vegan skill share event leads to thoughts about home schooling

I went to a local social/community centre yesterday to do a "skill share workshop", led by my friend. We learned how to make vegie burgers, and then had a little competition type thing to try changing the recipe and see who made the best burgers. I have been vegetarian for 13 years and never once made a vegie burger (*blush*). However I have also been cooking for 12 years and so general principles of cooking make sense to me.

At the start we were asked who had made vegie burgers before and almost everybody else said yes (there were a couple of other adults, and three 14-16 year olds). At one point I found myself being lectured to by a 16 year old about how ridiculous it was that I did not cook for myself until I went to university. I am not quite sure how my mum would have felt if I had started cooking and not eating her food, nor how she would have felt about paying for the extra ingredients (everything was budgeted very carefully, we had a calculator to add up what was going into the trolley and only things on the list went in). I don't suppose a 16 year old has had much cause to consider these things though. This however is another blog entirely! Anyway, despite my never having cooked for myself til i was 18, and never having made a burger til i was 30 it seems I was OK at it! I think general cookery skills were more important in the long run than having made a burger before.

Later I was asked about my organic veg box, which comes from Abel and Cole, however I was unable to say where my distributor was located. I don't think this matters as I have selected them for being ethical and for the range of products they stock which stops me from having to go to supermarkets so frequently. However, I did feel a little looked down on for not knowing this answer. Don't get me wrong everyone was lovely, but they were all far more "knit your own porridge" as Mr Green-Eyes would say (and he would barely tolerate such people as he can barely tolerate me!). Then the 16 year old tells me that there is a local box provider (the provider's name escapes her too), I explain that I am quite happy with my own. Then she suggests I do my shopping at farmers markets. Aside from the added petrol used to get to these farmer's markets I don't especially have the time. Now, I have questioned myself about whether I am being defensive. Lots of people have poor excuses why they can't do things, and generally they could do them if they really wanted, the reason they don't do them is because they don't want to. Maybe I just don't want to?

To be honest, I nearly suggested she should try having a job to go to before telling people how to live their lives or making judgements on the choices they make. I did however decide that actually though at 16 nearly everyone thinks they know everything, and actually at least she had some strong opinions. I don't think I knew any vegans at 16 or people who would have been able to/had the inclination to discuss merits of various organic distributors.

I was kind of surprised though that some of the others were home schooled, and had a friend who is steiner school educated. One of the adults at the skill-share was actually talking to another (who I happen to know to be a maintained-school teacher, I guess maybe he doesn't know that) and almost making the assumption that any socially inclusive/vegan/whatever label fits/knit-your-own-porridgers would do anything but home school their children. Apparently they have a home school group at the centre. It got me thinking... I usually align with the green-anarchistic camp at least philosophically if not practically... should I be pro-home-schooling? Am I pro-home-schooling? Strange thing for a maintained teacher to be considering, should have some faith in the system I am part of (a wall I am a brick of?)

My gut is that I am not pro-home schooling, just like my gut is that I am not pro going round all the farmers markets in the area hoping I can get enough stuff to run my house. But then I wonder whether I am just displaying the classic defensive behaviour that people show when faced with people doing something "better" than them?

Oh and this is a link to my burgers! Mine are the ones in the main picture, the little girl is not mine however! I am on the left of the picture in the middle of the second round of small pictures (follow that? Well done!)

Burgers!!!!

Meat-free Mondays? For a Vegetarian?

Meat-free Mondays are a concept of which I am aware, I didn't really know who or how it started it, but I knew it was an environmental/ethical movement to try to reduce the amount of meat eaten, and therefore the inhumane conditions, waste products and general unenvironmentalness that meat-eating entails. I think it's a good idea in principle. Why people think that just because they "can" they therefore "should" or "need to" eat meat with every meal is beyond me. I mean, plenty of people only used to meat once a week less than 50 years ago, why is that we now think we won't make it past the end of the day without meat?

