[phobia]

Urgh, yes. I'm of the "everything in moderation" school of thought, so the weekly food scares don't bug me too much (and anyway, I mostly eat lentils and brown rice because it's quick and easy and tastes GOOD), but high fructose corn syrup I stay the fuck away from. It's not just that it's added empty calores in places you really don't need it (bread? why does BREAD need hfcs???), but there's all those other issues surrounding it. I don't want to eat something crappy and bad for me just beacuse the corn industry is good at lobbying, you know? Ick.

[pepper]

word ophelia. i avoid the entire center of the grocery store and have for years, i don't trust anything in a package. i really only buy whole foods except for bread (have bread maker, will bake eventually!). we eat a ridiculously simple diet, i think it's easy for me since kids don't like complicated foods so little has me serving brown rice with steamed veg often. we do eat eggs on occasion but since they're limited i can afford to buy organic free range. i try to buy the Big Four organic, tomatoes, potatoes, corn and wheat (they are the most gmo-ed crops) and i have a wallet sized version of this that i carry around.

i have found that it's easy to be really healthy so long as i'm not trying to find substitutes for all the crappy-for-me fancy foods i used to eat. trying to eat the Standard (north) American diet (SAD) takes some serious scrambling! i still prepare lovely dishes for guests but Nothing like i used to and everything from scratch.

and yes, there is soy is everything pre-prepared. all fast food burgers have more soy than beef, some barely have any beef at all! it is still very easy to avoid.
amazingly enough a study of mcdeath's showed that a complete meal was 75% corn, it was in Everything. interesting that. corn i eat Very Minimally, organic or not.

[opheliathemuse]

This is why I don't eat processed food.

[tankgirl]

well... they put soy in EVERYTHING. most food now is hazardious in some way because its so chemically altered. thats what amuses me, because people continue to make food that way and everyone continues to eat it, whether they know it or not. it isnt a vegetarian thing, most non veggies eat more soy and dont even know it than vegetarians do. its a scare tactic, no matter how true it is, people thrive on that stuff, they want to be safe and secure with how the media tells them to live their lives.

[pepper]

actually, that's old news and it's no joke. i don't touch soy.

[tankgirl]

that article is funny. gotta love the monthly food scare tactics.

[rawrtigergrrl]

I read it! It was interesting. For now I am still eating a helluva lot of soy (newly vegan, woot) but I think as I get more confident with my cooking skills I'm going to try to limit my daily intake.

[raisingirl]

I recently picked up Utne Reader and read about the Dark Side of Soy. It was very eye-opening and I think if you're veg or have veg leanings for health reasons, you might want to read the articles.

[tankgirl]

nutritional yeast can have a "cheese like" taste when mixed with the right ingredients, but really i think that making macaroni and cheese, grilled cheese etc with it is AMAZING.

i'm not saying it tastes like cheese but i am obcessed with nutritional yeast. when i have it, i put it on almost everything.

the best is bagels with margerine and nutritional yeast sprinkled on top. also like i mentioned above, making macaroni and cheese with it is really good, even my super picky everything has to be plain and have the right texture meat eating boyfriend loves it which is a bonus since we hardly ever agree on food.

[hellotampon]

A lot of people think nutritional yeast is like, god's gift to vegan cheese, but I don't see it. I like it, but not as a cheese substitute. I think it's good on stuff like couscous, with garlic and poultry seasoning.

[hamburg]

a vegan friend of mine substitues cheese on lasagne with something made of yeast flakes which it very tasty.

just mix 150 ml water with 4 spoons yeast flakes, 2 spoons margarine, 3 teaspoons flour, 1 teaspoon salt and finally 1 teaspoon mustard - top your lasagne with it, and it'll melt in the oven.

my friend has this story when he cooked for a bunch of non-vegan people and one of them said "oh, it's very good!! but i think you used a bit too much parmesan, didn't you?"

you can also spinkle plain yeastflakes over your pasta as a parmesan substitude.

