manners”.  How’s that for irony?

Yes, sometimes I’m uncouth but the fact that I use such a word and know what it means speaks for a general presence of “couth”. This reminds me of the time that someone told me that I’m not vacuous because I know what it means and can spell it. Smrt, I am, and you know that Homer would be all over this “tofucken” until he found out what it is.

I’ve digressed.

• Cruelty of meat industry concerns vegan activist. The next time you call someone a chicken think about how those demeaning terms help people justify the cruelty to animals he says is rampant in North America’s livestock farms and slaughterhouses.
  

• Product Review from Slashfood: The Handpresso. It’s a portable, manual espresso maker. Boiling water from a kettle is poured into the Handspresso and the coffee comes from espresso pods. The shot is pumped by hand. The unit sells for over $150 + price of pods. Still, an interesting product and a good addition to your cubicle.

• Mott’s Selling 50% Juice For the Same Price as 100% Juice.  I hate when companies do that.

• Another bacon post on Slashfood. Although I don’t eat bacon, it looks mighty tasty.

• Banana flour in the news: A resistant starch-rich powder from banana powder could boost the nutritional content of pasta, report researchers from Spain and Mexico.

• Opportunities for cocoa powder as study shows antioxidant levels

• Video: How to get the most juice from citrus fruit. They juice one lemon lengthwise and one across and then measure it. Lengthwise yields more juice. I guess the surface area matters.

• Foolproof method for cooking rice.  will try this and report back.

• Yesterday Slashfood reviewed the new Starbucks breakfast items, which are available in Canada too.

I haven’t tasted any of these but have opinions anyway:  I don’t understand why people can’t make their own oatmeal. Throw some regular oats (not instant) and milk or water in a container, microwave while you’re going about your morning prep, and then it’s done. I don’t believe in instant oatmeal since regular oatmeal made in the microwave is pretty much instant – takes less time than boiling a kettle – and doesn’t have added sugars. Some of the other breakfasts seem easy to whip up, and lots of that stuff is available at small grocery stores. I could certainly find some on my way to work. Starbucks should stick to what they’ve always done: Coffee that melts your insides (or feels like it)

• Taste T.O. on the upcoming Picnic at the Brickworks. I really wanted to go to this when I found out about it. So, but the $110 ticket price made that impossible. Instead I’m volunteering at it. Looking forward to it, even though it’s not the most glamorous of volunteer positions. My friend and I are shuttle bus attendants. Someone’s got to take those types of positions though, and I’m not opposed to it. I’m happy to help (and be part of a cool event without paying over $100 for it).

Published May 20, 2008 (most recent): Popcorn prices rise, food snobbery, many Jewish references, a reference to Lost and more. Feeling spoiled, snobby and guilty, how corn stocks will increase the price of movie tickets, Tips for Feeding Grieving Friends and dog beer.

Published May 16, 2008: Friday’s food blog. I like pie. And tarts. Links to homemade yogurt, a review for a kombucha drink, and a note about using wakame with caution.

Published: May 14, 2008: Food blogginess. References posts about chocolate and an essay from Slate that I really like and will link again here. It’s called Meatless Like Me- I may be a vegetarian, but I still love the smell of bacon. I keep thinking about the following statement from that article:

“I try to represent for the animal kingdom, but take a look at my shoes—they’re made of leather, which, I am told by those with expert knowledge of the tanning process, comes from dead cows. This is the sort of revelation that prompts meat boosters to pick up the triumphant lamb shank once again and accuse us of hypocrisy. Well, sort of. (Hey, you try to find a pair of nonleather dress shoes.) My dedication to the cause might be incomplete, but I’d still say that doing something beats doing nothing.”

Published May 11, 2008: More food blog goodness. Stir fries, roasted vegetables, weird uses for vodka and some cool recipes.

Published May 08, 2008: Food blog #2: Fruit and cupcakes. Includes a link to a discussion about storing fresh herbs.

Published April 30, 2008: Experimenting with a new blog format: Food blog. There’s a good link in there to a post in David Lebovitz’s blog about food photography.