So anyway, I would like to get involved with meat-free mondays, but as I already have meat-free mondays, and tuesdays, wednesdays, thursdays, fridays, saturdays and sundays I thought I would do animal-free mondays. I have a fairly animal free week already as I use soya milk and margarine and rarely eat honey. It's cheese, yoghurt and saturday morning boiled eggs that wreck it! As well as any ingredients in products made from these things.

Most of the time I think I should be vegan, and I ashamed to say the only reason I am not is because I can't be bothered, and I like eating out a lot. Not very moral or ethical reasons eh? Most of the time we are pretty much vegan at home, but as I say, things creep in.

So from tomorrow onwards I am doing animal-free mondays!

It was only after starting to write this post that I discovered the website for MFM:
http://www.supportmfm.org/index.cfm

And thus discovered they recommend animal free for vegetarians.

it's a cat's life

You may recall I discussed my thoughts on the newspaper article about how your pet can be more environmentally un-friendly than a 4x4.

After careful consideration I am getting 2 cats. I still have some issues to work through. When they come to me they will still be kittens (i know i know, why not recycle a rescue cat? I was going to, and then these ones needed homes, so they are all cats aren't they, they all need homes? Maybe I should have left the kittens to someone who would never get a rescue cat? Well, I haven't. I am having kittens) so many of these questions don't need answering just yet.

The biggest question for me was should they be allowed outside? My dearest Mr Organik believes it is wrong to keep cats indoors. I believe it's OK especially if they have never been outside and you provide them with adequate facilities. My garden is very meadow like (where is this going? Hang on in there, I come back round to topic!) and attracts all sorts of wildlife. We had a "pet" fox one year, we have 2 squirrels regularly although I have only seen 1 recently, bees, birds, butterflies, and my favourite of all slugs, sometimes they even decide to join us in the house for a party. Had to nip that one in the bud! So anyway, we are a bit lazy and this is why the garden is as it is, but I am not a fan of the heavily manicured garden anyway, and a happy coincidence is the wildlife we support. So it seems a shame that my cats will lay that to rest. So I have decided they will be in at night, and certainly at dawn and dusk when cats do most of their killing. So, point one compromise with me and the mr reached, compromise with the environment reached.

Next point is cat litter... If I keep them in at night they have to have a litter tray. Most traditional cat litter is mined exclusively for the purpose of making cat litter. Hmmm. Not sure about this. So I looked into more environmentally friendly option, biodegradable pellets, shredded paper (my bills maybe?!!) but apparently they don't like this as much. There are complex environmentally friendly litter tray solutions, but these are all made of plastic, plus I am being given a litter tray and do not wish to create additional waste. I am considering training them to use the toilet. Everyone seems to think this is a crazy idea, but surely this is the most environmentally friendly option?

Next food... I am vegetarian. I do not intend to raise my cat as vegetarian. I think this is wrong. Everything I have read says cats, unlike dogs, need a meat based diet. But again, many cat food brands are either subsidiaries of evil companies, and/or they source meat as purely for cat food that would have been fit for human consumption, whereas there is meat left over from the human meat industry which could make cat food. I need to read more about this to decide.

I am trying to get natural cat toys and bedding and things too. Not things made of plastic and man-made materials. There is a brand at Pets at Home called Willow, where it all looks natural, but as it makes no claims to be organic or anything on it I am suspecting it is trying to cash in on the organic market without being that at all. Of course I can see it is made from sisal and hessian and things and not plastic so I can see with my own eyes it is less artificial than some of the toys.

So many questions, what are the answers?!

Local or Organic?

As a vegetarian I eat a reasonable amount of vegetables. I buy most of these from the local greengrocer, who sources as much stock as possible from local farmers, but not all. I buy top-ups from asda. I also buy bits and bobs from waitrose. We do a big shop either by going to Tesco, or more frequently these days from ocado online (we are going up in the world!), and will always get some veg in that shop too.

