PLANT-BASED NUTRITION

PLANTMILKS

Humans experimented early with concocting beverages to nutritionally enrich water using plants.  Fruit juices and nectars are ancient.  Also among the earliest man-made beverages were herbal infusions in cold and hot water.  Popular among these over time have been tea, coffee and mate.  The source plants of these and other brews spread around the world and became infused in cultures depending on climates, soils, cultures and other realities ranging from the development of scouting to major religions and including various behavioral change movements from Pythagoreanism to vegetarianism and veganism and contemporary raw foodism.    

Sprouting seeds and grains, liquefying and using them fresh or fermented were leaps in the development of new plant based beverages and nutritional advances.  One example is barley, which people learned could be sprouted, dried, baked and powdered to make malt could be eaten or drunk and which brewers mastered in their formulae for malted beverages.  Then there are various root beers made from blended herbs, spices, roots, sugars and water.  Few of these are authentic in any sense today, nor are their botanical and human cultural origins understood.  Ironically, beers, ales, whiskeys, gins, rums, wines, vodkas and other alcoholic plant-based beverages have retained a sense of cultural origins and authenticity in production processes.

Seeking truly natural food processes, intuitively insightful peoples in several creative cultures have concocted many versions of the concept of  plant milk, dilute viscous appealingly tasteful blends which have given the health seeking the world a variety of beverages, symbolically white or nearly white, using water and unfermented plant parts including peanuts, potatoes, oats, rice, sesame seeds and soybeans.  Of these, Asian-originated soymilk is currently the most popular plant milk commercially distributed globally.

Plantmilk origin stories abound.  In the lands east or south of the Mediterranean Sea, someone first ground raw sesame seeds into a paste and added a little water.  Eureka, tahini was born.  More water was added and white, nutritionally rich sesame milk was born.  Today it is quickly and easily made by blenderizing sesame seeds and water.  Ignoring all the other nutrients, for its calcium content alone homemade sesame milk is a valuable beverage.

Prehistoric North Americans domesticated the sunflower plant which thrives in dry plains regions and most everywhere else.  The heliocentric flowers which follow the sun every day during the growing season are fringed with colorful yellow petals which are nutritious and tasty, but it is the massive center head that  contains hulled seeds which store well and contain enormous nutritional power whether pureed into pastes, pates, gravies, soups, cheeses or blended with water to make sunflower seed milk.  Did early native Americans make sunflower seed milk?  If not one ever did, that would be surprising.  Ignoring all the other nutrients, for its calcium and chromium content alone, sunflower seed milk is a valuable beverage.

Possibly in South America, but certainly in western Africa and eventually in the United States in Alabama at the Tuskegee Institute by Cornell University graduate George Washington Carver and his associates, peanut milk was brought to life when raw peanut paste was added to water to make another whitish beverage.  Ignoring all the other nutrients, for its protein and B vitamins alone, homemade peanut milk is a valuable beverage.

Since cashews are native to Madagascar, presumably islanders there developed cashew paste and diluted it with water to make cashew milk.  Maybe, instead, it was Indians to the east who first made cashew butter, pates, gravies, soups, and cashew milk.  Whomever, the culture of origin does not matter as much as the fact that today cashews are widely available and used in diverse cuisines.  Ignoring all the other nutrients, for its iron and protein and fiber, homemade cashew milk is a valuable beverage.

  

Was it Andean cultures or Irish who first realized that pureed cooked potato pulp added to water was whitish and might be called milk-like or potato milk?  In both Idaho and northern California at various times commercial potato milk has been produced as a dehydrated potato powder to which water is added to rehydrate into potato milk.  What else is pure potato soup, nevermind what else is added?  Ignoring all the other nutrients, for its minerals and fiber alone, homemade potato milk is a valuable beverage.  Potassium rich, mineral loaded.  “Potatoes not Prozac….”

If Asians domesticated the almond tree they must first have concocted its nut-seeds into cheeses and candies and pastries and innumerable other foods including almond milk which is now commercially produced in California where thousands of acres of almond trees are grown by farmers organized into cooperatives such as Blue Diamond and other marketing organizations.  Subtle in taste with an eloquent texture, almond milk like all the other plant milks can be made into fabulous custards, crèmes and ice creams as well as thick and thin smoothies to delight anyone.  Ignoring all the other nutrients, for its calcium and other minerals alone, either commercial or homemade almond milk is a valuable beverage.

