As time flies by...

I wish I could write more often but sadly it doesn't seem to happen.
I will have some more thoughts on veganism and the ethics of modern farming later as I am currently reading Jonathan Safran Foer's book Eating Animals, so watch this space!

For now I'll just post some pics of what I've been eating over the last few weeks. Some of the pics aren't great (Im still practising!).

 

This was a yummy meal sized salad I had one evening that I smothered in vegan mayo, nutritional yeast and chopped almonds for extra crunch - I love yummy salads, just can't get enough!

I've also recently made a few discoveries of my own one being these pumpking and ginger rice noodles that I added to my classic tofu and veggie stir fry. They have very different texture to the most common rice noodles that you get in the supermarket - more cewy and spaghetti like. I really enjoyed them but they're not cheap at £1.89 a pack (three servings) I will be enjoying them occasionally though.

 Stir frying the veggies - I like to get as many coulours as possible in there!

I enjoyed this stir fry with homemade teriyaki and ginger sauce. The ingredients aren't cheapbut if you compare it to a bought premade sauce works out much more economical. Plus there are no added nasties or preservatives.

And my final note - Green Smoothies...

So I've been reading all over the place about the health benefits of green smoothies. I really struggle to get in my greens sometimes with working shifts. I also have very little appetite at 5.30am when I need to have breakfast so thought a smoothies might be the way to go. I'm still experimenting though and have yet to find one that works well. Pictured about is one I made from a ready to mix powder and wasn't too bad, however I wanted to try and get in some proper fresh greens. This morning I made a smoothie with vanilla vegan protein powder and a couple of big handfuls of kale and baby spinach. Seriously wrong... as much as I desperately want to enjoy this due to the health benefits I really couldn't stomach it :-( - I think next time I'll try and add a whole lot of fruit to balance out the veggies and will keep you updated on my experimentation!

Now I have to go and get ready for work - its Sunday morning... sigh.

Veganism and Faith

So this is bad – I broke my new years plan to blog regularly, but work is just taking up so much time. It's been hard getting used to working full time again after such a long break but I already feel like I've been working there for years. Staffing levels on the ward have been all over the place with no one making sure we have enough nurses on shift to run the ward safely so my rota seems to change all the time, ending up with me yesterday having to stay on for a 14.5 hour shift! So I got home shoveled in some soya yoghurt and marmalade granola and slept like a log – and on the plus side I have now gained an extra day off this week from doing so much overtime :).

I had planned to write a bit on my thoughts on veganism. Veganism is an idea I have been flirting with for a while now and I do try and eat a diet very low in animal products although I haven't managed yet to make a complete commitment. I have been doing lots of research around the topic and considering whether becoming completely vegan is also in conflict with my Christian faith - many people argue that God gave us animals for food as in Genesis God says:

“Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as 

I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything” 

(Genesis 9:3 NIV). 

However earlier on in the book of Genesis the Lord says: 

“I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth

and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.” 

(Genesis 1:29 NIV). 

This earlier command was made before the fall suggesting that in God's perfect plan for mankind we were to eat a purely plant based diet and humans only began eating animal flesh once sin had entered the world.

Of course there were many other things that happened after the fall that I would not consider sinful, for example wearing clothes, so I don't believe that it is sinful to eat animals as such but I also do not think that eating a vegan diet is in conflict with being a Christian. 

My main concern is the way I which animals are farmed and treated within society today. I have a huge amount of information on this subject, admittedly much of it is from vegan society publications and therefore obviously a little biased. So at this point I'm not going to comment as I still need to spend some time gathering the facts. Of course we all aware however that the majority of meat that we eat in the western world does come from animals that have had an extremely unnatural life, living in cramped, dirty and painful conditions until the day they are slaughtered. But as I said I will write more on this when I have gathered a wider range of evidence.

For now I will share some more of the meals I have eaten in the last few weeks. Unfortunately due to working shifts my eating pattern is somewhat erratic, I thought this would be very hard for me and was worried that not getting regular meals may trigger old eating disorderd thoughts. So far though I seem to be coping well and am able respond to my hunger and eat when I can, which is a very big step for me on the recovery ladder! 

When I am on late shifts I start work at 1pm and then am unlikely to be able to eat a lot more for the rest of the day so I have learnt to try and stock up before I leave. I had been wanting to try a tofu scramble for a while now andthe first one I tried was so delicious that it seems to have now become my staple 'pre late shift brunch' served with some oat cakes or toasted genius bread. This particular version of tofu scramble was knocked together with some onions, mushrooms, peppers, tomatoes and of course a generous helping of turmeric and organic tamari soya sauce:

I also recenly discovered some delicious vegan tofu sausages which made a nice quick meal with some mashed sweet potato and left over kale and brussels sprouts:

And finally - my favourite dish of the week. After a long shift and home and hungry I was craving a sweet snack. I seemed to have very few ingredients but came up with these:

Which along with a banana I managed to convert into a sliced banana with warm chocolate and peanut butter sauce:

An awesome and delicious discovery I will definately be making again!