[annelise]

i wonder if that vegan gourmet mozza-like-stuff might combine with real mozza or other cheeses and seem more realistic, while not aggravating my roommie's cheese sensitivities. she'll eat cheese, but not very much. meanwhile, i dearly miss spinach lasagna. maybe i'll try that out and see.

tofu can be wonderful if it's seasoned/marinated well. once in a while we'll order fried tofu from a thai or chinese restaurant and i invariably hate it! it's nasty if it doesn't have enough flavor, and somehow restaurants always serve it really bland. when i get vegetarian thai takeout, i just get extra veggies in place of the tofu.

we use my mark bittman 'how to cook everything' cookbook a LOT in our cooking endeavors. it's not vegetarian, but it might be worth checking out of the library for the chapters on beans and vegetables. we make the lentils and rice all the time, as well as the soy marinade (for tofu of course), and the double garlic kale to go with biscuits and mushroom gravy. we get a veggie share every two weeks and have NO idea what to do with the ingredients sometimes, so it's been really valuable to have a basic cookbook like that to consult.

[mermaidgirl13]

Faerie and Blanche:

I'm in love with my slowcooker, which I got for Christmas. I'm a pretty bad cook but I think it's so easy to just throw ingredients in there and then forget about it until I'm ready to eat. Plus, the smell of it cooking is wonderful and makes my place feel homey and cozy.

I'm not wild about tofu either (or fake cheese, fake sausage, etc) but the tofu in the slow cooker came out really well. The texture was still the same, but it had really absorbed all of the ingredients (soy sauce, mustard, curry powder, etc) nicely and so it didn't taste bland which is often the problem.

[hellotampon]

I'm not a fan of fake cheeses either, but Follow Your Heart makes this "Vegan Gourmet" mozzarella stuff that's pretty good on sandwiches or in things like manicotti or burritos. It still doesn't replace real cheese though.

I made a pot pie the other night. You know those Amy's veggie pocket sandwiches? It tasted just like those. My boyfriend flipped out. Yeah it was that good. I am a vegan goddess! haha.

[tankgirl]

some of the fake meats are decent, but it seems as though most of the ones that taste good are ones not trying to replicate something that its not. if you eat something expecting for it to taste exactly like the food you remember before you went vegie you are most likely going to be disapointed. when i ate meat, i never liked hamburgers, therefore i dont like vegie burgers that try oh so hard to taste like meat. vegie burgers made of vegeatables, grains and beans are yummy, mostly because they taste good as is, w/o esence of meat or whatever they put in other "fake meat" i have to admit, that even though i dont care much for boca burgers i still eat them because they are fast and healthy and i can drown out the taste with condaments and tomatoes and such.
i guess im a vegetable snob because i had to learn to cook vegan meals for myself as a teenager because my parents wouldnt support my decision and thought it was "a phase" so i have always cooked from raw ingredients instead of buying premade food mostly because teenagers usually dont have enough money to buy that stuff

[sassy]

Yes, I have to agree that fake cheese leaves a lot to be desired. Gross.

[faerietails]

Oh, I definitely used to love my meat. I'm a Texas girl, whadya expect?!

I eat fake meat products every once in a while; I've stopped stuffing my face with them over the years. A month ago I made veggie "pigs" in blankets for class and everyone gobbled them up. It really depends on the brand and how it's prepared. Ruby Tuesday, for instance, has this BBQ burger wrap that is sooooooo good. It's fake burger patty cut up and slathered in BBQ sauce (I'm telling you, TEXAN!), and then they put it in a tortilla wrap. YUMMM...I've also had veggie burgers made from scratch and they're really great.

Fake cheese, on the other hand...EEEW!

I just bought a slow cooker this week, and the vegetarian slow cooker cookbook I ordered came in today. I can't wait to try some of this stuff out. It sounds divine. (I decided I need to start cook more at home because I'm a take-out addict. It's practically genetic.)

[hellotampon]

I don't really eat fake meat products. They're expensive, and it never really occurs to me to get them anyway. I'm more of a fruit and veggie girl, I guess. That's what most of my meals consist of.

[sassy]

I've been a vegetarian for 8 years and I eat a lot of "fake" meat products. I think a lot of vegetarians/vegans liked meat but gave it up for ethical reasons, which is how it is in my case. So yes, it may seem weird to eat fake meat but it's humane and you can still feel like you are somewhat normal in a group type setting. Plus, these types of products have a lot of soy protein in them which is always a nice bonus when you are not eating meat.

[hiddenpoet]

i totally know what you're talking about tankgirl. my aunt made me one of those boca 'burgers' a few years ago as a gesture of kindness at her bbq a few years ago and i gagged when i bit into it. i see those pretend bacons, sausages and even chicken now and shudder. if i wanted to taste meat then i'd go eat some you know?