Reason #2 For Becoming Vegetarian + Cupcake Recipe

"You are what you eat". I can't even count the amount of times I heard this as a kid. Growing up on bologna & cheese sandwiches and bologna & cheese omelets I never really thought about this saying. I mean, obviously I don't look like bologna & cheese so it can't be true right? But maybe there's something to this idiom.

My diet, just like almost everything else in my life, has gone through phases. Once I started to do yoga regularly I became more in touch with my body. I felt connected to it in a way I've never experienced before. So when my diet fluctuated from eating healthy to not eating healthy it was very obvious to me how it affected me. Junk food made me feel sluggish, slightly sick to my stomach and overall dreary. The more I started to increase my water intake and decrease my junk food intake the more fluid and strong my body started to feel.

In this post I talked about the main reason I became vegetarian. I'll be honest, it wasn't that hard of a switch for me since I didn't eat a ton of meat anyways. But once I cut meat out from my diet completely my body had an overwhelmingly positive reaction. I immediately had more energy. My body felt a lot stronger and more efficient. Overall, I just felt more healthy. And that's because eating meat isn't healthy for you. There are a ton of anti-meat and pro-meat articles all over the internet. I am not interested in getting into that debate here. I just wanted to share with you some of the health related facts I have found about not eating meat.

• "Dr. William Castelli, director of the Framingham Heart Study, says a low-fat plant-based diet would lower an individual's risk of heart attack by 85%." (The Kind Diet 2009, p.16)
• "Meat eating is also believed to exacerbate gout, contribute to rheumatoid arthritis, and to be a major factor in the formation of kidney stones." (The Kind Diet 2009, p.17)
• "A USDA report published in 2000 estimated that a staggering 89% of US beef ground into patties contained traces of deadly E.Coli." (The Kind Diet 2009, p.18)
• "Factory-farmed chicken is so unclean that Gerald Huester, former USDA microbiologist, says, 'the final product is no different than if you stuck it in the toilet and ate it'." (The Kind Diet 2009, p.19)

This is only the tip of the iceberg. Information is pretty easy to find online though so if this interests you I would suggest starting at The Kind Life site, Colin. T. Campbell's site and PETA's site.

Source: Chapters

Reason #2 for becoming vegetarian: better for my health. Even though I had been told many times that eating red meat was bad for you, it wasn't until I became vegetarian that I realized just how bad all meats are for your body. Combined with the environmental impacts eating meat has on our planet, my argument to be and stay a vegetarian became a lot stronger.

Again, I would like to stress that becoming vegetarian or vegan is a very personal decision. Although I know everyone can do it, I know it's not for everyone. Just remember that you can improve your health by eating less meat in general. Try a new vegetarian/vegan recipe weekly, bi-weekly or monthly. The less meat you eat the healthier you will be.

Now on to the yummy stuff! To go hand in hand with the chocolate frosting recipe from this post I figured I would pair it with the chocolate cup cake recipe from Kim Barnouin's Skinny Bitch: Ultimate Everyday Cookbook.

Ingredients (makes 12 cupcakes):

2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt (I never add salt to my recipes)
1/2 cup almond milk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup Earth Balance (butter), at room temp.
1 cup evaporated cane sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup orange juice (this added the most amazing flavour0
1 teaspoon grated orange peel (I was in a rush and didn't use this)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to  350 degrees F (180C). Line a 12-cup muffin pan with crimped paper liners.
In a large bowl, sift together the flour and the cocoa powder. Add the baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a separate small bowl mix together the milk and apple cider vinegar and let sit until lightly curdled.
In a separate large bowl, beat together the Earth Balance and the sugar with an electric mixer until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the vanilla and beat an additional 30 seconds. Pour the flour and milk mixtures into the sugar mixture and stir until well combined. Add the orange juice and orange peel and stir together but do not overmix. Pour the batter into the prepared muffin pan, filling each liner about two-thirds full. Bake about 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cupcakes comes out clean. Remove from the oven and set on a wire rack to cool completely. When cooled, top with your favorite frosting.

Enjoy :) And don't forget to lick the bowl clean!

Reason #1 For Becoming Vegetarian + Chocolate Frosting Recipe

I am the last person I would have ever expected to become vegan. My whole life ham and bacon have been two of my favorite foods. People have laughed at me before in the past when I have talked about giving up meat because I love pork so much. It has been an interesting journey to get to this point and I wanted to talk a bit about my reasons for making such an extreme change in my diet.