Cowless in Hong Kong at the end of World War Two, surviving British Colonial Chinese public health specialists, nutritionists and entrepreneurs faced massive malnutrition and developed Hong Kong Dairies as the first large-scale commercial producer of vitamin enriched soymilk labeled “VITASOY” which was distributed first to malnourished survivors and refugees, then to the mass urban market and eventually worldwide.  Soymilk had long been a staple of the Asian family home and street cuisine, but wartime disruptions had destroyed crops, food inventories and distribution systems and families themselves were war-torn if any members had survived.  Soybeans, soymilks, soy cheese tofus, fermented soy paste misos and the soy sauces drained off them have spread globally over the past half century to the nutritional betterment of the health-minded who have dared to try, adopt and regularly consume them.  In The United States, Eden Foods led in the development of nutritious palatable American style organically certified soymilks and other soy products beginning in the 1970s.  Ignoring all the other nutrients, for its proteins and isoflavones alone either commercially prepared or homemade soymilk is a valuable beverage.

Following on the popularity of soymilks and their successes in many markets, emboldened, and faced with the world’s highest bad cholesterol (LDL) data along with uncomfortable mortality rates, Scandinavian governments allowed researchers to micro-pulverize oats to discover that the superfine particles emulsified to form a beverage palatable and easily labeled oat milk.  They performed comparative studies and reported that this adaptation of low cost highly nutritious indigenous de-whiskered hulled oat grains could lower bad cholesterol which was good news indeed.  Patents and copyrights were filed and oat milks went around the world.  For its fat-absorbing fiber and bad cholesterol lowering effects alone, oat milk is a valuable beverage.

Coconut milk is an ancient beverage relished throughout Asia and everywhere else it has been introduced.  Fat and sugar rich, coconut milks are staples in Asian foods including salad dressings, marinades and curries and desserts with white creamy toppings.  Too fat?  Thin coconut milk include the sweet interior liquid which, but for a little viscosity, could be termed coconut water and contains little fat.  Pulp scraped from the inside of a coconut is sweet and fat, yet the oils are categorized among the so-called healthy fats and this coconut cream is so rich few would eat much of it.  Blenderize the remaining coconut interior in water and the resulting white coconut milk is generally regarded as delicious whether strained or left chewy.  It too is loaded with fats considered healthy, and cultures where coconut milk are daily ration are noted for thinness, flexibility, energy, hard work, productivity, and longevity.  Could there be Thai, Burmese, Malaysian, Indonesian, Laotian, Cambodian, Vietnamese or Philippine cuisines without coconut milk?  For its fiber and wholesome oils, homemade coconut milk is valuable.

   

Sweet potato and yam milk?  Why not?  Milletmilk?  Cornmilk?  Butterbeanmilk? Walnut milk?  Brazil nut milk?  Pistachio milk?  Pumpkin seed milk?  What milk?  The plant kingdom offers innumerable nutritional alternatives.  For anyone desirous of milky white or lightly tinted nutritious beverages and flavorful ingredients for homemade and commercially prepared foods, many nuts, seeds, grains, and fruits can be made into nutritious plant milk.  Banana almond soy?

Plant milk are easily and quickly made with the simplest of equipment.  For superior nutrition, it is reasonable to first sprout any seed ingredients.  Seeds and grains and beans become more nutritious through sprouting.  After sprouting, pulverize or blenderize all ingredients, diluting with water to attain a desired quality.  At any stage millet milk will blend nicely with soymilk or almond milk and other possibilities are infinite.  Plantmilkmaking at home, however primitive or technologized, is cheaper than commercial production and packaging and advertising and distribution.  But commercial producers can flavor exquisitely and blend in subtle ingredients such as Irish sea moss gel and other thickeners along with mineral and vitamin supplementation to provide standardized dosages.  Commercial packaging allows transport and storage.  IPBN, volunteer staff make plant milks, but mostly use commercial products because these are so convenient and have standardized nutritional levels.  Entrepreneurial veganomics invites the making and selling of plant milks fresh locally as is common in Asia.  Until there is at least one plant milk maker in every community and others appropriately distributed coast to coast between population centers, the market is only in a formative stage and future developments are likely to be appreciated and rewarded.  Everyone can find a personally palatable plant milk with pleasing aroma, taste and texture which is also a healthful food.

“DRINK PLANTMILKS, THEY ARE GOOD FOR PEOPLE!”

