My Life Month as a Vegan Day 11

Looked great. Tasted afwul.

Okay so tonight I had the biggest vegan fail ever. Seriously, I made three different meals for dinner because the first two went almost directly into the trash. So I started off with some apple cider tofu. I found the recipe from VeganDad and it looked so delicious that I thought I'd give it a try. Fail. I used less apple cider vinegar than the recipe called for and all you could taste was vinegar. So after a bite of that I threw it out (there was no salvaging any of it) and moved on to the next try. I had some tofu noodles and I made a "cream" sauce. Cooked up the noodles, poured some sauce over them, and topped it with some vegan-friendly meatless meatballs. I learned that tofu noodles are rather disgusting. The sauce and the meatballs were great, but they were ruined by the noodles. So after that I was tired of cooking. Heated up some leftover chickpea cakes and a few more meatballs and that was my dinner.



Last night I had a successful dinner attempt with only one try. I made some stir fry with bean sprouts, baby corn, mushrooms, water chestnuts, tempeh, and served it over rice. It was rather delicious, something that was super easy to make, and another one of those foods that you can just use whatever veggies you have.

Delicious tempeh stir fry which I served over rice (and have several servings of leftovers).

So one day last week I had the realization that since it is now October it is Mallomars season. If you're not aware, Mallomars are a delicious treat from Nabisco that is basically a smores cookie. It's a graham cracker-like cookie topped with marshmallow and covered in a chocolate coating. They are delicious. Over 70% of them are sold in the NY Metropolitan area though, so they are hard to come across down south. They are also only made from October to May since they melt so easily in the summer months. I got a packed from Mama Ceal this week and of course it had a box of Mallomars in it because she always sends me some when it's Mallomars season. Well, at least they don't go bad so they will be an amazing treat after my Vegan Pledge is over.

Sad that I can't eat Mallomars. They will make for a great post-vegan celebration.

Last night (or this morning rather) I had the sudden urge to bake cupcakes. It was 2am. I almost did, but then my rational thoughts took over and I knew that as soon as I would put them in the oven I would have the sudden urge to sleep. So I passed on that, but I plan on making some more chocolate cupcakes this weekend and possibly some cocount cupcakes as well.

Haven't had any other exciting vegan cooking extravaganzas. I'm hoping for some deliciously successful cooking adventures this weekend. And maybe a meal out at Sluggo's.


Here's the trailer to Food, Inc. It's a great documentary that has encouraged me to be a conscious consumer. I'm not trying to turn everyone (or anyone) vegetarian or vegan, but you should know where your food comes from and how it gets to you. I think I may see a documentary day coming up soon. This weekend perhaps?

Documentary Day

So, I love watching documentaries. I like learning about the world from documentaries; the good things and the bad things of the world. After work today I took a nap (so nice) and then decided to watch a documentary. And then another. And another. So I wanted to share my thoughts on that.

The Cove (2009): So I've been wanting to watch this documentary since it came out in 2009. It's about the dolphin slaughtering in Taiji, Japan. If you've never seen or heard anything about the dolphin slaughtering and the dolphin industry in Japan then you really need to watch this documentary, or at least read up about the issue. I find it appalling that humans would kill such an intelligent, majestic, beautiful species, and do it in such a horrible, inhumane way. The film focuses on Ric O'Barry's activism efforts in Taiji and elsewhere in the world. Now, for all of you who don't know who Ric O'Barry is, it is important to find out. Ric O'Barry is the world's most famous dolphin trainer, gaining his fame from being the dolphin trainer for the original Flipper TV series. He is also the world's most famous dolphin activist, moving into activism because of what he saw of dolphins in captivity while training the dolphins for Flipper. He also feels responsible for the craze of dolphin love at places like Sea World and aquariums all over the world because that craze started with Flipper.
I put off watching this documentary for so long because I knew how emotionally it would affect me. It certainly did. But I'm glad I finally got around to watching it. I've seen videos of dolphin slaughtering before and supported activism efforts, but to see this whole documentary and watch what O'Barry and other activists do really affected me. I really hope that our society can put an end to dolphin slaughtering. And it really kills me that the IWC turns a blind eye to dolphin slaughtering even though dolphins are whales too.
For more info on The Cove go to the Oceanic Preservation Society website.