I have some thoughts - don't we all? - about supermarkets. Most of them negative ones. I have some thoughts about supermarkets specific to fruit and veg too. A friend of mine's dad is a farmer and he was telling me about some of the things that supermarkets do to farmers. One such example was that they over-fruit and then insist the farmers buy back the rotting stock that didn't sell. Of course they buy it at ridiculously cheap prices to start with. Farmers are in lose-lose. Leo Hickman's ethical auditors said anyone trying to live more ethically should avoid supermarkets. He switched to an organic veg box scheme.

We have been considering an organic veg box scheme for a while, but weren't sure we wanted to take money away from the local greengrocer. However, they used to deliver to us, but were a bit useless at it, now they don't do it at all. We have to remember to go and get things from them, and they aren't just "over the road" like they used to be. I find I am increasingly buying things from supermarkets and this somewhat distresses me. The supermarket though is more convenient (for me, if not the planet). Leo Hickman's ethical auditors (in his book "My Life Stripped Bare") say that anyone trying to live more ethically should try to reduce their supermarket shopping. I have some friends who manage to not go to the supermarket, except waitrose. So I feel I should try.

Looking into box schemes I read a story about a farmer who was given a large rush order by a supermarket, and he paid people to pick and pack his lettuces, and just as they were ready for delivery he got a call from the supermarket saying they no longer wanted them, they had overestimated. Now picked the lettuces would go off (except this story has a happy ending - the box scheme people bought them all, and presumably they won't make him buy any rotting ones back again, so he won on that one).

Add to this that the supermarkets insist on certain cosmetic characteristics for their veg, they also charge a premium for organic foods thereby making them less available to lower income people. I haven't even touched on the packaging they use, or the even higher amounts of packaging they use on their loose fruit and veg...

So, I have had to weigh up buying locally from a very small business to buying organic from a larger business, but one which does support smaller local farmers, reduces packaging, and has zero air miles.

It will be a big change, harder to plan meals in advance, having to eat seasonally, but a step that feels like the next logical step. We can cancel if we find it isn't working, but I feel like it is really my duty to make it work. I think we will go with Abel & Cole. They also sell milk, bread, ecover washing products, toilet roll, tofu, beer, wine etc etc etc. There is almost no need to ever go in a supermarket again.

I have veg for this week, so I think I will start it next week. I am really looking forward to it.

Factory Farmed Organic chickens?

This would seem to follow naturally on from yesterday's "Chicken or Egg" post. And it does. Mr Brown Eyes and I were talking about whether one needs to own their own chickens in order for them to live in good conditions, or whether we can just pay someone else to do that for us, such as in the case of buying organic eggs.

We used to buy all our eggs free-range until I found out that free-range eggs are fairly routinely de-beaked, because of the unnaturally (if a chicken is at all natural) large flock sizes they live in. Since then we buy free range from a local farmer who does not debeak, or organic if we are elsewhere.

Mr Brown Eyes was saying that industry standard may even move towards organic, that actually there is nothing inherently wrong with large companies and even maybe monsanto (or someone equivalent in size and stature) could farm organic eggs. The thing is that I do not trust large capitalist organisations. They wait for us not to be watching, and then they cut a corner. When that has gone unnoticed they cut another one.

I also felt that I probably couldn't pay anyone to keep chickens as well as I would keep them if I had just 2 in my garden. I presumed an organic (the highest standard of animal welfare) chicken would not have as much space as they would if I just kept 2 in my garden. Or maybe some might, but certainly it would not be assured to be the case. I went using my friend "google" to try to find how much space they would have.

Before finding the answer I got distracted by the very thing that was my initial concerns - big companies not only being outside the law but actually writing the laws themselves (just wait til I get round to writing my GM post!).

I have just been reading an article in times online, admittedly dated in 2007 but nonetheless, stating that organic chickens are typically bred in windowless sheds, given vaccines and fed chemically treated food. Some even have their beaks "trimmed". Hmmm. Apparently this is allowed because of pressure from supermarkets which has resulted in the standards being changed to suit the big companies. I don't much like the fact I live in a country where rules are not made by politicians for people, but are made for profit for companies.

These chickens can be kept in conditions with 14 birds per square metre, they would definitely be better off as 2 in my garden. They are moved to more "organic" conditions as we know them only once they are economically viable.

