Editors' Blogs
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The Very Preg Veg: Home for the Holidays
11/20/09
With Thanksgiving next week and my pregnancy pushing into the “it could happen any time now” period, I’ve decided to give up my normal holiday travel plans—meeting up with family in Sacramento—to ensure no chance of delivery along the expansive, desolate strip of Interstate 5.
Instead, energy permitting, I’ll cook up the Bryant Terry meal
VT featured in the Nov/Dec issue (“Soul Celebration,” p. 58). Just when I thought there was
no way we could top last year’s holiday recipes, we managed to do it. And to attest it its greatness, every time I read the article during proofing my stomach would start to growl. Check it out and cook up some of the recipes if you have time. You won’t be disappointed.
—Gabrielle Harradine, Market Editor
Gabrielle Harradine is VT's Market Editor and, more recently, The Preg Veg. She's navigating the joys and challenges of her very first pregnancy, and she's blogging here about her efforts to keep it healthy, green, and vegetarian.
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VT Taste Test: Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar
11/18/09 When word got out that the fabulous vegan chef duo Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero were publishing a new cookbook, I literally squealed with glee. My sister and I are diehard fans of
Veganomicon and
Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on a copy.
Upon breaking the spine of my glossy clean cookbook, I ogled their magnificent renditions of my childhood favorites like NYC Black and White Cookies, Cowboy Cookies, and Big Fat Crispy Rice Squares. They’ve created some delicious new trademarks too, like Sell Your Soul Pumpkin Cookies, Peanut Butter Chocolate Pillows, and Espresso Chip Oatmeal Cookies.
Since it’s nearing holiday season, I decided to make Gingerbread Cut-Out Cookies. As a college student, improvising in the kitchen is a daily occurrence. Don’t have a rolling pin handy? I resorted to an olive oil spray can, which flattened those babies out in no time. I delighted myself in filling my cookie sheets with cute pumpkin shaped cut-out cookies. After popping them into the oven, sugar, spice and everything nice wafted around my apartment complex. Even though it’s 80 degrees here in Southern California, a girl can dream of a white Christmas, can’t she?
I used Isa and Terry’s Cinnamon Icing from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World to decorate my cookies. I’ve included that recipe below. These chewy and tangy treats will give you the thrill of the holiday season. Make several batches and share them as gifts for your friends and loved ones. Happy baking!
Gingerbread Cut-Out Cookies
Makes About 16 Cookies
Whether you’re going all-out with your decorating or you’re part of the gingerbread minimalist movement, this recipe is a surefire winner that will have you singing Christmas carols under your breath and then looking around to make sure no one heard you.
1/3 cup canola oil
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup plain soy milk
2 cups whole-wheat pastry flour or all-purpose flour (or a mix of both)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
For the spice blend:
1/2 teaspoon each ground nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1. In a large bowl, whisk together the oil and sugar for about 3 minutes. Add the molasses and soy milk. The molasses and soy milk won’t really blend with the oil but that’s okay.
2. Sift in all the other dry ingredients, mixing about halfway through. When all of the dry ingredients are added, mix until a stiff dough is formed. Flatten the dough into a disc, wrap it in plastic wrap, and chill for an hour or up to 3 days in advance. If the dough chills longer than an hour you may want to let it sit for 10 minutes to warm up a bit before proceeding.
3. Preheat oven to 350ºF. Lightly grease two baking sheets or line them with parchment paper.
4. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out to a little less than 1/4 inch thick. Cut out your shapes with your cookie cutters and use a thin spatula to gently place the cookies on the sheets. If you are using the cookies to decorate a tree or something, remember to punch a hole in their heads (!) before baking. Bake for 8 minutes.
5. Remove the cookies from the oven and let them cook for 2 minutes on the baking sheet, then move them to a wire rack. Wait until they are completely cool before icing.
From the book
Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. Excerpted by arrangement with Da Capo Lifelong (
www.dacapopress.com), a member of the Perseus Books Group. Copyright © 2009.
Cinnamon Icing
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons margarine, melted
1 tablespoon soy milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Place sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Add the margarine, soy milk, and vanilla and stir with a fork until smooth. Keep at room temperature until ready to use. The mixture should look opaque and honey brown. If it’s glistening a lot or looks too liquid, add a little extra confectioners’ sugar.
From the book
Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World Jar by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. Excerpted by arrangement with Da Capo Lifelong (
www.dacapopress.com), a member of the Perseus Books Group. Copyright © 2009.
—Anna Monette Roberts, Editorial Intern
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The Preg Veg: Little Signs
11/16/09
My due date is only three weeks away now, and in addition to last minute preparations for my baby’s arrival, I’m also preparing to be gone from work for 12 weeks so that I can get to know my little cherub.