KALE AGAIN

Kale is a survivalist’s dream plant.  Nutrition plus in every leaf, stalk and root, kale is easy to grow, disease and insect resistant, inexpensive to buy and versatile in its dietary uses.  Featured in the previous issue, kale’s virtues were described and many kale centered recipes were provided.  PBN, Summer 2001, pages 1-9.  Regrettably, in that cram packed issue, no mention was made of ornamental kale which is not only beautiful in horticultural displays, but is also edible.  These varicolored and textured leaves enhance culinary offerings of all sorts.  So, add ornamental kale to produce gardens and flower bed plantings in 2002 and this Fall try some in salads, steamed greens and other dishes.  As for that one fellow up in Michigan who expressed wonder regarding why kale was featured, the reply he received provided a USDA publication listing nutrition components of most foods and including most commercially produced edible greens, and this comment:  “Have a look at the data yourself.  Compare all the greens.  Understand that everyone has its uses in a balanced diet.  Then, remember, kale is the only green likely to survive winter and produce harvests over several years including during snowy freezing weather.  Yes, kale peeks up revived when snows melt and often will have produced edible leaves throughout the winter.  Ancients survived through knowledge of hardy maximum nutrition plants and, from Europe to Korea, kale (9,620 International Units of vitamin A per cup chopped raw, 8,260 chopped frozen cooked) has been in the mid-latitude survivalist food arsenal for thousands of years.  Kale’s African cousin, collards (4,220 International Units of vitamin A per cup chopped raw, 10,170 chopped frozen cooked) facilitated survival in hot tropical climates.  All the other edible greens are wonderful, but kale (94 milligrams calcium per cup chopped raw, 179 chopped frozen cooked) and collards (148 milligrams of calcium per cup chopped raw, 357 chopped frozen cooked) have special positions in the hierarchy of human nutrition providers.  Dry some kale and toss it into winter stew pots.  Powder a bit and sprinkle it on salads.  Do the same for any other greens you like and compare the results.  Judge for yourself the merits of kale and keep your friends posted regarding your scientific research.”  All cole plants are friends of human nutrition, be a friend of kale (296 milligrams of potassium per cup chopped raw, 417 chopped frozen cooked) and collards (177 milligrams potassium per cup chopped raw, 427 chopped frozen  cooked). (Statistical Source:  USDA)  Kale and collards are real human foods.

  

Whatever their origins, these and other deep green leafy mustard family plants are super nutritious.  Try fresh daikon radish leaves, Chinese mustard greens, turnip greens, leaves of broccoli and cauliflower, chards.  Grow mustards, eat some daily  –   the fresher the better.    

oOo

A chicken is an egg’s way of making another egg

anon

What is a fresh  egg but a liquid chicken?”

anon

Why is it called abortion for humans when for chickens it’s an omelet?

George Carlin

It ain’t breakfast if it ain’t miso and tofu.

Japanese Proverb

IPBN ***** FIVE STAR QUALITY HEALTHFOOD STORE

SUZANNE’S NATURAL FOODS IN JOPLIN

– THE NICEST IN AMERICA –

No doubt about it, there is no nicer health food store across the land than Suzanne’s in Joplin, Missouri, barely spitting distance from the Oklahoma and Kansas state lines.  Vegan friendly.  But, it is the unique ambiance which puts Suzanne’s in a class by itself.  Someone did a good design job from start to finish. You can see Suzanne’s from two major roadways and the façade looks fantastic.  A huge warm-hearted carved wooden sign on a pole welcomes everyone and there is plenty of parking conveniently in front.  Who else has used peeled logs and glass to construct a large balconied store with a convenient “Drive-In” window for those who want to pick up orders without leaving their cars?  Inside, two levels provide an impressive high ceiling and the Mexican pottery, iron furniture and ceramic tiles displayed on the balcony intrigue and draw people in through the inviting stained glassed double doors.  Then there is the cash register staff position – for pre-shopping inquiries and post-shopping communality.  Straight ahead are frozen foods and some produce.  With all the gardens in southwestern Missouri, probably most people grow their own and trade surpluses among neighbors and family.  Quite possibly, local organic growers, maybe some of them veganic organic, bring in pick-up loads of seasonal crops.  There is room for that on the vast all weather asphalt surfaced parking lot which has excellent drainage when it rains and is sloped nicely for snow removal.  There is ample space adjacent to the parking lot for dumping scooped up snow.  Warm spirited inside, there are all the usual vegan products  –  and others in local demand  –  along with a cute, sweet, colorfully tiled and decorated Juice Bar Café with a decent menu for vegans and vegetarians.  Suzanne imports Mexicana, keeps herself in top shape as a masseuse and runs this wonderful healthfood and natural products store just a few blocks off the Interstate highway amidst strip malls and residential areas in lovely Joplin.  It wasn’t always this nice in Joplin, an old lead and zinc mining town at the corners of three mid-western states on the major railroad lines.  Today, Joplin is beautiful and Suzanne’s is the nicest health food store in America.  But, do not believe this  – go see for yourself.  Exit at the Olive Garden off Interstate 40, ask where Suzanne’s is, and if your car runs at all you’ll be there in four or five minutes.  Only one left turn.  Easy.  Be prepared for a shock, though.  When those two stories of stacked logs appear atop the hill, you too will say, “I can’t believe it.  This really is stunning.  Wow!”  Suzanne and her team of helpers are nice too.  Among America’s innumerable superb healthfood stores, there are larger inventories and staffs and impressive accoutrements.  For Suzanne’s to be deemed the “nicest” does not detract from any of those other local healthfood stores which serve their communities.  But does yours have a drive-in window for drive-by service?  A first class parking lot?  A two story high peeled log building?  Nowhere else.  Maybe someday there will be another which is as unique and eloquent in appearance as Suzanne’s.  Meanwhile, when in the Tulsa, Springfield, Branson, Lake of the Ozarks, Kansas City area, don’t miss it.  Take a camera along to gather proof for your friends that your descriptions of the place are not exaggerations.  Congratulations Suzanne Schmidt.  You are wonderful.  Your store is simply the nicest.  Keep leading.  Ole!

