Tag Archives: nutrition

Plastic-Free Cake

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You know how frustrating it is when you’re doing your best to avoid plastic but even the glass bottle of organic vegetable oil has a plastic insert, plastic lid and sometimes even a plastic neck-sleeve?  Well, after spending half an hour trying to cut off this evil neck sleeve the other day I decided, I’m putting my foot down!  I am not buying bottles like this ever again!  “But what about cake?” argued my alter ego, “how will you make cake without vegetable oil?”

This is how:

All you need is

  • four very ripe bananas,
  • a mug and a half of self-raising flour,
  • and half a mug of sugar.

 

The sugar is plastic-free too if you get it from a zero-waste filling station or buy Silver Spoon British Sugar (made from home grown sugar beet) which is always wrapped in paper.

First mash the bananas with a fork

Then preheat the oven to 160° C

Then add half a mug of sugar to the bananas and mix well.  This will magically make the bananas very runny.

When the sugar and bananas are thoroughly combined, add one and a half mugs full of self raising flour and mix well.

    

(NB there’s a lot of mixture in that bowl because I doubled the ingredients to make two cakes)

Now you should have a thick, moist cake mixture, ready to put in the tin.

(If You Care parchment paper is unbleached and totally chlorine-free (TCF) greaseproof paper which can be found at most good health food shops)

Line a loaf tin with some eco-friendly greaseproof paper and fill it with your cake mixture.

Put it in the middle of the oven and bake for one and a quarter hours (75 minutes).  Carefully remove and insert a sharp knife to test.  If the knife comes out clean, it’s done, if it has wet mixture on it, put the cake back in the oven for a few more minutes.

When it’s ready, take it out of the tin and cool it on a wire rack.

Use a serrated knife to cut it as it’ll be crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside.

Absolutely scrumptious 😀

No plastic required 😉

Source:  I got this recipe years ago from a brilliant homemade book called Grime and Nourishment, (NB this book is not suitable for children).

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vegan, vegan cake, cake recipe, plastic-free, zero waste, nutrition, health, environment,

 

Educational colouring book

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Here is a wonderful educational colouring book:  Colour By Nutrients.

It is at once a resource for artistic indulgence and an educational tool.  Divided into chapters of different vitamins and minerals, the book illustrates which foods contain significant amounts of each.  The authors are happy for teachers and parents to photocopy the colouring pages for use in the classroom.  All in all a delightful way to learn about nutrition.

This 120-page book is approximately 19 x 25 cm.

You can buy it here, it’s not expensive 😀

Or if you’d rather get the e-version and copy or print the pages yourself, it’s free to download here:  Colour By Nutrients pdf 

We think that learning about good nutrition to build a strong immune system is more important than ever, so we’re thrilled to be able to do this.

Stay well.  Stay clean.  Stay compassionate ❤

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vegan, plant-based, vegan children, nutrition, school, home-education,

Get meat off hospital menus!!!

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My dad, who suffers from heart disease, was told to “eat more meat” by his GP as a response to his iron deficiency!  And when he went into hospital last year for stent operations there was not a single vegan option on the Coronary Care Unit menu.  I complained to the hospital but they ignored me.  This is madness!  Support and share Plant Based Health Professionals‘ campaign to get meat off hospital menus:  Give Bacon The Boot!

Thank you 🙂

PLANT-BASED DIETS COULD PREVENT A FUTURE PANDEMIC SAY DOCTORS

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[This article is from Euro News]

A group of British doctors has backed a call for the end of factory farming to prevent future pandemics like COVID-19.

Dr Gemma Newman from the non-profit Plant-Based Health Professionals is leading a plea for the public to give up eating meat as part of the ’No Meat May’ campaign.  A record number of people are taking part this year with 33,000 sign-ups compared to 10,000 in 2019.  Of those who have signed up this year, a survey carried out by the campaign found that 38 per cent did so because of concerns surrounding the meat industry and diseases like Covid-19.

Hannah Bradshaw, one of the 23,000 new participants, says these concerns were certainly a part of her decision to give a plant-based diet a go.

”There is more information about the meat industry causing diseases than ever before,” she said, “and stronger links between the impacts on our health compared to a meat-free diet.”

The campaign has seen a big increase in sign-ups this year.

WHAT’S THE PROBLEM WITH MEAT?

Zoonotic diseases, like Covid-19, are those that can spread between animals and humans.  Worldwide they have been the cause of many historic outbreaks including H1N1 and Ebola.  There is little evidence, however, to suggest that eating less meat directly reduces the occurrence of deadly disease outbreaks.

The most important factor, according to the UN Environment Program, is instead an increased amount of close contact between humans and animals like pigs, bats or birds which allows pathogens to jump between species.  In 2016 it identified increasing encroachment of animal agriculture into natural ecosystems as a driving factor of zoonotic diseases warning that the “livestock revolution” could lead to a potential disaster.

“Some politicians and commentators blame China for Covid-19, but they do not mention that all of the recent major disease outbreaks have been caused by tampering with animals and their habitats,” says Dr Newman, “our chicken salad or pepperoni pizza could be the next big health risk.”

“Industrial-scale factory farms are like a ticking time bomb”, she adds, “and shifting our diets away from meat [and all animal products] could help move towards a safer future”.

IMPROVING OUR OVERALL HEALTH

Consultant Haematologist and Director of Plant-Based Health Professionals UK, Doctor Shireen Kassam also believes there is an urgent need to reduce our meat consumption for both human and planetary health.

“More than 90 per cent of the meat we consume is produced in industrial scale factory farms, which provide the perfect conditions for the generation of novel infections with epidemic and pandemic potential.”