This will undoubtedly be a special time for the entire family, as we all grow past the initial introductions into a sweet and lasting familiarity. One of our goals of the first few weeks is to learn what each cry from the baby means, so that we can successfully communicate (at least one way).
Although, this idea may seem silly to some, anyone who has had and cared for a pet knows what I mean. It’s really just a matter of paying attention enough to pick up the subtle differences in behavior to figure out what each cry is for, whether it be for hunger, attention, or something more serious.
For cues to look for and much more check out
Understanding Your Baby’s Signals from the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. It’s a great introduction to getting to know your baby, before he or she can talk.
—Gabrielle Harradine, Market Editor
Gabrielle Harradine is VT's Market Editor and, more recently, The Preg Veg. She's navigating the joys and challenges of her very first pregnancy, and she's blogging here about her efforts to keep it healthy, green, and vegetarian.
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The Preg Veg: Last Minute Finds
11/13/09
I’m still not quite finished getting everything I need for when our chestnut joins the family, which is mostly a result of wanting to get only the things we really need, rather than procrastination. In fact, I just bought two great, green baby finds that I have to share.
First, is a
Natursutten Pacifier made from 100 percent natural rubber. It is BPA and PVC free, comes in three sizes, and offers both an orthodontic and rounded nipple shape. The second is a beauty
beechwood rattle from Sugar Booger, which is painted with water-based inks, and covered in a natural beeswax coating. It has a bell in the middle for a harmonious rattle sound and a little ring in the back for babies or moms to hold on to.
—Gabrielle Harradine, Market Editor
Gabrielle Harradine is VT's Market Editor and, more recently, The Preg Veg. She's navigating the joys and challenges of her very first pregnancy, and she's blogging here about her efforts to keep it healthy, green, and vegetarian
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Beguiling Botanicals
Apples on tree in Geneva, New York
Photo: Edward Gray
10/10/09
Veg-head that I am, I skipped the parts about marijuana and psychedelically hued tulips in the documentary
The Botany of Desire to focus on the segments featuring apples and potatoes. The title of the film, from the book of the same name, refers to plants’ enticing us to labor for their survival, according to the book’s author and the film’s dominant talking head, Michael Pollan. Not that Pollan is pushing some paranoid fantasy about our plant overlords. Viewing our domestication of plants from their perspective, he says, can give us a fresh look at ourselves. We’ll see how our illusion of control over nature shackles us to monoculture farming—a system that just makes us more vulnerable to the vagaries of climate and to the superadaptability of insect pests, who always seem to be a step ahead of our efforts to eradicate them.
The film also reveals our role as consumers in all this. Take the example of America’s appetite for French fries: to produce the fries’ long, crispy strips, the fast food industry relies almost exclusively on a single type of potato, the Russet Burbank. Our infatuation with this potato led agri-corporation Monsanto to genetically alter it, introducing a bacterium into the potato’s genetic code as a built-in pesticide against a particularly pesky beetle. Foreseeing a PR nightmare when the public started asking questions about their use of genetically engineered spuds, McDonald’s dropped them like, well, a hot potato.
The film’s advice for preserving plants that have entwined their lives with ours includes conserving lots and lots of varieties of seeds. Visiting a USDA-run apple research center, described as a botanical version of Noah’s ark, the camera lingers on luscious images of red, yellow, green, and purplish fruits. How can you not fall in love all over again?
—Amy Spitalnick, Associate Editor
For more about the shared history of humans and four iconic plants—including how the potato’s migration to Europe made the industrial revolution possible—check out the DVD of The Botany of Desire
, available at shopPBS.org.
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The Preg Veg: Natural Nourishment
11/9/09
Once I have my baby, I plan on breastfeeding for at least the widely recommended first year. Doing so offers benefits for both baby and mom: baby gets an enhanced immune system and is less likely to suffer allergies, and mom gets a reduced risk of premenopausal breast cancer, a release of stress-relieving hormone, and the convenience of never having to go to the store to buy formula.
The
Vegetarian Resource Group has a good overview of both a vegetarian and vegan mother’s nutritional needs while breastfeeding, which includes getting higher amounts of Vitamin D, Iron, and DHA. (
Life’s DHA offers an algae source of DHA, to get around the typical fish sources which are not vegetarian.)
It’s also important to be conscious of what you eat when you’re breastfeeding, because everything you eat and drink gets passed on to your babe. It is very possible that the caffeine in chocolate will keep your child up at night, and consuming dairy or soy products could lead to allergic reactions. One suggestion I read was to keep a food diary. This is an effective way to pinpoint the cause if a reaction does occur.
—Gabrielle Harradine, Market Editor
Gabrielle Harradine is VT's Market Editor and, more recently, The Preg Veg. She's navigating the joys and challenges of her very first pregnancy, and she's blogging here about her efforts to keep it healthy, green, and vegetarian
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The Preg Veg: The Home Stretch
11/6/09
With less than a month to go now, the kicks and punches from growing muscles are getting stronger every day, and if you're like me, so is the desire to get your babe out of your belly and into your arms.