Source: Chapters

The changes started for me back in March 2011. Most of my life I have tried to find ways to save the earth. I have always tried to be eco-friendly but it wasn't until 2010/2011 that I really started to research about the state of our environment and what kind of impact my lifestyle was having on it. There are lots and lots of books, websites and articles out there about this but it was The Kind Diet by Alicia Silverstone that really hit home for me. Below are some scary facts about the impact our meat industry has on the environment:

• "It takes 441 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of beef... By comparison, it takes only 33 gallons of water to grow a pound of carrots. One 16-ounce steak uses the amount of water you need for 6 months of showers!" (The Kind Diet 2009, p.25)
• "It takes more than 11 times the energy to create animal protein than grain protein. When you take into account the fuel used for planting, watering, and harvesting of the grain a cow eats, its transportation, the energy used by factory farms, transportation of the cows to slaughter, and then the distribution of the meat to you... the average American eats 97 pounds of beef a year, our national burger-lust requires the energy equivalent of a mere 29 billion gallons of gas!" (The Kind Diet 2009, p.26)
• "The average American car produces 3 kilograms of carbon per day. The clearing and burning of enough Costa Rican rain forest to produce one hamburger creates 75 kilograms of carbon." (The Kind Diet 2009, p.27)
• "In fact, cattle grazing is the number one factor in the destruction of the rain forest, and we're losing 2.4 acres of it per second. That's 144 acres per minute. Seventy-five million acres per year! Rain forest used to cover 14 percent of the earth, but now it covers only 6 percent. You see, every hamburger requires a plot of land the size of a small kitchen to be cleared." (The Kind Diet 2009, p.27)

Those are just some of the disturbing facts I learned from Alicia's book. I highly recommend it as a good source for information on being eco-friendly when it comes to eating and also for the recipes.

Reason #1 for becoming vegetarian: better for the environment. After learning all of this information I couldn't continue to eat meat knowing how much damage it was doing to our planet. I will admit that deciding to become vegetarian or vegan is a very personal decision and it can be extreme for some people. I will never try to push this lifestyle on anyone but I would like people to take a step back and think about how much meat they eat. Even just consuming less meat than normal will help lessen the strain that the meat industry puts on our planet. I saw this amazing idea online somewhere of starting "Veggie Mondays". Every Monday try to eat anything but meat all day. It's only one day to commit to and it can be a great way to incorporate some creativity and culture into your cooking and your diet.

Another way we can lighten the stress on our planet is to choose better meats. Go to local farms or farmers market. Buy meats from farmers that do not overuse antibiotics and allow their cattle to eat grass instead of corn. Not only are you supporting people in your own community but you are buying food that has traveled less than 100km to get to you instead of 1000's of kms. You're also supporting ethical food production instead of giving your money to factory farming.

One of the biggest challenges I have found since making the jump to vegetarian and then vegan has been finding good recipes. I recently tried a recipe from The Kind Diet and am in love with it. Here is Alicia's chocolate frosting (The Kind Diet 2009, p.190):

Ingredients:
-1/2 cup (4 ounces) Earth Balance Butter
-1/2 cup agave nectar
-2 teaspoons vanilla extract
-1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
-1/2 cup soy milk powder

Directions:
To make the Fudge Frosting, use a mixer to cream the butter together with the agave nectar in a mixing bowl until very smooth. Add the vanilla extract and about half the cocoa powder, mix on low speed to combine, then add the remaining cocoa powder. Add in the soy milk powder, and beat at medium-high speed until fluffy. If it is runny, refrigerate the frosting until it sets up a little.

I used this frosting on cupcakes that I made from Kim Barnouin's Skinny Bitch: Ultimate Everyday Cookbook. Keep tuned tomorrow for the cup cake recipe and "Reason #2 for becoming vegetarian".

Inspirational Videos

TED is one of my favorite websites. If you have never heard of it before TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is a nonprofit devoted to "Ideas Worth Spreading". They hold conferences all over the world where inspirational people will talk about an idea. The reason I like it so much is because there is a huge variety of topics discussed.

Today I would like to share with you two videos I found. If you haven't been able to tell by now I try to live an eco-friendly life which includes being vegetarian. I know that lifestyle isn't for everyone but watch these two short videos and challenge yourself to think differently about how you live and what you eat.