I made the decision on June 22nd to go vegetarian after watching a video on PETA about the cruelty in an Ohio based kosher slaughterhouse. Like most people, I knew that inhumane slaughter occurred in all slaughterhouses, but Kosher is meant to be humane, right?
From the PETA site: workers were using a meat hook and a knife to rip out cows' tracheas while the animals were still conscious—after the shochetim (kosher slaughterers) had cut their throats.
Like everybody I know, I'd turned a blind eye to the ritual slaughter in all slaughterhouses, but I was truly sickened by the video, which, let's face it, you are meant to (PETA is fond of punching you with the most horrific images they can find). As a Brit, you'd hope that UK slaughterhouses were nothing like American ones. Alas, from their McDonald and KFC fast food lifestyle, the UK has followed America like a willing puppy.
I'd eaten fish and chips on the 22nd (before watching the video on the train home from the seaside). I became a vegetarian from the 23rd (today is day 96) and have moves to becoming vegan. It helps that my housemate Helen has become intolerant to lactose, but after learning just how meat consumption is directly linked to cancer and heart disease, she has gamely joined me on the green wagon.
We are both overweight from a sedentary lifestyle of meaty, fatty, unhealthy pizza, Chinese, Indian and other general crap. So we are both on the Cambridge Wight Plan. It's hard for her - she can't drink the conveniently premade tetra paks of milkshakes and I've swapped out my powder shakes and porridge for her (which still contain miniscule amounts of milk unfortunately), so I've not launched as immediately into a vegan lifestyle as I'd have liked, although everything that is nothing to do with the diet has been replaced. I'm using soya milk and before restarting my weight loss plan I made vegan cauliflower cheese, vegan pancakes and vegan Yorkshire puddings (sooo yummy!). We are both also currently eating Quorn, which contains free range egg. I'd like to become comfortable with using tofu - I've only used the Cauldron pre-marinated pieces so far, which tasted deliciously of sausage.
I'm hoping that by the new Year, or my birthday in late February at the latest, will be the point at when I can make the change complete.
I've decided to create this blog to chronicle recipes that I've discovered and used, or created (like my Curried pumpkin and potato soup, roasted vegetable soup, vegetable stir fry or vegetable casserole that I'll post at a later date).
It will also be a place for me to link to other blogs, complain about how hard it is to get a decent sandwich in a supermarket, and how annoying it will be to be completely unable to get a soya latte or food in a little cafe in the middle of nowhere (as we discovered when we visited Newport in the Isle of Wight, and trundled from cafe to cafe - in a town filled with cafes - looking for at least a vegetarian sandwich and found only one that offered egg mayonnaise, but no soya for our coffee or hot chocolate)
On that note, thanks for reading (or skimming) my first blog post :)
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