Vegan food

[JoshW]

I'm wary of veganism because there seem to be too many processed foods attached to it, all the fake meats and even tofu. I'm happy to be put right. My son so far has dished up very good noodle dishes and salads, but I would get bored with those as an every day dish.

I think a lot of the “processed” stuff you see is realistically marketed at people either who would be having processed meat anyway, or to try and entice people towards veganism in a convenient way.

I’m partial to an occasional ‘lazy day’ with some processed vegan stuff, but mostly survive off of various combinations of vegetables/mushrooms/lentils.

 

[me]

Thursday I was on 'shopping duty' for the weekend away caving. With a coeliac, gluten free & vegan in the group I spent a lot of time reading labels. (2 hours 😔 )
I still managed to fail on the puddings, hoping to buy cooking apples to make a crumble /pie (the person with an orchard wasn't coming). Bramley's where nowhere to be seen, fresh, tinned or frozen so reverted to ready made and was really surprised to find some pie's only had 20% of apple in them.
Some Peanut butter has PALM OIL in it. 🤨
But you can get gluten free Chocolate cake 😁 Oat milk 😄 custard & pasta 🤔

 

[maxb727]

Ready made pasty is often vegan - the stuff you can roll out or is pre-rolled.

Like I said before butter is expensive so many products we think that use butter actually don’t.

Ready made pasty is a good shortcut for all - and can be made savoury or sweet!

 

[moorebooks]

Most baking for cakes is done using something like Stork - which happens to be dairy free (vegan). Not many bakers use real butter due to the prices anyway so you wouldn’t be having dairy in your cake anyway!

As for eggs, there are so many substitutes which you wouldn’t be able to tell if you had egg or something else in your cake.

It’s better to judge each bake individually than just what you think the ingredients should and shouldn’t be.

You will find that Butter is often dumped by the dairy industry at silly prices to bakers

 

[Fjell]

Ready made pasty is often vegan - the stuff you can roll out or is pre-rolled.

Like I said before butter is expensive so many products we think that use butter actually don’t.

Ready made pasty is a good shortcut for all - and can be made savoury or sweet!

Or you can just make it in about 5 mins, with butter, for far less than anything ready made. It’s just flour, butter and water. You need to develop the gluten in the mix, which is why gluten-free is so dire.

The number of people who actually have a real problem with gluten is prob at least one order of magnitude less than those who think they do. It would seem strange that the basis of human development since the stone age is suddenly bad for huge numbers of people. Not credible. Would have selected people out of the pool. It’s just performance art in the main.

The vast majority who cook most of their food from unadulterated meat, veg and dairy will not encounter problems, and it will be cheaper and much better for them. Also pretty hard to get obese on normal food, you have to really work on it. One by one the fads fall away. I have drunk full fat milk my whole life and am currently amazed it seems to be in fashion for the first time in 30+ years and the shelves are empty - who knew? I have never touched marg, an industrial byproduct if there ever was one.

 

[AR]

I think you’ve clarified the problem Matt; didn’t know it was made from tofu. I never did like that stuff; far too processed.

Reminds me of the Gary Larson Far Side cartoon...

 

[thehungrytroglobite]

I had to buy a vegan cake from M&S for my newly vegan ex-veggie son. It was really nice.

I'm wary of veganism because there seem to be too many processed foods attached to it, all the fake meats and even tofu. I'm happy to be put right. My son so far has dished up very good noodle dishes and salads, but I would get bored with those as an every day dish.

Tofu isn't that processed, much than less than lots of meat products and other foods commonly eaten (biscuits, chocolates, etc etc). You can make it yourself very easily with only 2 ingredients: soy milk & lemon juice. It's high in protein, low in fat, and really very tasty once you know how to cook with it properly (on its own it is very bland but it absorbs flavours well in cooking)

 

[Speleofish]

Gluten free is fairly easy though a little inconvenient. More importantly, there are three categories of gluten freedom.

First, people with coeliac disease (me) where gluten is poisonous. Avoid. Eating gluten has demonstrably evil consequences.

Second, people with a 'wheat intolerance'. This category is poorly defined and may be a genuine condition - not yet established - but is probably much less common than the internet would suggest.

