How To Stock a Vegetarian Pantry

A vegetarian pantry is very different from a meat eater’s pantry.  It is important to keep vegetarian foods on hand that provide a basis for common recipes and meals, as well as substitutes for other non-vegetarian food products.  This article will help you achieve a well-stocked, healthy, and meat-free pantry.

Steps

1. Clean out your pantry.  If you are switching to a vegetarian diet, or even just updating an existing vegetarian pantry, it is time for a good clean out.  Remove all expired food and any food with unsuitable animal-derived products.  Wipe down all the shelves and allow to dry.

2. Go shopping.  It is always a good idea to stock a new pantry with as many fresh items as possible at the same time, so that all the items date fairly close together.  If you are simply restocking, keep items that are well within their best-by date, but note them.  Be sure to make a list of the items that you need.

3. Select your items in food groups.  A vegetarian pantry that is stocked with the basics should contain:

• Grain products: rice (especially brown, arborio, jasmine, basmati, and sweet), millet, couscous, quinoa, kasha, wild rice, buckwheat, barley, polenta, and whole grain flours.
• Pasta and noodles: pasta made from grain products (e.g., wheat pasta, rice pasta), noodles (e.g., udon, buckwheat, etc.). Try to avoid quick-cook noodles as they tend to have a lot of the healthy nutrients removed and are often high in trans-fats.
• Legumes: dried legumes (peas, split peas, lentils, puy lentils, chickpeas/garbanzo beans, kidney beans, pinto beans, etc.), tins/cans of legumes, shelf-stored tofu.
• Instant mixes for veggie burgers, falafels, etc.  Organic is better.
• Vegetables and fruits. There are various ways of storing these in the pantry:

             - Tins/cans of fruit in natural syrup, tins/cans of vegetables. Try to avoid sourcing a lot of your fruit and veggies in this way because canned varieties lose nutrients, have high sodium, and can leach chemicals from the can soldering/composition into the food over time.  Always choose cans that are free from dents, and be sure to check use-by dates.      

            - Preserved fruit and vegetables.

            - Dehydrated fruits and veggies.

            - Dried fruit. A must for both eating and cooking with. Apricots, peaches, pears, apples, nectarines, are some great options.  Beware of added sugar- dried pineapple, strawberries, paw-paw, and kiwifruit, are some examples that often have considerable amounts of added sugar.

• Nuts and seeds: Nuts and seeds should be eaten quickly to ensure that they remain fresh.  Purchase only small amounts at a time.  You should always have walnuts, almonds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, cashews, pecans, and sesame seeds on hand. Nut and seed butters are also very useful to have on hand, such as tahini, peanut butter, cashew nut butter, and almond butter. Some require refrigeration upon opening.
• Flavorings: There are a number of key flavorings that no vegetarian pantry should be without.  They include:

             - Nutritional yeast

             - Soy sauce, shoyu, tamari (look for low sodium options)

             - Vegetable broth/ stock cubes, liquid or powder (check ingredients carefully)

             - Cheese sauce or cheese substitute sauces in packets, packet soups

             - Seasoned vegetable salt 

             - Seasoned

             - Concentrated liquid stock or flavouring derived from vegetable, herb and spice sources (a few drops will do each use)

             - Curry powder

            - Seasonings such as herbs, spices, salt, pepper etc. Dry your fresh herbs for seeing the winter through

            - Seaweed products for seasoning, including dulse

            - Flavored vinegars, dressings

• Sweeteners: raw and organic sugar, stevia, rice syrup, agave nectar, honey, maple syrup, etc.

4. Have a variety of sweets available. It is useful to have some treats available for guests, children, and the occasional craving. Dark chocolate, soy chocolate, chickpea crisps, wasabi peas, sugar-free cookies (sweetened with alternatives), and popcorn are all great options of treats.

5. Keep a few quick packet mixes for cakes, muffins and pancakes. Choose organic and low-sugar versions whenever possible. Although it isn’t homemade from scratch, mixes are far better than store-bought.

6. Have milk on hand. It is always handy to have some shelf milk on hand for times when you run out. Depending on your needs, you can purchase dairy, soy, nut, grain, and other milks that can be shelf-stored. 

7. Keep an eye on use-by dates and discard products that have passed the date.  Once stale, items never taste quite as fresh. They also do not provide the same nutrients as fresher items. Circulate goods at the back of the pantry and bring them to the front at least monthly, if not more often. It’s easy to forget about items you can’t see, and the less you waste the more money you will save.