Blue Gold: World Water Wars (2008): This one focuses on the privatization of water and the world water crisis will lead to wars, just like the wars over oil that we see today. Water is a necessity of life. While we live on the blue planet, the amount of freshwater that is safe to drink is rather scarce. So many people die every day from dehydration and water-borne illnesses. It's a terrible tragedy, and a crisis that we need to solve. It amazes me how politically controlled water is. It's not even about money or politics, it's all about power. People want to control the world's water supply. And they do. This is a great documentary to watch. It will really open your eyes to a subject that affects us everyday. We all need water.
For more information: check out the Blue Gold website.
Also see: For information specifically on the bottled water industry I recommend you watch the documentary Tapped. It's really good and it's primarily what made me stop drinking bottled water. I mean, I still drink bottled water on the rare occasion, but I primarily avoid it.

National Geographic: Appalachian Trail (2009): Okay, so I decided to shy away from the water theme for this one, but I stuck with nature. I wanted to watch this one because my brother and his fiancee have hiked portions of the AT (as it's commonly called). The AT goes from Georgia to Maine, passing through 14 different states (including my homestate of Connecticut). The Appalachian Trail has always been something I've found fascinating. I know people who have hiked parts of it, and people who have hiked the whole thing.  The AT includes Mt. Washington in New Hampshire which I've been up twice (driving, that is). I would really like to do some AT hikes someday. Need to get a bit more in shape first. The AT is home to a wide variety of wildlife, including trees, plants, fish, bears, and more (even wild horses). Conquering the trail is an amazing feat and I think it's awesome that so many people attempt it and complete it. But it's also important to preserve and conserve the trail. It's important that hikers take what they bring, and don't leave any stuff behind along the trail. Staying on the trail is important, for safety and for preservation. The wildlife along the AT are threatened by all sorts of factors, including acid rain. Thousands of volunteers collectively contribute about 200,000 hours to preservation every year. Maryland and WV are the easiest sections to complete, while Maine and NH are the hardest. My bro and his fiancee have done all of NH. The hikers you meet along the AT are very friendly. The AT is a pretty amazing part of our natural world, and you should really watch this documentary about it. It's only 50 minutes long, and it's really got some interesting information.
For more about the AT check out this website.

So I hope you like this post, and please consider watching these documentaries. They are very informative and very interesting. I think I like this documentary day post idea. So I think I will periodically do this. Hope you enjoy.

It's mutual.

30-Day Challenge #1: TED Talks
Day 4

So here's the talk for today. Let me warn you first: it's a long one. It's about 20 minutes long, but believe me it's worth it. Mark Bittman (a food writer for the New York Times) talks about what's wrong with our diet. He touches on a lot of good points, reasons why I'm a vegetarian. What I like about it, though, is not that he's saying be a vegetarian (because he's not saying that), but that he's just talking about what is wrong with what we eat and how and why we should change it. Our country's agricultural system has gone to shit, which I mean figuratively of course (although quite literally when you think about livestock being raised while standing in their own feces). As an alumna of the National FFA (Future Farmers of America) Organization, I hope to see our agricultural system improve.

So I hope you watch this video in its entirety. I hope you'll eat organic, eat local, eat sustainable, but most importantly just eat healthy. If you're interested in this topic, I highly recommend the movie Food, Inc. It's a great documentary about the food we eat and the agricultural system.




Now onto the word of the day. An important word it is today...
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Agreement. Decision. I think it's time to come to a mutual agreement. I'm not so into this dual blogging thing I've got going on. My blog has agreed it is going in a better direction (clearly I made up a mind for my blog) and I've agreed that I hate building off of this one word thing. Agreed. Decided.
--
Well, there you have it. I have decided (and apparently mutually agreed with the mind of my blog) that it's time to remove the one word aspect to the blog. I think that my blog is far better with these 30-day challenges now. So mutual is the last word I'll be using for my blog inspiration. It doesn't mean I'm leaving oneword.com behind. Seriously, give it a try. It really helps your thoughts to just flow. Which ironically, using it for my blog makes my posts not flow... If you're terribly upset by this mutual decision between me and my blog (again I apparently gave it a mind of its own...) feel free to let me know and I may consider giving it another go. Although, who actually reads this anyway? Especially after I just asked you to watch a guy talk for 20 minutes. So I applaud you if you not only read my blog, but made it this far.


On another quick note that goes back to the food thing, if you are a vegan or vegetarian, or just looking to eat healthy there's a few blogs that I think you'd be interested in. I think some of them are on the list of links on the right of my blog, but here they are anyway:
Love and Zest (this one's by a registered dietician so there's some great healthy recipes and isn't specifically vegetarian but does have some v-friendly recipes)
Green Gourmet Giraffe (all vegetarian, some are vegan and some gluten free)
Simply Sugar and Gluten Free (recipes free of refined sugar and gluten, not specifically vegetarian, but some recipes are v-friendly)
Vegan Dad (all vegan, but delicious)