Third, people who adopt a gluten-free lifestyle because they believe it to be healthy. The evidence suggests it is the opposite. Going gluten-free (like veganism) means avoiding several sources of essential vitamins/amino acids etc. Shop -bought gluten-free foods tend to be ultra processed, high in sugar and generally bad for you. If you MUST go gluten-free (because you're coeliac) they may be worth considering. If you're not a genuine coeliac, buying supermarket gluten-free foods is likely to be bad for you. For what it's worth, it appears that going gluten-free makes you more likely to become a type 2 diabetic. Right now, I can't produce a really good reference, but I'll try to do so in the next couple of days.

 

[Fjell]

This is a good description of how to make pastry from Elizabeth David. This is one of the tarts I like to make, it’s a winner and presumably sufficiently veggie for most. You will not be able to buy something this nice in a shop in the UK.

 

[Minion]

I had to buy a vegan cake from M&S for my newly vegan ex-veggie son. It was really nice.

I'm wary of veganism because there seem to be too many processed foods attached to it, all the fake meats and even tofu. I'm happy to be put right. My son so far has dished up very good noodle dishes and salads, but I would get bored with those as an every day dish.

You could apply that same logic to non-vegan food.

The vast majority of non-vegan food is highly processed such as ready meals, preserved meats, even some of the more low cost ‘fresh’ meats are processed.

So by your logic, you would also prefer to avoid ‘non-vegan’ food too.

If someone vegan/non-vegan chooses to eat processed crap - they can.

Equally, if someone vegan/non-vegan chooses to only eat whole foods, which are unprocessed- they can!

Assuming that one dietary choice is highly processed and therefore being ‘wary’ of is just nonsense.

As for the recipes and ‘getting boring’, with little effort you can make almost anything veggie or vegan.

I am vegan, and I eat like (what some call) a ‘normal’ person in that I eat staples like pasta bolognaise, Chillis, jacket potato with sides etc. nothing too high effort, or out of the ordinary.

 

[andrewmcleod]

I love processed food

It's still food, and the reality is that the human body is amazingly adaptable and will cope just fine on pretty much any old rubbish provided there's some basic nutrition (vitamins and minerals) hiding in there somewhere. Yes, too much sugar is not great (didn't stop me eating almost an entire Kendal Mint Cake bar on Sunday though) and too many calories in total is bad, but the body will Make Do quite happily most of the time.

 

[Pitlamp]

Tofu isn't that processed, much than less than lots of meat products and other foods commonly eaten (biscuits, chocolates, etc etc). You can make it yourself very easily with only 2 ingredients: soy milk & lemon juice. It's high in protein, low in fat, and really very tasty once you know how to cook with it properly (on its own it is very bland but it absorbs flavours well in cooking)

My take on this is, if you're going to get your protein from plant sources, go for unadulterated nuts, beans, lentils, etc. Also boost the value by eating complementary proteins in the same meal; beans & grains for example.

I seldom eat processed meat (a member of my family died of colorectal cancer several years ago and it put me off).
Then again, an occasional bacon butty (made with dry cured bacon form Drake & Macefield in Settle) is a real treat to look forward to, for which there can be no true substitute.

 

[Minion]

My take on this is, if you're going to get your protein from plant sources, go for unadulterated nuts, beans, lentils, etc. Also boost the value by eating complementary proteins in the same meal; beans & grains for example.

I seldom eat processed meat (a member of my family died of colorectal cancer several years ago and it put me off).
Then again, an occasional bacon butty (made with dry cured bacon form Drake & Macefield in Settle) is a real treat to look forward to, for which there can be no true substitute.

I partially agree with your first point, however the protein in plant sources are generally combined with a lot of fibre. This means it’s in and out of you, before your body has chance to absorb the protein you’re trying to get.

If like me, you’re trying to put on muscle, tofu is absolutely perfect as it is high protein, high calcium, low in fat and fibre.

Tofu is ‘processed’ in the sense that the soy beans are ‘processed’ into milk, and then ‘processed’ into tofu.

However, it’s not processed in the same way that the typical ‘bad’ foods are processed by adding fats, sugar, salt etc.

 

[hannahb]

Less gluten-free bashing, please. It's a real and poorly-understood problem, and it's a crap situation to be in. Rather than bitching about GF foods, spare a thought for people for whom it is necessary.

 

[Speleofish]

I haven't read every post in this thread, but most of the 'GF-bashing" has been nothing of the sort, rather the posts criticising GF have been pointing out its problems.

