animal

I am a religious morning coffee drinker.
I would say that I’m a connoisseur, but someone who drinks mochas could hardly claim to be that. I don’t do espresso, short or long blacks but I do like a good, strong flat white.

I love Kokako beans the most, but regularly find myself drinking Sierra’s blend, mainly because their cafe is all too easily located on the first floor of the building I work in.

In short? It’s pretty obvious I love milky coffee. An obvious substitute for dairy as a vegan, soy from my understanding has always been a popular choice based on its accessibility.
I’ve never shied away from soy, being a fan of it’s naturally malt-reminiscent flavour, so the switch from traditional trim cows milk wasn’t and isn’t a huge stretch.

I ordered a syrup flavoured soy caramel latte this morning – and was disappointed. As I get older, the acrid taste of artificial sugars and flavours becomes more difficult to stomach. The sheer sweetness of the syrup, combined with the malt of the soy did nothing for me, except leave a bizarre taste in my mouth that remained for several hours, despite chewing gum and drinking a litre of water. 0/10 – don’t recommend.

Speaking of dairy, I came across a new term the other day, an expression I’d never heard before…’bovine secretion’.
This was a term used by popular YouTube vlogger Freelee the Banana Girl in a video her mother shot of her, during a visit to a farmers market, on the hunt for blueberries. A stall holder attempted to sell her some cheese, to which she responded, “No, we don’t need any of your bovine secretion, you can keep it”.

Here’s the thing – I think veganism is like religion. It appears to have its zealots and it’s hypocrites…like, an acquaintance I have that will happily smear a MAC lipstick across their mouths for a selfie, but then scream bloody murder at the guy on their Facebook feed enjoying a roast pork – that’s hypocrisy, much like Christians who preach ‘love thy neighbour’ – then vilify all of Islam for the acts of extremists in public forums.

The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. is an American manufacturer and the parent company of MAC. A Google search will tell you that their public stance on animal testing is that they do not test their products or ingredients on animals, or ask others to test on their behalf, except where required by law. So, essentially all EL products imported to China must be tested on animals under legislation.

If you want to spread a message of positivity to convince people that your way of life is the truth, the only way? Maybe don’t tell them they lack morals and scruples because their dietary choices aren’t the same as yours.
Make the choice accessible to all! Don’t preach, it’s tiring. Enough.

I ate breakfast just before 10am, sharing the raisin & cinnamon bagels I picked up at the Avondale Sunday Market yesterday with my friend Fraser. I bought a four pack for $3, and whilst they’re not Ugly Bagels, for those of us who are committed to actually having savings accounts that don’t have a deficit, that’s pretty good buying.

Usually, I would smother a fruit bagel in butter or cream cheese and greedily lick it off of my fingers as it drizzled down my hands – but seeing as dairy isn’t an option, we substituted the butter with Loving Earth’s Coconut Chocolate Butter…don’t let the name fool you, the product itself contains only raw and organic ingredients – no dairy here whatsoever!

Very similar in flavour to coconut rough, this chocolatey Nutella-esque spread went down a treat! It was actually a gift imported by my aunt who lives in Queensland. Loving Earth is an Australian company, meaning their products are obviously far more easily accessible there. As a breakfast option, this I can highly recommend. It would be a delight over soy ice cream too, or as an alternative to ganache on an almond meal/raw cake.

To keep hunger at bay throughout the day, I chose to snack on Californian red grapes today, referring to them to everyone in the office who I offered them to as either ‘natures’ or ‘vegan’ candy!
Disappointingly, I noted on the packaging that they weren’t spray free or organic, however after a good hand wash in cold water felt better about eating them.

Also at the market yesterday morning, I came across an older Chinese woman selling tomatoes by the box load. At $3 for a 3 kilo box, I jumped at the chance to buy them and swooped in. Admittedly, it was pretty clear that the majority of the toms were on their last legs, but I figured I could turn the whole lot into some kind of low sodium pasta sauce, using oregano, cracked black pepper, Himalayan sea salt and loads of New Zealand garlic to pack in flavour, mushrooms, eggplant, onions and spinach.

