In which the author engages in food-related pedantry

[indrani_prime]

Those with passing familiarity with my eating habits may know that I am falling down the slippery slope of vegetarianism, insofar as I seem to have largely lost my taste for meat products. Having never been the biggest fan of milk to begin with, I've been toying with veganism, whose main stress test (for me) will come in the form of baked goods. (

Comments

[styger]

From what I've found using milk substitutes, vanilla soy milk is probably better than unflavored soy milk, since it masks the more distinctive soy taste, which for most baked goods is probably desirable. I've also found that soy milk definitely bakes off leaving the end result drier than it would be if regular milk had been used.

Rice milk seems to be more neutral in flavor, at least for flour-based baked goods, and doesn't dry out quite as much as the soy. Though if you find yourself prefering the flavor of the soy substitute, you might just be better off adding more oil+water to compensate.

I might also be crazy and full of bullfeathers.

[indrani_prime]

No, I'd tend to agree. :)

Commercial soymilk is (I've found) fairly bitter on its own (ie no sweeteners/flavorings), but the Joy of Cooking claims that this is not the natural order of things, so one day when I have Too Much Time (TM), I may try to make some myself and see if it's behavior noticeably changes in baked goods.

Rice milk tastes a little watery to me (at least compared to soy), but it otherwise has a pretty acceptable consistency, I may try that next. We'll see :)

[whitemage]

CHEEEEEESE

[indrani_prime]

Mmm....and yogurt :)

[whitemage]

Also, your icon is quite excellent. I can't decide whether that glow is a warm glow or an evil glow, or whether that gaze is thoughtful or sinister.

[indrani_prime]

Danke! I was experimenting with Calvin's new digital camera a few days ago, and accidentally took a most awesome picture :)

[rjmccall]

Nose!

[talldean]

What's the advantage of vegan over vegetarian?

[indrani_prime]

Dairy products/Eggs are relatively high in cholesterol, and are laced with hormones just as dubious as the ones in meat proper (caveat emptor- organics *do* exist, but "organic" is a pretty generic term in US agriculture, and it unfortunately does not directly translate to safe produce).

I will clarify. I do not cry for the chickens (and especially not the bees), but agri-business is scary. Factory-farming saddens me a little, but mostly just freaks me out, because antibiotic/hormone treatments necessarily go hand in hand with the feedlot setup. If my food were safe (no mercury in my fish, no estrogen in my milk, etc), there wouldn't be anything wrong with a moderate animal product presence in a human diet. Keyword being moderate, of course.

Also the migraines. I'd like to not get those anymore, and I think it might have to do with the milk (which I am in the process of swapping out of my diet completely).

[talldean]

I switched to all organic meat/chicken/eggs/milk about two years ago, which was as soon as I was able to afford to do so. It's expensive enough that it keeps my intake of pretty moderate. :)

I was reading the other day that chickens, raised fairly naturally (free range, open diet, no cages) lay eggs with about 1/3rd the cholesterol of 'regular' eggs. For some reason, I have no suprise.

Let us know how swapping out the milk goes; avoiding migraines == teh awesome.

[indrani_prime]

Yup. That's the path that I've been heading down as well (similarly, as soon as I could afford it). I've kept heading in the direction of cutting the stuff out entirely because I've read that organic, as defined by the FDA, basically translates to "This producer does not knowingly feed toxic waste to animals, but we allow up to a 10% uranium content". If it becomes possible for me to find veritably organic animal products, I will probably do so, if only because I like fish and not needing to worry about whether mercury is building up in my various soft tissues :) Also because casein is in everything (Everything!).

I would also have no surprise. Healthier animal probably == healthier animal products.

Yeah, I've narrowed it down to either a) hormones in my milk, or b) hidden hormones somewhere in my moisturizer (hormonal fluctuation is my one *known* trigger right now). I'm hoping it's the milk and not the moisturizer, because I've just now found a moisturizer that I'm not allergic to :P