Contact:  Suzanne Schmidt, Suzanne’s Natural Foods, 3100 Connecticut, Joplin, Missouri 64804.  TEL:  417-781-0909  EMAIL:  Suzanne@suzannes.com

On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty like Suzanne Schmidt does.

VEGAN BOOKS

Keith Akers.  The Lost Religion of Jesus, Simple Living and Nonviolence in Early Christianity  New York, New York:  Lantern Books [One Union Square West, Suite 201, 10003], 2000.  ISBN 1-9300511-26-3.  US $20.00 pb acid free.  He keeps studying and once again has authored another plain and simple big-hearted explanation of  important issues of interest to most people.  Was he or wasn’t Jesus, a vegan?  To find out the documented evidence, historian philosopher Akers has provided you with this explorative textbook.  Twenty-six chapters plus introduction.  It’s all here, interestingly written and carefully documented.  The six-page Bibliography is a key to the archives of theological libraries.  Six pages of notes are a serious scholarly subtext for astute fact checkers and logic analysts.  Any Friday, Saturday or Sunday School teacher will treasure the Scripture Index which includes Jewish, Christian and Muslim references.  A must buy!

Eva Batt.  Vegan Cooking. The Classic Vegan Cookbook Recommended by The Vegan Society.  London, United Kingdom:  Thorsons Harper-Collins Publishers, 1985.  ISBN 0-7225-1161-2.  US$14.00.  Illustrated by Margaret Leaman, ink sketchings.  Set up housekeeping with this basic text.  A nutrition education guidebook with kitchen hints.  Dried fruit and sprouts to “Eggless Fruit Cake” “Festive Roast” and “Spice Biscuits.”  European-British and American measures.  Introduction to The Vegan Society (The UK, 1944).  Complete index.  Tightly written, 144 pages.  “Vegan Cooking Made Simple,” indeed.  A must buy.

Rosemary Benedict and Michelle Johnson.  Expressly Vegan:  7 ways in 7 days to go completely vegan!  Gloversville, New York:  The Vegan Venue, Inc., 2000.  Booklet, 54 pages.  US$10.00, $13.50 postpaid.  These two pioneers are mother and daughter, leaders of the Ful-Mont Veg Group which produces and distributes vegan foods through a bakery, café, mobile food service unit and shelves of cooperating wholesalers and retailers.  Dynamos.  Just opened a new restaurant.  (Box 1245, Gloversville, New York 12078.  TEL:  518-762-6364.  FAX:  518-762-7627.  EMAIL:  compassion@citilink.net)  Consider their “Crock Pot Roast” recipe they claim “you’ll be able to whip this together in 15 minutes.”  Wheat gluten wheat meat.  “Oat burgers.”  “Oven-Baked un-fried Potatoes.”  “Tofu’led You Turkey!”  “Tempeh & White Sauce.”  “V’EGGNOG.”  “Fake Bak’n.”  “A vegan diet,” they claim, “is cheaper than an omnivorous…for the individual and for the planet.”  A must buy.         

Recipes by Bryanna Clark Grogan and Joanne Stepaniak with up-to-date information on dairy-free diets from nutrition expert Brenda Davis, R.D. Dairy-Free & Delicious.  Summertown, Tennessee:  Book Publishing Company, 2001.  ISBN 1-57067-124-9. US $12.95 pb. Beautiful full-color cover design by Cynthia Holzapfel. Try “Velvety cheeze sauce,” “Butter-not milk biscuits” “Fettuccini Alfonso,” and “Cannelloni.” A nutrition education bible loaded with scientific information supporting veganic dietetics.  Another significant contribution to vegan literature by a team of greats. From appetite stimulators to entrees and desserts, all one needs to  know professionally distilled into 159 pages. A must buy!