I spent 40 years eating normal food and enjoying it far too much before I developed symptoms and was diagnosed as a coeliac. The contrast between normal and GF food was stark. In particular, good bread, beer and pies dropped off the menu as the available substitutes were awful. Things have improved but only because manufacturers have come up with chemically sophisticated ways to mimic the presence of gluten - ie ultra processing food and adding surprising amounts of sugar.

The problem is that most people who adopt a gluten-free diet don't have coeliac disease. About 1% of the population (all Western countries) is coeliac but 5% of the population has adopted a GF diet. Most non-coeliacs who report symptoms relating to gluten don't have reliably reproducible symptoms and may have problems with poorly digested short chain carbohydrates (FODMAPs) instead, or some other form of irritable bowel syndrome. Thus, some 80% of those following a GF diet are probably eating a diet that is harmful.

 

[hannahb]

What are you basing your statements/claims on? Research papers? Your own expertise in the field? Why can't IBS be related to gluten?

Do people's actual experiences not count for anything?

It's insulting to be told "you're wrong, it's in your head, you don't need it" and so on when life, pain, and improvement (and reproducible effects) suggest otherwise.

What's it to you if people follow a GF diet when they don't need to? Why does it bother you? Why is it a "problem"?

 

[Fjell]

What are you basing your statements/claims on? Research papers? Your own expertise in the field? Why can't IBS be related to gluten?

Do people's actual experiences not count for anything?

It's insulting to be told "you're wrong, it's in your head, you don't need it" and so on when life, pain, and improvement (and reproducible effects) suggest otherwise.

What's it to you if people follow a GF diet when they don't need to? Why does it bother you? Why is it a "problem"?

I thought it was recently proposed it’s not actually the gluten, but all those fermentable bits? As was pointed out above actually going gluten free has possibly significant downsides. I don’t think this is the end of this story.

We have been getting the BMJ every week for a while now due to the inability of children to change their address. My wife loves reading it. The person who should be getting it rings us up a lot to rant about the NHS to relieve their stress.

 

[JoshW]

Also for coeliacs, the more people eating gluten free diets the better surely! Creates a bigger market with more companies looking to make better GF food.

On the same lines as I’m not bothered about people eating vegan food for health reasons (that I don’t entirely agree with as I don’t think inherently vegan food is healthier than non-vegan), as it just encourages more innovation from food producers which is a win for me 😅

 

[Speleofish]

In answer to Hannah B: I'm basing my statement on personal experience; thirty years as consultant physician sharing a medical firm with two gastroenterologists with specific expertise in coeliac disease and irritable bowel syndrome (hence, as a coeliac, I took great interest in the subject and extracted as much information as possible); and a number of research papers. If you want, I'll dig out a list.

I'm not trying to insult or denigrate you or your beliefs. Nor do I rule out that you, as an individual, might have found your symptoms improved since giving up gluten - possible explanations include (1) you genuinely have wheat intolerance as opposed to coeliac disease, (2) the GF diet you follow has reduced your FODMAP intake to a level that your symptoms recede [perhaps the most likely], (3) You have coeliac disease and the diagnosis has been missed [there are several ways this can happen].

In answer to both you and Josh W: the whole point of my post is that following a GF diet unnecessarily is not a health-neutral decision unless you make everything you eat from scratch and avoid commercial GF foods (when it probably becomes beneficial). This is different from following a vegan diet which (provided you ensure you take appropriate supplements) is certainly health neutral and, probably beneficial. However, most commercial vegan meat substitutes are ultra-processed and unlikely to be a healthy choice for an individual - though they are probably better for the planet.

 

[kay]

Thursday I was on 'shopping duty' for the weekend away caving. With a coeliac, gluten free & vegan in the group I spent a lot of time reading labels. (2 hours 😔 )
I still managed to fail on the puddings, hoping to buy cooking apples to make a crumble /pie (the person with an orchard wasn't coming). Bramley's where nowhere to be seen, fresh, tinned or frozen so reverted to ready made and was really surprised to find some pie's only had 20% of apple in them.
Some Peanut butter has PALM OIL in it. 🤨
But you can get gluten free Chocolate cake 😁 Oat milk 😄 custard & pasta 🤔

You can make crumble from dessert apples, just don't add any sugar. Cooking apples are rather a UK thing, they don't use them as much on the continent. (And Bramleys aren't the only cooking apples, just the only ones known by most vendors, which is why I grow my own apples)

The sweet side isn't bad. as well as fruit and pastry in umpteen combinations, a lot of dark chocolate is vegan, and you can get vegan ice cream which isn't bad. And vegan Magnums.