“Factory farming also requires the widespread use of antibiotics,” she adds, “which has contributed to a dramatic rise in the number of antibiotic-resistant infections affecting humans.”

“We have now entered an era where it is not uncommon for doctors to find themselves treating patients with bacterial infections for which there are no effective antibiotics.”

Dr Kassam explains that it is also a matter of overall public health. “We have known for decades that a healthy plant-based diet, which minimises or eliminates meat [and animal products], is associated with some of the lowest rates of chronic disease and a longer and healthier life.”

Vegan Crossword Puzzle: Stuff With Protein In

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 Click on the puzzle for a pdf you can download and print

or ‘print screen’ and paste into Paint so you don’t have to print it 😀

Stuff_with_protein_in

The answers are here 😀

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Created at wordmint.com

vegan, nutrition, plant-based, plant food, vegetables, protein, puzzle, crossword, vegetarian, things to make and do,

Healthy Eating for Life FOR CHILDREN

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From the Foreword by Neal Barnard, M.D.:  The writing of this book was motivated by the observation that many parents are unclear about how best to nourish their children at different stages of development.  Well-intentioned parents like you want to do the very best for the long-term health and well-being of their children.  They need help knowing where to begin.

Our hope is that by assembling an expert panel of doctors and nutritionists and by providing well-researched, easy-to-read information on healthy eating during childhood, we can help you promote excellent health for your children throughout their lives.

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Boy I wish I’d had this book when my children were little, then I wouldn’t have been misled by my GP who pleaded with me not to make my baby vegan, saying that children need dairy for at least their first five years!  I was very young, inexperienced and, since it was way before the internet, there was no one else to ask.  It was another eleven years before we had enough information to understand that he was wrong, and our transition from vegetarianism to veganism left us feeling better than ever.

But that didn’t prevent us being misjudged by another GP when I took my youngest to the doctor when she was about 11 because she was getting recurring headaches.  I’d assumed she was suffering from migraines but as soon as the GP heard we were vegan she sucked in her breath over her teeth and said with confidence

“Calcium deficiency!”

I insisted that that wasn’t it, we get enough calcium from our fruit and vegetables, but she would not be dissuaded from her conclusion and sent us away after telling us to take some multi-vitamins, without doing any tests or examination.  Some months later, thanks to a good  GP advising us to go the optician and see if the headaches were due to a need for glasses, it was discovered that there was haemorrhaging behind her eyes caused by a benign brain tumour.

The world and medical practitioners are so much more enlightened nowadays though aren’t they?  Thanks to the internet and such widely available information shared online by vegan individuals, groups and organisations.  So you’d think that no one would be in danger of getting the kind of bad advice we got back then.

I was shocked to discover a few weeks ago that that’s not true.  A friend of mine took her eleven and a half month-old baby for her ‘one year review’ by a Health Visitor at a children’s centre in Brighton and was told she should be transitioning her baby off breast milk and onto cows’ milk – for the calcium!!!!!!!

Thankfully my friend knows better but lots of people, like me all those years ago, will be swayed by this shockingly bad advice.  That’s why this book is brilliant.  Because it comes from the Physicians’ Committee for Responsible Medicine, written by Amy Lanou, Ph.D. who is Nutrition Director of the Physicians’ Committee (or she was when this was first published back in 2002 – oh I wish I’d had it then!) and got her doctoral degree from Cornell University, readers can rest assured that the book can be relied upon.  And it’s got so much!  From a healthy pregnancy to healthy breast feeding to healthy nutrition for your child for the rest of his or her life, this book tells you everything you need to know 🙂

And it even provides you with a ton of healthy delicious recipes:

I bought this one for my friend, but now I’m going to get another one for me!

Author:  Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine with Amy Lanou, Ph.D.

Genre:  Non-fiction, Plant-Based Nutrition

Recommended for teens and up

Format:  Paperback (272 pages) and Kindle Edition

Published:  February 2002

ISBN-10:  0471436216

ISBN-13:  978-0471436218

Dimensions:  15.5 x 1.9 x 22.7 cm

Available from the Physicians’ Committee for Responsible Medicine and Amazon

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nutrition, health, vegan, vegetarian, books, non-fiction, plant-based nutrition, children, raising healthy children, healthy pregnancy, nursing mothers, healthy breastfeeding, raising vegan children, food, healthy eating, healthy recipes, healthy recipe book, vegan recipe book

Giveaway Number 2 Winner!

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Colouring book winner

The winner of a copy of the brilliant Colour By Nutrients by August Bassett and Amy Fibbitts, our second giveaway from the Honestly Books stash, is Carol of Art Is Not For Sissies. 😀

Congratulations Carol.  You can give us your address privately on our contact form (at the bottom of the About page) and we’ll get the book to you asap 😀

DAIRY NONSENSICAL

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click here for 'bones and teef' - picture story about calcium from plant foods

DAIRY NONSENSICAL

The Dairy Council’s working hard to convince us their product is healthy.

They say they they just want to help our kids to be athletic and lively.

But think before you drink, what is their real motivation?

Research. Look stuff up. The truth is a revelation.

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Cows’ milk contains calcium but not for humans to digest,

So triggers joint pain, arthritis, asthma, problems of the chest,

Sleeplessness, itchy rashes, diabetes, ulcers,

Migraines, ear infections, epileptic seizures.

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Humans don’t need cows’ milk, the idea is really nonsensical.

There’s plenty of calcium after all in broccoli, collard greens and kale.

It’s the Dairy Council themselves who “milk it for all it’s worth”,

But sensible people shake their heads and pull nutrition direct from the earth.