Brook Katz.  New Favorites.  Classic International Cuisine.  Redesigned Recipes for Your Health.  Pukalani, Hawaii:  Brook’s Books, Etc., Ltd. [Box 880446, 96788], 2000.  ISBN 0-9676564-2-7.  US$11.95.  “Moats-erella Cheese” and oat based “Gruyere.”  “My Sister’s Tofu Rainbow Pate.”  “Tofu Vegetable Loaf.”  “Mushroom Crepe with Béchamel Sauce.”  “Marinated Mock Chicken Tofu.”  “Vietnamese Stir Fry.”  “Tofu Indian Delight with Mango Chutney.”  “Mandarin Mock Chicken Salad.”  “Tofu Cheesecake.”  Katz is a globally experienced chef who says “This cheesecake recipe is 5 star!  I can sit this on any dessert cart in any fancy restaurant world wide and defy anyone to tell the difference!”  Is his secret the silken tofu blended until creamy, arrowroot powder or maybe the “Classic Pie Crust”?  “Coconut/Banana Cream Pie.”  “Hawaiian Fruit Salad with Tofu Cream.”  Fully indexed for convenient reference, 224 pages.  In a three-page foreword, Michael Klaper, M.D., reviews the reasons for adopting plant-based nutrition and cuisine, positioning lovable dedicated friend Chef Brook Katz as culinary guide par excellence.  Brook Katz is every bit that exceptional and his recipes superb.  One last truth:  Chef Katz was born in Australia, has a great sense of humor and huge smile.  A must buy.    

John Robbins. The Food Revolution, How Your Diet  Can Help Save Your Life and the World. Berkeley, California: Conari Press, 2001.  ISBN 1-57324-702-2.  US$17.95 pb. He has done it again, another magnum opus seminal work by unrepentant critic of the standard American diet (SAD) including all “21 flavors” of ice cream. He thinks food ought to be nutritious, health promoting and therefore of plant origin and not too many steps removed therefrom. This new book is the best yet.  Twenty chapters, 452 pages, nearly a thousand footnotes. A jewel of great value, well written and factual. If you liked Diet For A New America, you will love this one. Scholar Robbins has even further refined his skills. A must buy!

Miyoko Nishimoto Schinner. The New NOW and ZEN Epicure, Gourmet Recipes for the Enlightened Palate. Summertown, Tennessee: Book Publishing Company, 2001. ISBN 57067-114-1. US$19.95 pb. You waited, she did it, you now have it. “Stuffed Shiitake Mushrooms” alone justify the price of this book. Another major contribution to vegan literature by the Loving World Mother of Now and Zen. “Tofu ‘Feta’ Cheese” marinates five days to maturity.  Miyoko also produces Un-Turkey, Un-Steak, Un-Ribs, Un-Chicken, Un-Shishkebab and other superb Now & Zen food products. A must buy!        

Richard H. Schwartz, Ph.D.  Judaism and Vegetarianism.  New Revised Edition.  New York, New York:  Lantern Books [a Division of Booklight Inc., One Union Square West, Suite 201, 10003], 2001.  ISBN 1-930051-24-7.  US$18.00. A scholarly perspective, “A Vegetarian View of the Bible” with finely honed explanations of Judaism, vegetarianism and:  health, feeding the hungry, ecology and peace. This is an insider treatise, for Jews – and others who desire to understand and experience the Jewish vegetarian tradition. It all started with Genesis 1:29, “Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed which is upon the face of the earth, and every tree that has seed-yielding fruit – to you it shall be for food.” Dr. Schwartz explains why and how. A mathematician professor, by nature and training also a philosopher, he enjoys the dialogue and you will too.  Interesting and useful.  Classic scholarship.  A must buy!

Charles P. Vaclavik.  The Vegetarianism of Jesus Christ:  The Pacifism, Communalism, and Vegetarianism of Primitive Christianity  –  Historical evidence that Jesus and his disciples were not only vegetarian, but they also taught the practice to their followers.  Pristine Christianity’s Dietary testimony.  Three Rivers, California:  Kaweah Publishing Company [Box 745, 93271], 1986.  US$11.95.  ISBN 0-945146-00-0 hb, 0-945146-01-9 pb.  From “The Beginnings” in “Orthodox Judaism” through “The Pythagoreans” and “Essenes” and “Gnostics” and “Catholics”  to “James, the Lord’s Brother,” “Jesus, the Nazarene,” “Paul” and “Conclusion” that “Jesus preached the doctrines of communalism, vegetarianism, and pacifism; the world, in order to have a future, must comprehend the profound implications of these three doctrines.”  Explanatory graphics.  Chronologies.  Bibliography.  Extensive 14-page index.  Doctor of Osteopathy, a practicing physician since 1967, Dr. Vaclavik documents the questions and answers in diverse sources using traditional scientific historiography techniques and citations.  A classic must buy!  