The Soil Association seems to have the best welfare conditions, so i am going to beware anything organic that is not SA, which only accounts for 30% of organic eggs apparently.

I think I may actually adopt some ex-battery hens:
http://www.bhwt.org.uk/adopt_some_hens.php

I think there was more of a point to this post when I started writing, but I seem to have totally lost the thread!

My buy nothing new challenge

I had been debating having a "green" new year's resolution, but couldn't think of one that I thought was meaningful, or significantly challenging or worthwhile for this year at least.

I decided on something quite separate for an entirely different reason. I made two:
1) look after the house and garden more
2) live more frugally.

It is the second which is or interest to this particular post. So, I have already decided I am to live more frugally. As I say this is not for green purposes, but does come after the consideration and rejection of some similar green style resolutions:
-buy no more new clothes, only second hand
-buy less
-only buy basic clothing etc

I dismissed these for various reasons.

Then today I was reading about the compact whose aim is to buy nothing new. I don't want to permanently go down this route since lots of the new things i buy are fair trade which will directly impact on the lives of others if I stop buying them (don't worry I am not deluding myself by how much it will or won't help - but it certainly won't help people in poor communities if people in rich communities all stop buying their products and instead start living off the waste products of other rich people). Mr Green-Eyed also tells me that we have to consume more in order for the world to carry on turning pretty much. Which I accept, but I actually think that world economics is wrong and we should switch to a non-growth economy. Either way, I don't believe in excess consumption, but I don't think just switching to buying other people's waste is the answer either. The reason there are such good "waste" products in charity shops and on ebay is because people are consuming more new things, so a reduction in consumption in general would be more my speed.

However, I like a challenge, even one riddled with ethical nightmares such as this!

So, my January challenge is to buy nothing new. Nothing new for one month.

Things I am allowed to buy:
-used second hand items
-food and drinks
-food and drinks which come with free gifts so long as the food or drink item would have been bought regardless of the gift.

I will keep you updated :)

we had a white christmas, and a green christmas!

It snowed on christmas day, for maybe the first time in my entire life! We already had snow on the ground, then it snowed just past midnight, we were still up and saw it, and so we had the snow in the garden, and about a quarter of an inch of fresh snow. Apparently bookies paid out on bets of white christmas in nottingham.

So one colour was fixed, what about the other? Green?

Of course the ultimate green christmas would have been sitting in the dark without a christmas tree eating food foraged or gained freganistically meditating or something.

Obviously I didn't take things that far, but I made some green choices where I could.

• we ate vegetarian (as I always do, but some of the other 7 wouldn't normally)


• I home cooked a vegan loaf to reduce a) animal products and b) packaging and processing costs


• I bought all veg british and where possible locally grown


• I have already talked about the ethical dilemma I had with the christmas tree and how i resolved this (I bought a real tree in a pot which I intend to keep for next year and beyond)


• all my decorations are made of natural materials, no plastic whatsoever (although to be fair, at least part of this is aesthetics!)


• I didn't buy a single card or piece of wrapping paper - I made cards (although I did use new card, but hopefully people will like them and treasure them), and I used pre-used paper

I bought people ethical gifts where possible -

• my husband got a recycled bicycle tyre belt and


• some recycled computer keyboard cufflinks!


• My mum got a fair trade afghan blown glass wine glass

People also know I like these things too, and I received a ring made from a teaspoon handle, and some table mats and coasters made from recycled fireman's hose.

I also received Leo Hickman's book - A Life Stripped Bare, Anthony Gidden's Politics of Climate Change and Time Out's Great Train Journey's of the World. I did a train holiday this year and believe this is without a doubt the ultimate way forward.

