From T. with love: 2012

zondag 16 december 2012

Reading of Melanie Joy

Tuesday the 11th I went to a reading of Melanie Joy.

She works at Harvard as a psychologist and wrote a book where she analyses why it's okay for us to eat meat and why we eat just a few animals. When we think of eating dogs, cats, etc. then a lot of people are shocked, but in fact you can ask yourself, why is eating a pig okay, but not a cat?

She gave a good presentation about the gap we have in our head when it's about our eating habits where a lot of animals are slaughtered for in a way that is too awful to imagine. And even we know this truth, we just ignore it. We eat meat without accepting it was once an animal.

Next to that she said what the causes are of this gap in our head. It's part of our culture and is seen as normal. We need to understand it's a cultural habit, so it isn't the truth we are talking about. Because when you go look at other cultures, there will be things we think that are extreme and they see that also as a truth. But it's just a perception, another pair of glasses to look at the world. So you can say that the need to eat meat isn't based on the factual reality, but on our normative reality.

Another thing is that the meat industry is such a big actor in our economy what makes that they also have a lot of influence on our politics. This makes that the policy all let this happen, because there is alot of money involved in this issue.

I thought this was a very good reading. She's a very pleasant woman that informes in a clear language. I thought the information she gave me, in spite of the fact that I knew most of it already, was a real eye - opener for me.

I think that I'm doing a really good job already by eating no meat and fish and trying to drink more soymilk etc. It always can be better but I'm working on it.

Next step I have to do is reading her book "Love dogs, Eat pigs, Wear cows". Another book on the "must - read - list". I'll put down here a review of it, but give me some time. Still have some books to go before I can start at this one.
You want more information, just go to her website.

zaterdag 8 december 2012

Bread Pudding

I've made today my first vegan bread pudding.
I used some 'speculoos' and apples to make it complete.

If u want to make it yourself, here is the recipe:

300 g old bread
700 ml soymilk
100 g cane sugar
50 g pudding poudre
2 small apples
6 à 8 speculoos (cookies)

Tear the bread into pieces, put them in a large bowl and cover with the soy milk.
Preheat the oven to 180 ° C and grease a springform pan with a diameter of 23 cm.
Stir in the bread-soymilk mixture until everything falls apart and you get a paste. Mix in the sugar. Strain the custard powder over the mixture and stir well.
Then mix the apple pieces through, break the speculoos biscuits into small pieces and mix them well into the dough.
Pour the mixture into the greased tin and bake the bread pudding for 40 minutes at 180 ° C.

And then you get this as result (see picture).
Enjoy!

maandag 26 november 2012

Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

My first review is of the book Eating Animals, written by Jonathan Safran Foer.

I read this one when I was like 6 months veggie and I heard this is the bible of all the vegetarians. So as a newborn veggie I was kinda required to read this book.

In the beginning of the book Jonathan introduces himself. He starts with telling the readers which family he comes from and what eating meat means in that (Jewish) family. It's a light - hearted way of starting the book so I think this was a good starter to open the book with. When he just became a father of his firstborn child, he became more critical about everything in the world. He wants to give his child the best of the best in its life and so he also has its doubts about his choices in nutrition. What is the best nutrition he can give his child, what is healthy and what is ethically correct? With this questions in his mind he starts his research and travel to find the right answers about eating meat.

An important thing he says is that he isn't against eating meat basically. He's more concerned about the way the meat industries treat animals and after which battle an animal ends up on our plate. So he thinks eating meat is acceptable when an animal dies in a respectful way and when the overconsumption of meat wouldn't be that much present as it is now.

In his book he visits a lot of farmers. He researches how pigs, poultry and bovine animals are treated in the meat industries. He also visits smaller farms where they treat their animals with more respect than in the big meat industrie. After he visited and interviewed all of them he wrote all his critical reflections about them down, linked to his objective findings. He also writes down what effects the enormous meat industries have on our environment and he also gives some attention to the subject if eating no meat is unhealthy because of the risk of lack of vitamins. He writes down the hard reality, even when that is very shocking to read.

I think the book is very interesting and is a 'must - read' for every vegetarian or veganist. The only thing you should keep in mind is that the research has been done in America and that the legislation is different in the EU about the meat industrie than the legislation in the American countries. So don't base whole your persuasionmechanisms on the legal framework in the book because it doesn't matches with the one that we have in Europe. But next to that it is also quite similar.

So the book starts very accesible and light - hearted but it gets more research related and heavier to read the more chapters you pass. It surely interesses me, but the book does not keep my attention to the fullest because of all the statistics, all the research material. All these statistics are very heavy sometimes. After all it stays a book with a focus on research, what can make it sometimes not very accesible to read.

What I think that is very good is that he also puts light on the environmental problems we have because of the large meat consumption and the culturally determination of eating meat, what makes that being critical about eating meat is threatening to a lot of people. I also find it very pleasant that he talks about his own feelings, about his own life in the book. That makes it more accessible than the book would be purely a book of research.