Vegan Friday Edition: BBQed Seitan Riblets and Grilled Mushroom, Zucchini and Yams

I'm having a friend over for dinner before we head out to the movies and I'll be making this Seitan Riblets (see video to see how to assemble) and ingredient measurements and instructions are here.

I'm also making yams -which I microwave for less than 2 minutes to precook in their skin until almost done, and then slice them lengthwise, skin on.

In a separate dish, I marinated the mushrooms and zucchini slices in no-salt seasoning, balsamic vinegar, oregano and olive. Just throw on a hot grill until cooked through and charred to perfection.

To accompany the meal, we had home made pita chips with hot curry powder and a spinach tangerine salad with a peanut dressing. (Not pictured)

Delicious!!!

USDA Organic Label Under Fire, New Independant Non-GMO Project Rises

I've been in an editorial mood lately, which breaks away from my traditional recipe posting. I'm still cooking, don't worry about that. I'm thinking of new ways of presenting my content. I've been quite a bit involved in Twitter (follow me) these days and am coming across all these streams of worthwhile information I'd like to share with you. Thanks for reading!

---------------------------------

It's a sad state of affairs when you have to pay more to ensure purity of your food supply instead of having disclosure of the presence of GMO in your food. It's a well known fact that almost all sources of non-organic soy are genetically modified. In addition, for years now, the USDA organic certification's integrity is being heavily questioned and rightfully so. The big agri conglomerates want to get in the lucrative organics business but need standards lowered to include many synthetic products to extend shelf life.

Luckily, many non-governmental organic certification agencies have much stricter guidelines on what can and cannot be used in producing organic food. For example, Oregon Tilt, QAI, California Certified Organic Farmers, etc. In addition, a new project was founded as a response to the lack of reliability of the USDA label: The Non-GMO Project.

Discovered a great vegan video cooking show!

I'm probably last on the bandwagon to discover this, but there's a series on YouTube.com called Everyday Dish TV featuring vegan recipes.

Here's a few videos to wet your appetite!

A Vegetarian's Open Letter to FoodTV

Dear FoodTV,

After being a loyal viewer for 6 years to your television station, I have canceled my subscription. I'm consider myself a foodie. I blog about it, cook, create recipes and love watching cooking shows. However, after several months of tuning to your station, I haven't watched a single show in it's entirety.

Years ago, you had a show called Manic Organic, it was the reason why I subscribed to your channel in the first place. Then it got canceled. I started watching Good Eats, being thoroughly impressed with Alton Brown's culinary science, but then was deflated with his blatant endorsement of High Fructose Corn Syrup - Alton, what the hell?

None of your programming appeals to me as a vegetarian. Even though 2.5 percent of the US population is vegetarian, and the majority take the most time to prepare meals, your programming does not include ONE program focusing solely on vegetarian cooking. If we were to consider 24*7 programming in a week, with wanting to proportionally appeal to the population, you'd devote almost 4 hours of shows geared towards the non-meat eaters. Would that be so horrible?

Vegetarians and vegans are great food enthusiasts, we are probably the ones that pay the most attention to the origin of what we eat and how to transform our food to be versatile, nutritious and appetizing.

Your programming over time is moving away from food and focuses on shows glamorizing verbal abuse (why do people even like this?), decoration (Maybe TLC would be a better venue?), boobs (how many shows about pasta do we really need and why did you ditch the hot Italian guy?) and how to cook with canned goods! Any show that goes back to real cooking with raw ingredients has a fat slab of meat as the center piece to the show and the potential vegetarian side dishes are given meager air time. Sure, you had your vegetarian Saturday programming back in January. Feel free to pat yourselves on the back for that 4 hours out of the year....

I did write to you, suggesting you include vegetarian programming. I wasn't even given a confirmation of receipt that someone may have glanced at my email.

There are fabulous vegetarian and vegan chefs out there, just waiting to be given a chance. Need ideas? Just check the shelves FULL of veg cookbooks at your local bookstore. Scared of being too fringe?

But I guess having a man yell obscenities at apprentices and casual zoom ins on heaving bosoms gets more viewership than real cooking.

Just say no to invasive questions

I'm not the first vegetarian to have had this question asked: "Why are you a vegetarian?". I cringe at the very thought of having to talk about my diet with acquaintances and strangers, because I know, almost unavoidably, I will be asked "why?". I avoid mentioning my dietary choices now because I simply don't want to thread down the road.

Too many times, I've explained why I chose in October of last year to give up meat. Some have interrogated to the point of being invasive, seemingly wanting to break my spirit.

It happened again recently, after a person with significant authority was asking me why and was persistent at each and every question. For some reason, I didn't feel I could say: I'm not comfortable discussing this with you. And then, in explaining and justifying, the line was crossed, yet again.

After this incident, I decided I wouldn't explain myself anymore. It's ok, I don't have to.

It's like politics and religion. It's a personal choice, one that shouldn't be explained or justified. If it's problematic for you, too bad!

Most of what you eat is just rearranged corn products

Just how much to you know about the food you eat, and the false sense of diversity supermarket is giving you? Check out the latest documentary by Robert Kenner called Food, Inc. I'm going to see it this weekend.

In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment.