As it says in my presentation (right side), I am a singer, an Opera Singer to be precise. A lot of the time this means that I am touring or singing in productions at different opera houses around the world. (Below) This is me. And this is how I felt when I was on my first tour after going vegan. As a totally new vegan with little experience and no help (besides internet after a while) it was pretty scary and "impossible" to be fully vegan in those 14 days I was away from home.
I'm hungry! Give me vegan food or I will sing a high C in your ear!
So, being a singer means that I am travelling a lot. I stay at many different hotels and have to find new restaurants close by the opera house (or hotel). This is much harder if you have decided to be vegan. Obviously. At least in countries where vegans are not so common, so I guess some have to be pioneers of sort, for restaurants to take notice.
My first "vegan-tour" was in Northern Norway. My experience here was that it was really hard to even find places with much vegetarian dishes to choose from. Several place didn't have one single meal I could eat. I had to ask for some fries and a salad, which turned out to be extremely boring and everything I have heard (and feared) about being a vegan. In an Asian restaurant I got vegetarian sushi which was good, I also saw a vegetable wok (I don't know if it was vegan though). In my experience in Norway; the best way to make sure you at least get a vegetarian meal is by visiting an Indian restaurant. But then again, not all is vegan.
I could have eaten vegan if I was only in my hotel room, but I couldn't have cooked anything. It was also limited in what kind of vegan products I could buy in the store (and it is very expensive in Norway). + Not very social. In an opera production you work with an ensemble and it is normal that we eat many meals together. It is not funny to be "the difficult one", and a bit embarrassing when the places we go to have nothing or very limited (and often repeated) dishes available. Or worse, being weird and not joining your colleagues for a meal at all, ever. I don't want to be that "crazy vegan". Vegan hotel breakfast is also really boring (at least the places I have been as a vegan till now). They often have alternatives for gluten and lactose intolerance, but not vegan. Yet. I eat lots of fruit, but when you are allergic to much of it, it kind of makes it even harder. At this point, this is the result = I will continue being a vegan, but if I have no other possibilities than being vegetarian or starve, I would obviously eat things with some egg and milk. But only if there is no other way. I hope that I will be better and get experience in how to be fully vegan when on tour. Perhaps you could give me some advice? Have you been away from home in long period of times without kitchen? or do you know the secret password in restaurants to get awesome vegan food. Please share! ;)
A week ago I talked with my mum on the phone and she talked about Paleo bread. I had never heard about the "Paleo diet", but I were trying not to eat so much wheat, so I became intrigued. After realizing there were NO flour involved in holding all these seeds together I first laughed and then felt a bit adventurous. OK, let's try that (sceeeptical)... But I was surprised! I got a elemental recipe from my mum, but later I have experienced a bit. This is my best Paleo recipe at the moment!
(Also great for Vegans!)
2 tbsp Psyllium powder
1 1/2 cup /350 ml water
--
100 g sesame seeds 100 g sunflower seeds 100 g pumpkin seeds 100 g flax seeds 100 g walnuts 100 g (optional, you can add another great ingredient? What about hemp seeds?) -- 1-2 tsp sea salt (I use Maldon) 3 tbsp melted cold pressed coconut oil (Optional: 1 handful raisins or you can add chocolate)
(If you use cup sizes: 100 g is about 1/2 heaping cup)
1. Preheat your oven to 175°C (or 350 Fahrenheit) 2. Mix the psyllium powder with the water in a bowl, stir and set aside for about 5 minutes. (It will get a thick gel consistency).
3. Measure all the seeds and nuts and put in a food processor and pulse two times. (Do not overdo it).
4. Put the hard coconut oil (it's hard) in a cup in the microwave.
5. Put the coarsely cut seeds and nut in a bowl. Now add the coconut oil and salt. Stir.
6. Add the gel looking psyllium to the mix and mix it all together with your hands. Yes, your hands, its fun and weird. Have a go!
7. Put the mix in a loaf pan (can be about 12 x 4,5 inches / 30 x 10 cm). I used a small bread form. I also used baking paper in it so I didn't have to worry about it sticking (or using oils).
(I have heard you can set it aside for about 1 hour if you want to, but that is optional, and I decided to only let it rest for about 15-20 min. You can drop it all together though if you want! It is said that it tastes even better, but I was in a hurry ;)
8. Put it in the preheated oven (in the middle) and bake for about 60-70 minutes. (If you want small buns you can divide them into about 11-12 pieces and bake them for about 40-45 minutes).
9. Remove it from the oven and let it cool down (completely). I tried to remove it too early from the form and it started to widen (loose form), so I put it back and let it cool down in the form. When it was almost cold I took it out. If you cut it before it is cold the bread will fall apart.
Here is some pictures if you are curious how it looks, consistency and how natural it looks! And the best part, it is YUMMY!
Freeze: You can freeze the bread for up to 4 months.
Psyllium mixed with water (it turns even more gel like)
"One of the most violent films of all time....only its' real"
This is one of the warnings in the trailer if you happen to look up "Earthlings" on YouTube. I learned about this documentary as I browsed sites about animal welfare and when I mentioned it to my sister she told me that it was quite famous so I asked her if she wanted to watch it with me. And THANK God she did, because I am not sure I would have managed so well on my own.
I have never in my life been so horrified at anything on my computer screen as I were watching "Earthlings". If forced to watch a horror film I get upset, scared and to be honest; a bit angry at my self and the person "forcing" me to see it. But it is nothing compared to the horrors of real life, obviously!
