#vegan food substitutions

[leatherdyketerror]

i'm gonna say it. the way some of yall even in seemingly progressive circles get so fucking defensive when veganism gets mentioned or suggested as if it's a personal attack is incredible. obviously i'm excluding the edge cases where it's completely impossible, i.e. due to disability or living in a food desert, but like come on. come on. not everyone who fights tooth and nail against examining their own biases on the topic is in those situations that make any efforts towards veganism impossible. like you don't have to go full vegan immediately like a switch but at least try perhaps

[wikipediapictures]

Meat alternative

“Sandwich made of tempe, eaten at the Juice ja Cafe in Ubud in Bali, Indonesia.” - via Wikimedia Commons

[itstimeforstarwars]

The veganuary website has been one of the least useful sites for finding vegan recipes that I'm actually interested in. Most unexpected. Why.

[veganmabelpines]

Vegan Bac'n Recipe 🥓

[aeolianblues]

good god girl, maybe some of us are not vegan because we eat chicken like once in three months?? Would reduction not be a more productive goal of vegan activism than outright banning? Like if your arguments are that animals are being eaten, then you’re being unrealistic about the entire actual concept of the food chain. Humans are omnivores, you do not need to change that to achieve your goals.

A vegan lifestyle is also entirely the product of your geographical location. If you live somewhere that shit does not grow, what are you going to do?? I just think about the difference between food options in India and Canada, for example. India: between the tropics (tropics and equator even, in fact). All-year-round sun, there’s pretty much always stuff growing. Different kinds of land will mean you can grow everything from staples like rice and wheat to vegetables, fruits and plantation crops. It’s reflected in the cuisines: Indian food has a much, much wider offering of vegetarian food, and many more Indians have restricted diets that more or less overlap with vegetarianism. Because crops grows. Locally.

Canada. Harvest in the fall, from November to March, your fields are practically unusable. Compare the prices of fresh produce in (and now I’m being generous to give you a highly populated, non-remote province here for an example) Ontario. Ontario has farms where in the fall you get fresh autumn vegetables and fruits. You’ll also get them in larger quantities. It is way cheaper, fresher and also uses less energy and fuel to transport the vegetables like 50 km from farm to market.

Come the winter and nothing grows. If you look at most vegetables you’ll find on store shelves in December or February, and most of it is either imported from warmer regions of the US (often the case for chains that are in both countries) or from South American countries (sometimes SA -> USA -> Canada). The importing has to go through cross-country customs, had to be driven for days, is less fresh or rich in nutrients by the time you get it, and is more expensive. Of course. And we all come out of it poorer. Is it any wonder why people will eat meat? We’re even talking here about a place like Ontario, very well connected on North American trade routes. Can you justify someone in Yukon deciding to eat meat over a $17/lb. green veg? Be for fucking real…

There simply cannot be a blanket-global solution to animal products. You’ve got to work with what your geography has to offer. It’s the same thing we say when we say that avocados have an environmental cost when you expect them to be available year-round in places they don’t grow. We encourage people to go for more local produce there, and I think the same should go for all parts of your diet too. If your animals are local, then their footprint is lower than importing kiwis from New Zealand to the US. I don’t see how that’s hard to understand.

[synbiote]

Symbiote Kin Recipes!!

x Dark Chocolate Truffles x "Bloody" Chocolate Cups x Chocolate Fondue x Bunny Rocky Road x Brookies x Red Velvet Soufflé Cake x Chocolate Almond Butter Bars x Chocolate Creme Cupcakes x Chocolate Fudge

{Photos from Original Posts}

[randomreasonstolive]

Reason to Live #8622

 Finding vegan substitutes for my old safe foods.  – Guest Submission

(Please don't add negative comments to these posts.)

[morethansalad]

Vegan Dominican Cake (Bizcocho Dominicano)

[always-a-slut-4-ghouls]

I would say that the United States, as of right now, has three main food groups (aside from junk food) and those are, Italian, Mexican, and Chinese. All of which have been Americanized here to some extent but differently in different parts of the country. I find this very funny because I have heard people from Italy be indignant about what we’ve done with the stuff (and about good restaurants too!) like, sorry if you guys weren’t creative, mixing things up a bit is great. “What about (regionally popular food)?!” I know we all have those, I haven’t heard of bitches in the south eating lefse, but that’s not my point! What was my point actually? I think I was going to say that, even if we bastardize stuff a lot, I’m super glad we have, as a country, agreed that more seasoning is good. Because if this place had been like “fuck immigrant food forever, we are eating British style” I think I would die.

This country has historically treated immigrants like shit, but we do tend to cave eventually and go like “actually,

your food is really good” a kind of shallow prize I guess, but I’m glad we actually start doing it eventually because I WILL mock British food and I WILL be sad that the only good family recipes my family has from before immigrating are all desserts. Don’t get me wrong, I love sweets, but I’m pretty sure there is a reason we stopped making other stuff

Wait, I re-read this today and realized I sound like my family is British. We are not. What even are British desserts? I bet they don’t have enough cardamom. Although lefse doesn’t have cardamom and i like a lot of things without it, my point is that their holiday and special event foods probably don’t have enough! Which wouldn’t surprise me tbh because apparently the only place that went crazy for the stuff outside of where it originated seems to have been Scandinavia for some reason. At least some maps I looked at seemed to suggest it. Which rocked me to my core

[wikipediapictures]

Meat alternative

“An employee of Tender pulling apart their plant-based pulled pork to show its texture.” - via Wikimedia Commons

[oodlenoodleroodle]

My v cool friend Afya has a recipe YouTube where she makes Ghanaian food, check it out!

[veganmabelpines]

Enoki Mushroom Fried Chick'n

[clatterbane]

One really good and easy thing that I threw together a version of last night! Just finished devouring some leftovers, in fact. 😋

We didn't have any tofu, so I used the spicy peanut sauce with a couple of cut-up chicken thighs, some frozen "wok mix" he picked up, and an onion. Also adjusted the sweetness down a bit to suit our taste, and added some white pepper because why not. A very tasty and versatile basic sauce!

[wynn-in-the-willows]

Coconut eggnog is pretty good. All you really need is coconut milk and nutmeg. I used to use 1/2 caned high fat coconut milk, 1/2 coconut milk beverage from the milk department. Add some rum and you have a creamy festive holiday beverage. Add some brandy and a merichino cherry and you have an amazing brandy alexander.

Substitutions can actually work really well once you really learn your ingredients, but it will never be exactly the same thing. A Thai style coconut custard made with tapioca is really amazing in it's own right, and can be made vegan. I've heard silken tofu can be great in things when you need a creamy custardy base, but you have to get the balance of protein and fat right. A chocolate ice cream base made with black beans and coconut milk is amazing.

It takes practice and creativity, an in depth understanding of how alternative ingredients work, and a total lack of inhibitions when it comes to adding oil and salt and you can make some really amazing foods. It really helps to start with recipes that are naturally free of whatever you need them to be free of, and once you're comfortable with those, try making alternatives and substitutions.

Just never go to a regular restaurant, chef or cook looking for these things. Look for places that serve things naturally free of whatever you're avoiding, and target places that specialize in whatever your constraints may be. There's plenty of dairy free, egg free, or gluten free recipes online. Watch cooking videos to get a feel for what other people do. You got this.