Every mother I talked to says the last month is the longest, and that's because of any number of things—the weight, the lack of sleep, fatigue, heartburn, and swelling. But rather than focus on the increasing physical pressures, I am opting for counting every day as a moment closer to seeing my peanut and introducing it to its first tastes of the world.
—Gabrielle Harradine, Market Editor
Gabrielle Harradine is VT's Market Editor and, more recently, The Preg Veg. She's navigating the joys and challenges of her very first pregnancy, and she's blogging here about her efforts to keep it healthy, green, and vegetarian.
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VT Review: Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
11/03/09
After years of dabbling with vegetarianism, well-known author Jonathan Safran Foer and his wife seriously committed to it when expecting their first child, realizing that their wavering food habits were confusing and contradictory.
Foer’s newest non-fiction work
Eating Animals vividly narrates his journey investigating the food we eat. His tale extends beyond your expected pro-vegetarian handbook. He humorously and compellingly describes his childhood associations with food and his first realization about where meat comes from. He walks you through the evolution of large-scale farming and its disturbing impact on the environment, America’s health, and small family farmers.
While the book includes plenty of facts and figures, it’s above all a story about people and about food’s role in upholding central traditions that bind families and culture. Foer forms close relationships with family farmers, factory farm workers, and slaughterhouse hands to develop a clear picture of the entire industry. The heart-wrenching realities surely ignite or reinforce a passion for vegetarianism. Moreover, he uncovers a dismal truth: family farms are almost extinct, and factory farms continue to oust honest businesses off the market.
Foer understands that numbers fall short when trying to promote change. He concludes: “Being human, being humane, is more than an exercise of reason. Responding to the factory farm calls for a capacity to care that dwells beyond information, and beyond the oppositions of desire and reason, fact and myth, and even human and animal.”
To purchase the book, click
here.
—Anna Monette Roberts, Editorial Intern
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The Preg Veg: New Grad--Eager to Labor
11/2/09
My husband and I have officially completed our
birthing class! Equipped with a stockpile of knowledge, we have been set free to face labor, which if we can just manage to remember it all, will undoubtedly make the birthing experience much more pleasant. Not only will we be in the know about everything that is going on, we will also be prepared with solutions to remedy any problem that arises.
To help avoid any complications or confusion between the hospital staff and yourselves, it’s also a good idea to create a birth plan, (which you can give to the medical staff when you arrive). A typical birth plan contains your wishes on how to proceed in pretty much every possible scenario. Here’s a
sample birth plan so you can get an idea, and when you’re ready to create one you can use any of the many Web sites, including
birthplan.com and
earthmamaangelbaby.com, to help you get one down on paper.
—Gabrielle Harradine, Market Editor
Gabrielle Harradine is VT's Market Editor and, more recently, The Preg Veg. She's navigating the joys and challenges of her very first pregnancy, and she's blogging here about her efforts to keep it healthy, green, and vegetarian.
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The Preg Veg: Mobile Madness
10/30/09
I’ll admit that I’ve spent a good amount of time (OK, way too much time) looking around for the perfect mobile to hang over my peanut’s crib. I mean after all it’s got to entertain and delight day after day and night after night on a mere second’s notice. So it better be good, right? Well, the early mobiles that contain only red, white, and black weren’t doing it for me, and although I did find some good colored ones, they wouldn’t work for the first six months.
I ended up finding the solution at
Spool Sewing’s blog, which features an adorable bird mobile pattern. All you really need is a needle, one spool of thread, a handful of small fabric squares (8 in. x 5 in.), and something soft to stuff them with (cut up old clothes will work fine). I’m starting out with five red, white, and black birds on two branches, and plan to add on more colored ones when my peanut’s vision develops enough to see the full range of colors.
—Gabrielle Harradine, Market Editor
Gabrielle Harradine is VT's Market Editor and, more recently, The Preg Veg. She's navigating the joys and challenges of her very first pregnancy, and she's blogging here about her efforts to keep it healthy, green, and vegetarian.
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In a Nutshell
Photo: the California Walnut Board.
10/27/09
Green walnut hulls lay scattered on the muddy ground we navigated through gusts of rain. A storm had upended the best-laid plans of our hosts, representatives of the California Walnut Board, for our group of nutritionists and journalists to observe the harvest of omega-3-rich walnuts on an 160-acre orchard in California’s Central Valley.