Tips

• Stock up on vegetarian food items at places like health food stores, health food co-ops, large health-food oriented super-stores or supermarkets, fruit and vegetable stores, bulk/wholesale stores, local markets (farmer’s markets), and boutique stores on farms.
• Don’t over look your local supermarket. Many “regular” grocery stores are now catering to the veg*n crowd by offering organic items, vegetarian alternatives to meat products, tofu, etc.
• Some specialty grocery stores are also great to visit and discover new flavors and textures. For some new ideas, try Chinese, Lebanese, South African, Italian, West Indian, and Samoan.

Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays from livelifeveg.com.  I hope this has been a great year for all and that 2009 will be even better.  Everyone have a very merry Christmas and a nice New Years.

Iams Cruelty

Iams truly is a “recipe for cruelty.” During a nearly ten month undercover PETA investigation at a laboratory hired by Iams, countless acts of cruelty were witnessed as well as inhumane conditions. Dogs had gone crazy because they were confined to barren steel cages and cement cells. Dogs were left piled on a filthy floor after chunks of muscle had been cut from their thighs, dogs were surgically debarked, and horribly sick dogs and cats were neglected and left in cages to suffer without veterinary care.

Below is a video of some undercover footage at an Iams lab, shot by a PETA investigator.

Please don’t support Iams- whether it’s just spreading the word about the cruelty they are contributing to, or refusing to buy any products made by them. For more information click here.

FDA Approves New Sweetener for U.S.

 

A stevia plant

The newly approved sweetener is called stevia and is a herbal, zero-calorie, zero-carbohydrate sweetener.  Stevia has been available in the States for some time but because it had not yet been approved as a sweetener, it has been coyly marked as a “dietary supplement.”  

Now Coca-Cola and Pepsi both have stevia-sweetened sweeteners ready for the market; thus, the FDA no longer has any objection to stevia as a sweetener.  This new approval will open doors for more stevia-sweetened products to hit the U.S. market.

Stevia is considered by many to be a far more natural and safer zero-calorie sweetener than Equal and Splenda.  In fact, the leaves of the stevia plant are naturally sweet and calorie-free.  (Commercial sweeteners produced from stevia, however, are highly refined and concentrated.)  And unlike Equal and Splenda, stevia seems to have beneficial effects on blood sugar control. 

 ”Soon you’ll see stevia in pretty much every food product you can imagine,” predicts Oscar Rodes, the founder of Texas-based producer Stevita Co., who is betting the herb could eventually account for 20 percent of the overall sweetener market.  So remember the name.  Because you’ll be hearing it a lot starting in the near future.

Animal Transportation- Dead Before Reaching the Slaughterhouse

We’ve all seen the horrific sight of a transport truck flying by with little regard for the safety of the animals inside who are usually jostled about, having to struggle just to stay on their feet.  It’s saddening enough that these animals are headed for the slaughterhouse; what many people don’t realize is that millions of animals die each year when they are trampled or succumb to untreated illnesses, before they even reach the slaughterhouse.

According to an article of the Vancouver Sun about animal transport fatalities, “up to three million farm animals are found dead each year” inside transport trucks when they arrive at Canadian slaughterhouses.  And “more than 11 million farm animals are declared unfit for human consumption after arriving diseased or injured.”  And that’s just in Canada- it is a major problem in the U.S. as well.  The sad fact of the matter is to the industry these deaths are simply another cost of doing business.

The numbers are very upsetting, but it should be no surprise when you factor in all the other abuse these animals face.  Workers routinely poke pigs with electric prods and beat them, sometimes hitting them on the snout with baseball bats, breaking their noses.  Birds are often thrown, resulting in broken bones and wings.  Animals are literally piled on top of each other with no room to turn around, and no food or water is given to them during transport.  The massive number of animals crammed into the cargo containers can cause some to suffocate, especially in intense heat. During the summer months, temperatures inside the metal fixtures are sweltering, and during the winter months, the animals have almost no protection from the wind, ice, and snow. Many pigs actually freeze to the sides of the trucks in winter.

Truck drivers can be reckless, putting both the animals and humans in danger and transport accidents are common. If an animal is lucky, he or she might escape injury and be able to flee and avoid the slaughterhouse forever, but the chances of this happening are slim. Surviving, injured animals are usually just reloaded onto another truck to continue the journey to the slaughterhouse.

Below are some numbers for an example of just how many animals die in the senseless agricultural industry.

Number of animals declared unfit for human consumption after arriving diseased or injured at Canadian slaughterhouses:

8 million broiler chickens

3 million egg-layers and breeders

200,000 turkeys

80,000 pigs

8,000 cattle

-More than 11 million total

Number of animals found dead each year when trucks are unloaded at Canadian slaughterhouses:

2 million broiler chickens

400,000 egg-layers and breeders

20,000 turkeys

17,000 pigs

500 cattle

-Up to 3 million total

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