IPBN FIVE ***** STAR AWARD FOR PRODUCT QUALITY

AND NUTRITION EDUCATION PROMOTION

CAMPBELL SOUP COMPANY

CALCIUM ENRICHED V8 VEGETABLE JUICE

CAMPBELL SOUP COMPANY is honored for its innovative nutritious vegan CALCIUM ENRICHED V8 100% VEGETABLE JUICE which “has as much calcium as [animal or plant] milk.  Plus, it’s rich in other nutrients [a human] body needs to be at its best, like vitamins A and C, [lycopene] and the potassium of a whole banana.” Additionally, it is honored for the perceptive educational motto in advertisements:

“AND YOU THOUGHT CALCIUM CAME FROM COWS.”

Further honor is due in respect of the historic part the firm and its founding families have played in improving the nutrition of Americans since its beginnings in the 1860s when Campbell’s introduced canned peaches, tomatoes, and catsup following the Civil War which had popularized foods preserved in vacuumed tin coated steel cans.  Soon, Cambell’s developed “condensed soups” to which consumers needed only to add a can of water, stir, and heat.

Campbell’s Tomato Soup is a vegan product.

The Dorrance and Campbell families and the international corporate family which developed from their historic canning business centered in Camden, New Jersey deserve to be honored for selfless contributions to nutrition education, food technologies, food safety, food processing, hydroponic greenhouse food production and veganomic infrastructure development in the communities, counties, states and countries in which they have invested for over a century.  Campbell V8 Vegetable Juice has long set standards many have attempted to emulate. It remains the leader in its product class and again, with the new calcium enriched and also salt-free formulations leads the free market appropriately as it always has.

For information regarding Campbell’s vegan products contact:

Campbell Soup Company

Campbell Place, Box 26B, Camden, New Jersey 08103-1701. TEL: 800-257-8443  877-9361 WEBSITES: www.v8juice.com   www.campbellsoup.com

IPBN TIN CAN QUICK GAZPACHO SOUP

Time short IPBN Test Kitchen volunteer staff continually invent simple new formulae for plant-based nutrition innovations anyone can master in a wink, with a wink.  So it seemed pretty miraculous when this innovation leaped forward from some brain cell seeking attention.  How, the thoughts were swirling, might the world’s easiest Gazpacho be achieved – quicker than a sunrise in Singapore?  Whoosh, the sun comes up and soup is made.  Here are the secrets, divulged here now only after extensive testing with very critical vegan connoisseurs of all sorts.

Chill a half gallon can of Campbell’s V8 or supermarket house brands tomato based vegetable juice.  No salt, or low salt, is best.  In the IPBN freezer, with periodic twirlings, a can be chilled in 15 to 30 minutes.  Do not forget and leave it in the freezer and find it puffed up frozen next day.  Just chill can and contents.  Chill.  Tin cans love to get cold and stay cool quite a spell.

Prepare half a cup each of chopped onion, cucumber  –  with seeds removed to use in a salad, chopped bell pepper – green or red or yellow or all three mixed, diced tomato  –  fresh or canned, and a clove or two or more of garlic, with whatever amount and form of cayenne red pepper you relish.  Mix these ingredients briefly, or don’t.  It really doesn’t matter, if you have other more important duties to tend.  Like shaking the chilling can cool its ingredients faster.  Swirl it.    

When diners sit for dinner, quickly open the can of V8, or competing for brand, pouring half over the diced ingredients.  Let everyone watch.  Then, scoop approximately half of the diced ingredients into the tin can, taking care not to overfill and overflow.  Stir once or twice and immediately serve.  If you have chilled the bowls or cups, all the better.  But if your freezer was too full, and the refrigerator already stuffed, just be glad and use whatever vessels are accessible.

IPBN chefs use a stainless steel ladle to stir and serve, but wood might be better if you can carve one.  One guest requested pepper, another salt…and more salt….  Other than these, everyone has drunk it down celebratorily with gusto.  No one has asked for olive oil, but some could be added if needed, or flax oil.  Works well heated also, but traditional hot season Gazpacho is served cold in Spain, so why fight “tradition”?  Feeds two to four to eight.  If you need more, use two cans….  Do not store any remainder in the tin can.  Instead, refrigerate leftovers in glass jars.  Don’t expect any of this great Gazpacho to remain through the night, however.  Before bedtime, people sometimes have cravings.  Perhaps it’s the tin….  Isn’t tin an essential element?

Maybe Campbell’s Soup Company will request rights to use this recipe and spread it around the world.  It seems appropriate as a label information item of probable interest.  Pass the word.  Pass the Gazpacho.  Share this recipe with everyone.  It works beautifully every time.

