What to do when meat is murder and dairy is scary

Valerie O’Connor wades into a current debate on farming practice. 

Woody Allen famously said: “I was a virgin until I was 18 and then again until I was 36.”

The same could be said about my forays into the dark and murky world of vegetarianism, one at a typical age of 14 — which lasted four years — and my more recent one which is now at three months.

Last week, the Claire Byrne show on RTÉ hosted a debate that was meant to be about veganism versus a meat-eating diet, but ended up being more of a platform for lobbying from the meat industry in my opinion.

They harped on about hygiene standards in animal processing, while the vegans talked about animal rights.

I can just imagine Daisy or Buttercup trussed upside-down in a slaughter house on her way to being electrocuted and catching sight of a man in a mask and white overalls, thinking: “Oh well, at least the health and safety standards are in place for the humans — phew.”

Sadly, they pitched a well-meaning, hippy-dippy individual opposite a restaurateur whose business is selling steaks and the vegans came away looking like eejits, and we all went back to our sausage rolls.

Nobody talked about the health benefits, better heart health, weight loss if overweight, and mental clarity. When done properly, veganism that’s not based on pasta, gives you all you need.

My vegan stint is now over, as I am eating pasture-raised eggs from chickens who are treated better than the men working in the slaughterhouses, and I have a bit of raw milk cheese and fermented raw milk in the form of kefir.

I allowed myself some organic turkey on the weekend as I had agreed to do the diet for three months. Turkey contains tryptophan, a mood-enhancing hormone, and is generally reared less intensively than chicken.

I was very excited about eating some meat as I had been dreaming of sausage rolls.

The turkey was as tasty as turkey could be, some say I chose the worst meat to start on, but I couldn’t eat a steak in my current state of mind. However, the delicious, colourful and spicy vegetable curry with brown rice that I had on my plate at the same time, stole the culinary show.

I took the meat off the turkey bones, popped it in the freezer (yes, this is safe) and made a big pot of bone broth for the lads to have with some noodles. I’m back to my yummy veggie dishes now.

I don’t drink milk so that’s not a problem for me. I’m over three years old so I don’t need it anyway and I don’t like shop milk — I’ve discussed raw milk in the past and generally, I use it to make kefir and soft cheese.

Following on a Facebook campaign, the Guardian recently published an article called ‘Diary is Scary’, (which also prompted the Claire Byrne show follow-up), and it may surprise many people how modern dairy farms operate, albeit in this instance, the farms are in the south of England. It’s worth a google.

I began my recent veggie stint for health reasons, over-consumption of meat had put a lot of strain on my digestive system and with all the fermenting I was doing, I was undoing the good work by eating the wrong foods.

A Weston A Price conference I spoke at recently, focused on wise traditions in food and farming, and the pursuit of good physical and mental health through eating the right foods and healing your gut.

The emphasis was very much on eating meat and animal products, with a heavy leaning on sauerkraut and other ferments.

I felt very conflicted about my dietary choices and wondered was I doing the wrong thing for my health. If meat is good and veganism is good, what’s a mother to do?

The place where the cow meets the farmer on opposite sides of the fence is where we need to put our support — helping ourselves and our local small producer at the same time.

Find out who sells their own milk from a small herd, get pasture-raised chickens or keep your own flock (more about that soon) and start growing some of your own vegetables.

Food is denatured; supermarkets can only give you so much. If you eat meat, seek out small producers who rear the animals well, yes it’s more expensive — but do we need to eat so much? I figure that if I, a single parent of two teens can do it, anyone can, if they want to.

There doesn’t have to be such a divide between vegetarians and meat-eaters, though I do get a bit angry when I attempt to eat out and can mostly only have a salad or mushroom risotto. Chefs, get real, there’s more to modern Irish people than animal meals.

There are advantages and disadvantages to every type of cooking, meat is easy yet it’s mostly quite bland. Veggie requires effort, lots of chopping and prep, but you can cook in batches and the clean up is so much easier.

The Happy Pear have kept us in easy meals — try their bolognese and the salted caramel tart is to die for.

Meanwhile, with my current obsession for sausage rolls I’ve made this delicious loaf, you could turn it into rolls but I, like most people, run out of patience.

Miso Vegetarian Wellington

The miso gives it great depth of flavour and you also get to use up leftover cooked rice or quinoa.

Feel free to mess around with the ingredients, focusing on texture and variety. Try to use organic veggies, they do taste better.

Ingredients

• One packet of puff pastry, defrosted
• Miso paste
• 200g cooked quinoa/millet or brown rice
• 2 grated carrots
• 1 grated parsnip
• 1 grated leek
• 100g semi-sundried tomatoes, chopped roughly
• 200g sunflower seeds
• 200g chopped walnuts
• 150g cooked lentils
• 1 cooked sweet potato grated or an egg to bind if not vegan
• 1 tsp five spice powder
• Sea salt and black pepper to taste
• Nut milk or cow milk for brushing

METHOD

Preheat the oven to 180C

Roll out the pastry on the table, using a small amount of flour to make sure it doesn’t stick.

You want a square of about 12 inches or bigger.

Spread about 4 tblsp miso paste on to the pastry, leaving a gap of about two inches all the way around the outside.

In a large bowl mix everything together until well combined and taste the mixture to make sure it is well seasoned.

Pile the mixture onto one side of the pastry, pressing it together as you go and piling it up to make a long mound.

You need to fold over the other side on the pasty on top of it, I didn’t think all my mixture would fit in, but it did.

Brush nut milk or beaten egg around the edges and carefully fold over the other side, pressing down the edges.

Go around the edge with a fork pressing them together and slices a few cuts along the top, brush milk or egg all over tand lift it on to a large baking tray. Bake for 40 minutes until a lovely brown colour.

Serve this hot of cold with a simple tomato sauce and salad. (Adapted from a recipe by Suzie Dixon, Naturopath, Kerry.)