I spent a couple of hours on Sunday night hovering over the stove in sweltering heat, chopping, sautéing, mixing and stirring – pasta sauce from scratch! What a treat! After it cooled, I bottled it for future use. I’d say I’m going to get my money’s worth out of that box of tomatoes.

I made fettuccine using this sauce last night as an accompaniment to dinner with my husband, and made sure to make a little extra for myself for lunch. I’m not ashamed to say, the pasta sauce the night after was delicious!

After work, I made Ethan the same pasta dish my husband and I had eaten the night before, again using the sauce – a dream for frugal folks like myself – which he devoured. After Ethan hit the hay, I popped out to Circus Circus cafe for – you guessed it – a soy latte.

The one thing I will miss wholeheartedly during this experiment is the carrot cake they serve at Circus Circus – I’ve eaten a whole tonne of places in this town and I swear black and blue – it’s the best damn carrot cake money can buy. Octo-lacto friends, you should check it out!

So goes my entire dietary consumption on the first day of my life as a vegan.

On a final note, for those of you curious about what cosmetic brands there are available to you that are cruelty free, vegan and not owned by a parent company that does perform animal testing of its products, check out the following links:

http://www.rovie.co.nz
http://inika.com.au
http://www.kesterblack.com
http://www.coverfx.com/ (LipFX treatment contains carmine and beeswax and Bronze FX contains carmine. All other products are vegan).
http://www.limecrime.com

Love,

Charli x

After making the incredibly limiting decision to forgo my usual decaf latte during a late night visit to a cafe and drink a 20oz Caramel Macchiato from Starbucks instead, I lay listlessly awake at 1am and had a crazy idea.

It’s not a new idea, as a quick Google search will indeed tell you, but friends – it was new to me.

As a prolific and avid user of social media and with friends in various communities throughout the internet, I am constantly being bombarded by horrific images and statistics explaining the detrimental effects that the meat processing industry has on our eco-system, the disgusting practices of mass pork production, the horrors of caged hen farming – usually this information comes in the form of an article shared directly on my Facebook feed, coupled with a video or image of this poor practice – reddit is a huge source for statistical information and BuzzFeed is sure to give you a quickfire education.

I am acquainted with a large number of people who proclaim to be either vegan or octo-lacto vegetarians. Mostly, they’re passionate people who are concerned for the well being of animals. And, that is totally cool.

But sometimes, it gets a bit preachy. I suppose that is why I take a lackadaisical approach to explaining my decisions to consume meat, poultry and animal byproducts. There isn’t a reason as to why I eat meat; I choose to because I think it is delicious. I am a huge fan of beef. I’m the guy cooking an entire eye fillet on the barbecue in the Summertime.

I do try to alleviate my guilt as a meat eater though as an apologist for the mass production of meat for my consumption, by purchasing meat, eggs & poultry from ethical farmers, local businesses to help booster the economy…but, I digress.

This intrusive thought I had a 1am? Well, I thought it would be a great idea to accept the Animal Liberation’s challenge to commit to a vegan diet for a 30 day period.

I know, I know. The general consensus is that I’m crazy. Most people have not been able to understand my motivation or reasoning for deciding to take on this challenge. To be perfectly honest, I’m not even sure why I want to do it, other than to be able to view the world for a short period of time through the eyes of my animal activist friends.

A concern that was highlighted to me over the past week also after socialising the idea with a few colleagues was that I would starve. I will make it implicitly clear that I am for all intents and purposes overweight currently, so there are some significant and positive health benefits that could also be realised through this experiment.

I think that there is this huge misconception about vegans, with people who are not acquainted with this ‘fringe’ of society (if you will), that they’re are this glum group of folks who subsist merely on flavourless tofu, almond milk and lentils. Funnily, during my search for meal plan inspiration I came across some amazing foodie blogs written by vegans, which shows that they are as passionate about dining as we carnivores are about a cut of beef actually being served rested, medium rare – if not more so.

I’m excited to be sharing my experiences through this process with you all. As a meat eater, obviously I am not trying to sway anyone in any direction – however as a curious person, I figured I would do some research on why choosing a vegan diet is a positive change. Check out the infographic below sourced from PETA.org – it makes for some pretty compelling reading!

Peace, Love & Chicken Grease,

Charli x

Tag: animal

The Beginning of All Things To Come

Let the tofu onslaught begin!