"Earthlings" is a documentary made by Nation Earth, a company created to make documentaries on socially urgent issues. Among them animal welfare. On the Nation Earth website they present the film in these words:
"EARTHLINGS is an award-winning documentary film about the suffering of animals for food, fashion, pets, entertainment and medical research. Considered the most persuasive documentary ever made, EARTHLINGS is nicknamed “the Vegan maker” for its sensitive footage shot at animal shelters, pet stores, puppy mills, factory farms, slaughterhouses, the leather and fur trades, sporting events, circuses and research labs."
Never have I seen anything with a bigger impact. I cried, I actually screamed several times, I yelled at my TV, (The words featuring the most was probably: "WHY?!" and "who are these people?!") I turned away and when I didn't scream, yell or cry I had my mouth wide open in disbelief. It was like watching some horrible genocide. Except it was legal, supported and done in silence. Many don't want to know. At some point my sister and me agreed that we felt like we couldn't cry anymore, but oh, were we wrong.
I believe that ANYONE would feel affected by the obvious suffering featured. If someone don't, they have issues they need to address and are probably some of the people from this documentary.
“People care about animals. I believe that. They just don’t want to know or to pay. A fourth of all chickens have stress fractures. It’s wrong. They’re packed body to body, and can’t escape their waste, and never see the sun. Their nails grow around the bars of their cages. It’s wrong. They feel their slaughters. It’s wrong, and people know it’s wrong. They don’t have to be convinced. They just have to act differently. I’m not better than anyone, and I’m not trying to convince people to live by my standards of what’s right. I’m trying to convince them to live by their own.” ― Jonathan Safran Foer
If I am to review it beside the very personal effect it had on me, I will mention the narrator and the variety of subjects. The renowned actor Joaquin Phoenix, narrated masterly throughout. He guided us from one horrifying act to the other, giving us lots of information (almost too much I must say, but then again, it woke me up. Never again can I act as I am ignorant of what is going on.) The other impressive thing is the variety of subjects. This is sad of course as it was like a "How-many-ways-can-we-possible-harm-torture-and-painfully-kill-animals- cavalcade". It started out with a little intro, presenting new words and concepts (which shouldn't really be unfamiliar, but they were), like; "Earthlings", "non-human-animals", "farmfactory", and "speciesism".
The first subject he told us about were PETS. I thought it would be about "normal" animal abuse, but I was quite shocked. So many layers I never heard or thought about. Then he continued with topics as; animal for entertainment, for food, for leather, for fur, dolphin massacres in Japan, different methods of slaughtering the animals, boiling them alive, skinning the foxes while they are still alive (I have not recovered yet after seeing a skinned fox slowly blinking on the ground where it was tossed, it was like watching "Saw" except it was real, and done daily, hundreds of times by people around the globe. And again: WHO are these people who feel this is ok?
I have loved and interacted with animals my whole life. I have both worked as a volunteer at a farm when I was a young teenager, had dogs myself and at the moment I am lucky to have two crazy cats in my life. I could never harm them and don't really see the difference any more, between them, monkeys in the cosmetics labs, or cows in the farmfactory. The result. I agree with what Nature Earth wrote. I am going vegan. Oh my gosh. I never thought I would try to stop to eat milk & egg products, but here I go! I will try my best to achieve this even it feels quite scary and at times (especially in Norway perhaps) feels impossible, if not eating at home. Tips and advice are very appreciated! This blog will be a way of finding my way and learning how to live vegan. I will keep posting about my vegan experience and awesome recipes I find on my way. But I will also continue to write about animal welfare.
Let's show the farmfactories and governments that we are not fooled, not any more!
Before the late 18th century it was the general opinion that animals didn't had any feelings. They thought of them as little machines who only reacted in a specific way because they were wired like that. But they didn't believe animals to have any emotional life, compassion or personalities beside the complex wiring they were given by God. But not all believed so, one was for example French writer and philosopher Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet). "Answer me, you who believe that animals are only machines. Has nature arranged for this animal to have all the machinery of feelings only in order for it not to have any at all?" During the 20th Century there was little consideration to animal sentience because of the influence of Behaviorism. It was only in the last quarter of the 20th Century that there was a surge of interest in animal sentience and animal welfare scientist realized that problems could be understood and better handled with an understanding of how animal feel.
It is true that most of us don't understand the languages of the animals, but does that mean that there is no meaning behind their complex variety of sounds and body language? And for personalities; That animals don't have likes and dislikes? Some they like and others they can't stand? Have you ever had a cat or dog and said things as: "That is so typical if him...he always do that" or "He loves to cuddle, but my other dog prefers to play at all times". What is that if not an example of having different personalities?
Want to highlight an amazing experience who eventually became very personal and life changing for this scientist. "My life as a turkey". (BBC)
Where you one of us who thought turkeys was kind of a stupid, big bird? Welcome! Please watch this little documentary, it was surprisingly touching and it changed the way I looked at birds, and their feelings and communication.
Dedicating the first post in "the Animal diary" blog to the topic animal testing.
If you ever loved an animal, please be aware that animals similar to your darlings are tortured every day. They are bred to suffer and die for your shampoo, household products and cosmetics. -------------------------------------------- It is easy to take a stand! In this blog we speak up against animal cruelty, and animal testing is one of the worst and unnecessary torture humans put animals through. You CAN help ending it, starting with being aware of which companies to support!
Lush speaks out against Animal testing (Performance artist)
Why is there still animal testing?
Here is a list from PETA on companies who don't do animal testing
(LATER: We will feature posts on companies who are particularly good or bad).