To improve my green christmas for next year i need to:

• reduce produced items such as real eat roast


• buy fairtrade crackers (if I had known about these before I bought mine I would have bought them, but I already had some. Of course some people say that crackers are a terrible bane for the environmentalist, this is somehting I shall have to think about. I did put all the recyclables in the recycling though)


• more green presents for others


• less electric lighting and more candles


• cards made from recycled materials


• reuse this year's tree

A petty problem

We are currently a no-pet family, although I am hoping we will be getting cats, rescue cats, 2 of them, after Christmas. That was until my husband read an article in the Guardian saying that some pets are worse for the environment than an SUV. My first instinct was to be outraged. I want a cat, how can a cat be worse for the environment than an SUV? (To be fair, cats aren't it's medium and large dogs which are, according to the article). Then having gotten over my outrage I decided to think rationally - if cats really are that bad for the environment then maybe I shouldn't get two, or even one. It's no good only listening to the green info I want to hear.

I arranged my thoughts into some sort of order and then read the Leo Hickman (who I do really like, I subscribe to his blog, but must have missed this post, I have his books on my amazon wish list too!) article. So, the article is quoting research from Time to Eat the Dog by Robert and Brenda Vale which finds that a cat requires 0.15 global hectares to keep it fed, the equivalent of driving a VW golf for 10000 miles a year, plus the energy required to make the car in the first place. So my two cats is almost at the energy cost of buying a 4.6 litre Toyota Landcruiser and driving it for 10000 miles a year (0.41 global hectares). Luckily I don't drive a Toyota Landcruiser as well then!

My next thoughts all concern the fact that I would be getting a rescue cat, so that cat is already having that footprint regardless of whether I own it or not. So actually so long as I promote responsible pet owning and only get a rescue cat I should probably get the cats so as to reduce the load on the shelters. Plus if it is going to be having the footprint anyway someone might as well get the joy from it, which I would.

My next thoughts all concern all the positives about having a pet. For instance, the joy and love that I myself would get. Then there is the positive personal and social impact that pets have on children (which I don't have yet, but would like to, although of course they have a far larger footprint than a cat, no joke). The article also explained some additional benefits - people with pets have greater immunity and visit the doctor less, 21% less when they are elderly, how many global hectares does that account for one wonders. Plus the mental health benefits that pets bring.

I would also think I might be less likely to go out if I had a pet thereby reducing my consumption and waste in shops, pubs, restaurants and cinemas. Of course I don't drive a car at all, very often. We have a small car between us which neither of us drive very often. I walk to work and get the bus and train further afield, despite the additional time, money and stress costs that this can often entail. I take all my compostable waste to work, I bring home any recyclable waste from work. That's right - I carry bags of waste to and from work despite the fact I walk, often in the rain - because it is the right thing to do. I don't eat any animals (that themselves have an eco footprint), I try to minimise my plastic consumption, I try not to fly. I pay extra to have 100% renewable electricity from Good Energy. We try not to have the heating on, and didn't turn it on at all until December this year (except one freakishly cold day in November).

I don't think that doing that means I can do anything I like, indeed I hate to hear people say, "I can do this ungreen thing because I recycle most of my stuff at home". But actually, surely I have reduced my footprint by that of a cat, so I am still on a positive even if I do have a cat? Plus the fact that my children will be more socially adaptable and I will use the NHS less later in life, and I will go out less. Maybe all these things add up to a cat having less of a footprint than it would seem?

I do think we should consider the ecological footprint of activities we partake in and lifestyle choices we make, but I don't think that means we have to not do anything which carries a number, which everything does. It's a case of weighing up pros and cons, and making thoughtful choices. How many global hectares does going to a pub every friday and saturday take? How many global hectares for out of date food which has been thrown away (I eat yoghurts 2 months out of date), how many global hectares to buy a newspaper every day? How many to have a cup of tea every day?

I appreciate the article for giving me the chance to consider the impact of having a pet (which I already had from a vegetarian standpoint, but i think this post has maybe been going on for long enough!) and I have added the book to my wish list, but I have weighed it all up and will still be getting my cat in the new year :)

(do you know I didn't even discuss the indoor cat/outdoor cat arguments, maybe I will do that when I have the cat)

Turkelicious... Or, On being vegetarian

The other day I heard a group of people bemoaning their Christmas poultry. Turkeys, they say, are dry. They would rather not eat them, but that is what they are given. They talk about how they leave them on the plate, or how they endure them with no satisfaction. Yet still they eat them.

