Company develops plant based prenatal vitamins

First article today for This Dish is Veg - a company making animal free prenatal vitamins.

Read it here...

Basic bread recipe

Jeeze, I haven't put on a recipe on here in forever! Time to remedy that I think!
The thing I cook most often in my house is bread. Every day when me and my daughter are eating breakfast, the Kitchen Aid is whirring away in the background, mixing up what will be everyone's lunch.
I started making my own bread back when I lived in England, and soon discovered that once you eat home made bread, you can't go back to the store bought variety. Not only does it taste so, so different, but its free of all those nasty things that manufacturers think we need to eat, bleh.  Plus the smell of it cooking in the oven is something akin to olfactory porn - it is second only to the smell of fresh coffee in the morning!
This recipe is the one I use most often (given to me my lovely friend Kathy) and takes a little while, but produces the most wonderful, light fluffy sandwich bread. One of these gets devoured by my family every day! Ready? Here goes!

You will need...

• 1 lb of white bread flour (or up to a half and half mix of white and whole wheat flour)
• 1 cup of warm water
• 1 1/2 tablespoons of sugar
• 1 teaspoon of yeast
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 2 - 3 cups of boiling water

Mix the warm water, sugar and yeast together in a jug and leave to one side. Meanwhile, boil some water.  When the top of the yeast water has become foamy, add to the flour on a mixer with a dough hook. Mix for about 3 minutes and leave to rest for 10. Mix again for 10 minutes and then place in a large oiled bowl.
Place the bowl on the top shelf of your oven. On the bottom shelf, place a large (I use a 9" x 7") heatproof dish and fill with the boiling water. Close the oven door and leave the dough to rise for a couple of hours, or until double in size. Try not to peek for at least an hour, or all the steam will escape! Also, don't turn the oven on until you take the dough out...
When the dough is double its original size, turn out onto a floured surface and punch it into a rectangle. Roll it up from its short side and punch out again (dough is great for getting out any anger!!!)
Roll up again from the short side and place in a lightly oiled 1lb bread tin. Cover with a tea towel and leave for a hour until risen again.
Preheat the oven to 400 F, and cook for about 25 minutes until the top is browned and your house is filled with heavenly aromas...
I usually leave the bread in the tin for around ten minutes, and then it tips out the tin really easily.
Leave to cool completely before slicing, but if you can't resist, smother with vegan margarine and dribble as it melts into the steaming bread and enjoy, enjoy, enjoy..!

Will future generations condemn us for factory farming?

In an article in yesterday's Washington Post, Kwame Anthony Appiah (currently the Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University) asks which of our current practices will shock future generations the most. He says from looking at how our attitudes have changed to things in the past, that there are three signs that a practice is 'destined for future condemnation.'

1. People have already heard the arguments about the practice. For example with slavery, the case against it had been around for a long time before legislation to stop it emerged.
2. Defenders of the custom don't offer moral excuses but instead state that 'tradition, human nature of necessity' make it ok. (As in "We've always had slaves, how could we grow cotton without them?")
3. Thirdly, supporters of the practice use 'strategic ignorance' avoiding information that might force them to see how cruel things can be, for those things that are so very convenient. Those who wore the cotton slaves grew didn't want to think about how they were treated, so abolitionists constantly drew attention to the conditions of the middle passage, making sure that the horrifying stories of the people's plight can to public attention.

In light of these three signs, Appaih gives four offerings to what he thinks will cause our descendants to ask "What the hell were they thinking?"

• Our prison system
• Our treatment of animals in food production
• Our isolation of the elderly
• Our treatment of the environment

 For the sake of convenience he states that people, animals and the environment are being pushed 'out of sight, and to some extent out of mind' as prisons, nursing homes and factory farms get bigger and the environment around us becomes more and more fragile.

Well worth a read, the full article is here.

Brutal dairy worker pleads guilty to animal cruelty

Billy Joe Gregg Jr., today pleaded guilty to six charges of animal cruelty after he was shown on video maliciously harming cows and calves at Conklin Dairy Farms in Ohio. He was sentenced to eight months in jail, ordered to pay $1000.00 fine and is banned from having contact with animals for three years. He will also receive counseling specifically designed for those who are charged in animal cruelty cases.
The undercover investigation by Mercy for Animals (MFA), showed farm workers;

• Violently punching young calves in the face, body slamming them to the ground, and pulling and throwing them by their ears.
• Routinely using pitchforks to stab cows in the face, legs and stomach
• Kicking "downed" cows (those too injured to stand) in the face and neck - abuse carried out and encouraged by the farm's owner
• Maliciously beating restrained cows in the face with crowbars - some attacks involving over 40 blows to the head
• Twisting cows' tails until the bones snapped
• Punching cows' udders
• Bragging about stabbing, dragging, shooting, breaking bones, and beating cows and calves to death

"Gregg's punishment is a slap on the wrist compared to the unimaginable suffering endured by the animals who were victims of his malicious abuse," says MFA's Executive Director, Nathan Runkle. "It's an outrage that in Ohio it's a mere misdemeanor to sadistically punch, beat and stab farmed animals, break their bones and otherwise torture them. This case should serve as a wake-up call to all compassionate citizens that Ohio must do more to strengthen its animal cruelty laws."

Today's posts for This Dish is Veg

Firstly, Bob Harper of 'Biggest Loser' fame, on his affiliation with Farm Sanctuary on their Walk For Animals here, then an article on Nat Geo's upcoming magazine on the Gulf's oil industry.

The Ecologist releases video of California dairy farm investigation

As planning permission for the UK's first large scale dairy farm is about to be resubmitted, The Ecologist traveled to California to see for themselves the impact factory farming can have on the local community. The resulting video and article shows that they found intimidation, pollution, pesticides and illness.

Gone are the days of 'cows in the meadow, eating buttercups' - I hope that the people of the UK made a stand and realize that cheaper milk comes at a huge price.

Are you happy?

I've long been a believer in the 'If it's broke, fix it' outlook on happiness - if there's something in your life that sucks, change it. If you need to be going in a different direction, take small steps to do so.

The picture above sums it up beautifully!