VEGANOMICS RULES

It is fascinating to observe the races toward and away from plant-based nutrition.  They are parallel and opposite trending forces shifting every moment depending on how each penny is spent around the globe.  A penny saved is one invested in a veganic product or service.  A penny earned is one accrued as a result of providing a veganic product or service.  Minding pennies is a good way to get ahead in any economy, the automatic result is dollars saved and earned.  Then big numbers appear.  Managing pennies and dollars is the art of survival in any monetized economic system, veganic or not.  Perhaps the strongest rationale for centering economics on veganic hypotheses is utilitarianism  –  when all is said and done, nature wins and it has designed humans to thrive on plant-based nutrition exclusively.  Eventually, economics must follow reality and catch up with logic.  Secondly, it is simply not necessary to consume non-plant based substances other than water, for plants provide every nutrient humans require and, if consumed in copious quantities, can even provide sufficient water as it is the major content of edible plants and the typically 70% aqueous human.  Plants provide appropriate and sufficient food and fiber for humankind.  Plants also provide structural materials including wood, paper, chemicals such as dyes, turpentines, alcohols and soy diesel oils.  Veganomics uses minerals from iron to silicon and gases from argon to xenon.  Veganomics uses air and water.  Veganomics incorporates electronics and optics.  What veganomics does not use is fellow creatures as substitutes for foods, nor fellow humans as pawns.  If the vegan component actually comprises most of the real global economy existing today, as appears to be the case, then how long will it be until the non-veganic economic sectors collapse of their own dead and dying weight?  Not very long?  Observations indicate the non-veganic economic foundations are cracking as more realists accept veganic ways and greatly expanding the veganic economic sectors into which capital is flowing more bounteously and swiftly.  It is just a matter of time?  Maybe less than one hundred years.   

oOo

Aren’t sinking stools unhealthy?  Plant-based nutrition produces floaters.

Isn’t acidic blood unhealthy? Plant-based nutrition alkalinizes blood.

Give peas  –  and all the other edible plants  –  a chance.

WILDMAN STEVE BRILL ARRESTED IN CENTRAL PARK

FOR PICKING AND EATING A DANDELION

Undercover park rangers successfully tracked and gathered a full dossier of evidence on the mystery dandelion picker, discovering him to be unrepentant and unredeemable vegan naturalist Steve Brill who confesses to eating public domain dandelions on more than one occasion.  Having no choice legally but to arrest Brill, they felt a need to also handcuff him, perhaps  to prevent further lurches to gobble dandelions.

Nobody knows the trouble he’s seen.

No judge could be found to send Brill up the Hudson River to Sing Sing, nor westward toward Buffalo to Attica.  He has been freed, labeled “Wildman” and can be seen regularly leading weed lusting foragers throughout New York City and surrounding environs.  He speaks live and on radio. No morning show or late night show host has yet dared give Wildman Steve Brill a national forum, nor MSNBC, CNBC, CNN nor FOX TV talking heads.  Not even vegan rancher Don Imus has dared to allow Brill to present his case for vegan style foraging in sidewalk cracks and vacant lots.  Imus should love this, it’s near his neighborhood.  This non-attention implies that Brill may be considered even more dangerous than Eull Gibbons who once trod this same nutritious yet frightening “all you need is weeds” herbivore path decades ago.  If Jerome I. Rodale were alive, he would give Brill publicity.  Shades of Ruth Stout.  Scott and Helen Nearing would have paid Brill’s bail and taken him home to graze in their blueberry fields.  But the world has changed.  Except for laughing Pythagoreans reincarnated as vegans, humor is scarce though people can still be funny.

New Yorker Steve Brill is apparently considered as dangerous by urban elites as rural York County, Pennsylvania’s “weed walker” “weed walk guide” and “weed stalker” Grace Lefever who also picks and eats dandelions, though she is careful to secure permits and coordinate closely with local law enforcement authorities and always park rangers.  But she’s in Pennsylvania’s York County.

Mr. Brill, perhaps aided by Mrs. Lefever, might be interesting and useful interviewees for polity and administrative positions with national, state and local school lunch programs.  If laws could be adjusted, football teams could mow their own playing fields without using non-renewable fuels or equipment other than fingers and teeth.  Imagine the health and ecological benefits.  Farmers could be trained by Department of Agriculture County Agents across America and their colleagues in Canada and Mexico to grow dandelions – or required to go for extended study to France where dandelions are already considered human food and have been cultivated commercially for centuries.  Where is Louis XIV now that he is needed?

Ridiculous?  Things can seem that way.

Time to write humorous insightful letters of empathy to the naturalist, author, broadcaster, artist, weedeater Wildman Steve Brill, 320 Palmer Terrace, 2A, Mamaroneck, New York 10453 or wildmansteve@bigfoot.com, call 914-835-2153, and visit his website accessible through www.plantbased.org links or directly:  http://www.wildmanstevebrill.com.  If he is imprisoned or deported, his whereabouts will be reported in the vegan media, one would hope, or at least in PBN which keeps you informed of the big picture and lots of little images.