As they are defiling the bird does the thought never cross their mind that before being on their plate causing such offence and displeasure it was actually a living, breathing creature? I shouldn't think the turkey much wants to be eaten, never mind being eaten by people who actually don't even like it.

I found the whole conversation offensive. I have actually been vegetarian for 13 years now (with a brief period of pescetarianism, which has long since passed, save for a very short fish eating holiday whilst in Japan, it didn't make me feel big or clever, and was only ever a foray). A few years ago I started to only eat organic dairy and eggs (except for some local eggs from a local farmer who only keeps a small colony and doesn't debeak - so essentially organic except for the feed, organic in terms of welfare) due to living conditions. The deal breaker with the eggs was when i found out that free range egg-laying chickens are frequently debeaked.

About 18 months ago though a realisation, that I think I had been suppressing, came to the forefront of my mind like a thunder clap, and it's hung around like a bad smell since, if it's OK to mix metaphors like minestrone soup. I realised that my whole moral position was invalid.

I became vegetarian after learning about the conditions in which meat animals are kept and killed. Not so much that they are actually killed, more the way in which they were. With time I felt less strongly about this, and more about the health benefits of limiting (to zero in this case) meat intake and increasing plant based foods. Now my position is a mixture of both of those and also more strongly the eco argument. I think it would be fair to say I was an environmental vegetarian.

I haven't actually read that article but in short I believe it is very inefficient in terms of food, water and fuel to eat a meat based diet. I also believe the meat industry to be more polluting, and in some cases toxic. I understand there is a book I need to read called The Vegetarian Myth which deals with whether this is actually the case. At this stage I will state that I have always said that if we were to go back to traditional farming methods and crop rotations and as such we needed animals for manure that I would not really know where I stood. Although I don't see why we would need to eat the animals until they died of natural causes anyway, and at that point there wouldn't be enough for everyone to eat... Anyway, I digress.

So, environmental vegetarian, yes? Yep. Except that then, as I was saying before, I realised my entire moral view fell down. What about the food, water, fuel and pollution associated with the egg and dairy industry? What about the young cockerels and the young calves condemned to death by those same industries? Wasn't I just supporting those? Oh dear. So I toyed with becoming vegan, and this is where I think the morality lies. It's just such a lifestyle change that I don't think I can be bothered. What a weak argument. It guilts me to think that thought let alone say it out loud or blog about it!

I decided to become a "social vegetarian", that is akin to a social smoker where one is a non-smoker except in social situations. I would be a non-vegetarian except in social situations (people's houses, restaurants etc). I would not want to use the word vegan and water down the tremendous will power and effort put in by people who do eliminate ALL animals products from their lives. I did very well for about 7 months - I did still eat eggs, but stopped drinking cows milk, only rarely ate cheese, bought soya alternatives etc. I don't eat a dairy marg anyway. I don't really know what happened with all that. I think I will start it up again. In fact I see a challenge coming on - vegan for a week, how do I do? Then I can try a month etc.

I was having a conversation with a fellow vegetarian last night, I was saying I should grow some backbone and give up eggs and dairy, and he was agreeing, saying he was from a hindu family and that he believed the hindu diet to be the most moral. Then some other people joined in, a couple, where one would like to be vegetarian and one wouldn't, and the one that would feels she can't because of the one that won't. Then someone else joined in saying, "There is no such thing as vegetarian anyway, only carnivores and vegans".

What a crock of shit. What am I then? A carnivore? Hrmmm. I mean, I know she is making my argument (with a thai chicken curry on her plate, mind), but I do believe that anything you do is better than doing nothing.

Of course even what seems to be such a simple line of reasoning such as this does throw open conundrums... Packing, storage and transportation of vegan products may be less energy efficient for starters.

Soya has its own anti-arguments, but there are other alternatives to soya. Not Tiger White though, my god, that substance sounds like the answer, but tastes like the devil! I am a firm believer that you can make yourself like anything if you just keep eating it. Anything except Tiger White.