Orchard owner Frank Rebolo, one of 4,000 growers in California—the state produces 99 percent of the country’s commercial supply of walnuts—is hands-on when it comes to harvesting the crop. As we huddled in a shed around Frank and his wife, Elza, he showed us samples of hulls that easily split open to reveal the walnut shell, a sign the crop is ripe. After the walnuts are hulled, in sheds like the one sheltering us, they await hours of drying before they’re ready to be trucked to processing plants for shelling, sorting, and packing. Truly enormous reserves of patience are required of famers like Frank. It takes five or six years for a walnut tree to even begin its productive life.
Timing is critical: a year’s harvest must be accomplished in just a matter of weeks, from roughly late September to early November. Here it was mid-October, and because of the storm, work at Frank’s orchard would be delayed several days, until the mud dried sufficiently for him and his crew to operate their equipment. Vehicles that clamp onto trees and shake the walnuts loose from their branches play a significant role in the harvest. On our way back to our bus, we noticed a “shaker” slumped in the mud.
News of a farm crop lost to inhospitable weather always struck me as unfortunate, but at a remove. Now, having met Frank and Elza, it’s personal.
—Amy Spitalnick, Associate Editor
To learn more about walnuts, visit
walnuts.org.
Here are a few fantastic
VT walnut recipes to try:
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The Preg Veg: What Are You Dreaming About?
10/26/09
I woke up the other night sure that I had just seen vivid details of my baby’s face through my stomach. It seemed like a rare moment in time, but not something that was physically impossible. Well, until I thought about it with a fully awake mind.
As I approach my due date, there’s no question that I’ve had more dreams about my pregnancy and my child. No doubt one reason is that it is more often on my mind (since the effects are always with me now). But that’s not the only reason.
Increased progesterone and more frequent interruptions of REM sleep both cause dreams to become more vivid during pregnancy.
So, if you too have been having dreams about what your peanut looks like, or even what sex it is (if you’ve left that TBA), rest assured you’re amongst a large crowd of pregnant women. And that goes for nightmares, too.
—Gabrielle Harradine, Market Editor
Gabrielle Harradine is VT's Market Editor and, more recently, The Preg Veg. She's navigating the joys and challenges of her very first pregnancy, and she's blogging here about her efforts to keep it healthy, green, and vegetarian.
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The Preg Veg: Stretching the Limits
10/23/09
Who ever thought a belly could stretch so much? I know I didn’t, but there it is every time I look down.
No doubt my skin is being taxed by this natural feat. So, in order to help it manage the task without causing any lasting damage—like stretch marks—I have started using
Out of Africa’s Pure Shea Butter. It helps restore skin elasticity, prevents stretch marks, and comes in unscented (if you’re still having issues with scents like I am). It’s also a good excuse to get your partner to give you a little belly massage, which both you and your baby are sure to love.
—Gabrielle Harradine, Market Editor
Gabrielle Harradine is VT's Market Editor and, more recently, The Preg Veg. She's navigating the joys and challenges of her very first pregnancy, and she's blogging here about her efforts to keep it healthy, green, and vegetarian.
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The Preg Veg: Poop Happens, but Diapers in Landfills Do Not Have to
10/19/09
Good news! There’s at least
one government out there that’s trying to get proactive about the diaper landfill issue. In Sweden, a motion has been submitted to the Parliament to give a $75 subsidy to families that opt for cloth diapers. The subsidy aims to reduce the amount of trash going into landfills as well as government spending on garbage pick up.
Covering all tracks, Sweden has looked into the debate as to whether cloth diapers are really greener than disposables. Their calculations show that a disposable diaper uses about three times more natural resources than a cloth diaper.
Hopefully, the United States will look into offering such a rebate in the near future, but until then be assured that you’ll still be saving a lot of money by opting for washable cloth diapers over disposables.
—Gabrielle Harradine, Market Editor
Gabrielle Harradine is VT's Market Editor and, more recently, The Preg Veg. She's navigating the joys and challenges of her very first pregnancy, and she's blogging here about her efforts to keep it healthy, green, and vegetarian.
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The Preg Veg: Sweet Dreams
10/16/09
I finally found the perfect mattress for my chestnut’s crib. I say perfect because it met my two most important desires:
1) If my baby is going to spend 16 hours a day doing something, it should be in a nice, healthful atmosphere.
2) I’d rather support an ethical, small business, than a large or conglomerate company.
With those criteria in mind, I decided on
an organic cotton and wool innerspring crib mattress made by Organic Grace. Unoiled springs are covered with layers of organic cotton and wool; the wool is both flame-retardant and antibacterial. The mattress comes with a 10-year warranty and, at $259, it’s still cheaper than its Naturepedic counterpart. Knowing all this, I should sleep as well as my babe.
—Gabrielle Harradine, Market Editor
Gabrielle Harradine is VT's Market Editor and, more recently, The Preg Veg. She's navigating the joys and challenges of her very first pregnancy, and she's blogging here about her efforts to keep it healthy, green, and vegetarian.
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