New York City restaurateurs, it is time for dandelion greens and salads sprinkled with dandelion flower petals.  Send some free meal coupons to Central Park rangers and invite them to try vegan cuisines.  Capture the wildman and feed him indoors.  Somebody sketch Steve Brill putting dandelion flowers in gun barrels.  He is truly wild and zany.  Imagine, picking and eating dandelions in public.  Forage at night, Steve.  Fireflies will light your way.  Look out for the horse apples on pathways.  The undercover rangers are the ones not uniformed, nor smiling – except when their shifts end.  Just be cautious, one never knows who is looking for illegal dandelion poachers.

Woody Allen, make a movie about this.  Adam Sandler, make a movie about this.

Maybe he could make a cameo appearance, on freely accessible campus lawns of course, at the Pennsylvania Natural Living Association Conference and North American Vegetarian Society gatherings in August 2002 of the nutritionally challenged.  Only, however, if Steve Brill can get a passport, of course, and make it all the way across through New Jersey fresh and still hungry enough to appear publicly and do what he does to dandelions.

FLASH!  Steve Brill is going to get married this summer.  So is his fiancée.  Both of them.

Two young vegan dandelion foragers in love.

Will they honeymoon in Central Park?  How delicious.  Can she pick?  Who needs fiction?  The truth is more fun.  Imagine the freshly manicured lawn following the group graze wedding feast.  Media moguls, attend this wedding.  Matt Lauer, Mr. and Mrs. Brill will be the early 21st-century pioneer couple to follow.  Faster than any power mower, more thorough, noiseless and non-polluting.  Everybody cheer for Wildman and Mrs. Wildman, timely heroes at www.wildmanstevebrill.com.           

MILK A-Z

Robert Cohen has written another significant contribution to the vegan literature.  And he has remade himself into a new incarnation of “Plantmilkman.”  Hurrah for Robert, a mover and shaker.  In Milk A-Z, author Cohen runs the gamut, literally from Roman alphabet letter A to letter Z with two pages for each letter.  On each set of two pages, Cohen presents colorful content related graphics such as, for example, a nose symbolizing “N is for NASAL CONGESTION.”  Then, for each letter of the alphabet, he offers a brief one paragraph essay:

Long distance runners know.  Opera singers know.  Broadway actors and actresses are told not to consume [bovine] milk or dairy products or their voices will become ‘phlegmy.’  Eighty percent of milk protein is casein, a tenacious glue and allergenic protein.  Eat casein and you produce histamines, then mucous.  The reaction is often delayed, occurring 12-15 hours after consumption.  Few People note the ill effects because[bovine] milk and dairy products represent 40% of what the average American eats (about 666 pounds per American per year) and these proteins are continuously eaten.  By eliminating ALL [bovine] milk and dairy products for just one week, most people note the differences, which include better sleep, more energy, better bowel movements, clarity in thought, muscle, bone, and back pain relief.  Oh, yes, NOTMILK means saying goodbye to nasal congestion. [On page 30, midway through the book.]

These essays are each followed by related scientific research citations such as, also on page 30:

‘Sixty-two percent of the children were confirmed to be allergic to milk…’

(153 hospitalized infants with pneumonia or bronchitis were tested)

Roczniki Akademii Medycznej, 1995; 40(3)  (Polish [Medical] Journal)

Says author Cohen in his frontispiece note to the reader,

My goals are to provide you with information from peer-reviewed scientific journals and respected physicians, to overwhelm you with real science, and to shatter America’s best marketed myth:  Milk does the body good.  During the next hour of absorbing knowledge from this book, you will find out that the exact opposite is true of the dairy industry’s message.

On pages 56-61 a “Final Exam” provides 25 text-based multiple-choice questions and there is a self-scoring answer key on page 62.  “A is for ALLERGIES,”  On this page turner programmed instruction textbook goes.  “D is for DIABETES,”  “”H is for HEART DISEASE,”  “P is for PESTICIDES AND POLLUTION,” W is for “WISCOWSINITIS,” and finally, “Z is for ZITS.”

Robert Cohen is in the forefront, truthful, playful, jolly, scientific  –  America’s Plantmilkman.

Robert Cohen.  Milk A – Z.  Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey:

Argus Publishing [325 Sylvan Avenue, ZIP 07632 TEL 201-871-5871], 2001.

ISBN #0-9659196-8-4.  US$14.95.  Printed in Canada.  Illustrated by Brian Vigorita. 

PBN IS A QUARTERLY PUBLICATION OF THE INSTITUTE FOR PLANT-BASED NUTRITION

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PLANT-BASED NUTRITION  WINTER 2002 PAGE 13

© 2002

Jim and Dorothy Oswald

Institute for Plant Based Nutrition