THE VEGAN NEWSTHE VEGAN NEWSThe Vegan News is written and edited by P M Lloyd. Please e-mail your contributions to the editor at: pauline@bury-rd.demon.co.uk or fill in the form provided.
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Recipe of the Month
Ingredients:
Method
If you don't have a coffee grinder, then you may like to try out this recipe which uses ready-ground almonds. (These can usually be purchased from health stores and supermarkets.)
Ingredients:
Method
Ingredients:
May Product ReviewHempower
This tasty fruit and nut bar is made from peanuts, dates, raisins and hemp seeds. It has a nice soft texture with interesting, hard, crackly bits - the hemp seeds. Made by The Hemp Food Corporation, a 50 g Hempower bar costs about £0.79. These bars are ideal for the kids' lunch boxes or for active people who need some extra energy e.g. walkers. Have a look for Hempower bars in your health food shop.
Sunita Grape Juice Halva with Sultanas
This sesame halva is delicious! It has a nice crumbly texture and unlike most halvas contains no
added sugar, so it is more wholesome and nutritious. Made from ground sesame seeds, it's a good source of calcium and
protein, too. Eat it with coffee or as a special treat - I had one for Easter this year! You will
find this product in some healthfood shops where you can expect to pay about £0.68 for a 100g packet.
You can also find some information on the Internet at the following websites:
Mail Order Addresses:
In the south of England it is usually possible to put indoor-raised sweetcorn plants outside
around mid-may, providing that the plants are protected at night. However, if you live in northern
Britain, then the end of May would probably be a more suitable planting time. (Remember that
sweetcorn needs a sunny, sheltered position in order to grow well.) If you want to save some money,
then runner bean and sweetcorn seeds can be started off inside empty toilet rolls instead of using
plant pots. (For more details see the May 1997 Issue.) This month
plant out any indoor raised Brussels sprouts.
Did you know that bats are great insect eaters and will eat many of your insect garden pests?
In captivity, pregnant, female bats have been shown to eat up to 3 g of food per feeding session
and that is quite a lot of insects! Bats eat a wide range of insects, including large beetles, spiders
and moths and food is usually taken on the wing or picked off foliage, although some species of
bats also feed over water or off the ground. In some parts of the world bats are also very
important pollinators for certain plants.
Two groups of bats are found living in Britain: the Rhinolophid or horseshoe bats
and the Vespertilionids. There are only two British horseshoe bats - the greater and the
lesser horseshoe bat, but many types of vespertilionids live in the British Isles including:
the pipistrelle, the brown long-eared bat, daubenton's bat, the whiskered bat, natterers's
bat, brandt's bat, bechstein's bat, the serotine, the noctule, leisler's bat and the
barbastelle. The pipestrelle is the commonest British bat and it is also the smallest,
measuring only up to 4.5 cm in length with a 25 cm wingspan.
Bats are, in fact, the only mammals which are capable of true flight. They generally roost during
the day and come out and fly around the evening, usually just as it is starting to get dark.
In the daytime, they conceal themselves by roosting in buildings - usually in roofs, attics,
cavity walls or in cellars, but they can also roost in caves, mines and in hollow trees or
woodpecker holes. Female bats frequently live in large colonies throughout the breeding season
(June-August) and male bats sometimes roost in small groups, too. During the winter months,
when there is no longer any food available for them to eat, bats hibernate, often in large
mixed-sex groups, although some species are solitary. The exact timing of hibernation varies
between species, but usually occurs from mid-November/December to about March. (However,
sometimes, in mild spells in winter, you will see bats flying around and these are
usually pipistrelle bats.)
Bats navigate and find their food in the dark by using echo-location and their ears, and in some
species, their facial skin are modified to enable them to do this. Some species of bats make a
twittering sound, but others (e.g. the brown long-eared bat) are silent. Adult bats usually
breed when they are between 2-4 years old, producing one litter a year which often consists of
only a single baby. The young are helpless and naked and remain in the roost until they can fly:
in about 3 weeks in the case of the pipistrelle bat. Some species of bats are capable of
living for up to 30 years.
Be aware that bats are protected by law and that it is illegal to own, kill, injure or even handle
a bat unless you have a special licence. However, if you do get a colony of bats living inside
your house, then you are allowed to gently remove them! (Contact the Nature Conservancy Council
for more information.)
If you want to attract bats into your garden, then some species will hibernate in bat boxes.
The 1998 Organic Gardening Catalogue also supplies a special wildflower
mixture called 'The Bats in the Garden Mix' which is composed of nectar-rich plants and has
many night-scented flowers which will attract the night-flying insects on which the bats feed.
One packet of this seed will cover 2 square metres and costs £2.42. Evening primroses
have lovely yellow flowers which open in the evening and will attract moths, although I am not
sure if these are the types of moths that the bats feed on! However, if anyone, in the UK, would
like to try to grow some evening primroses and would like some free seed, then send a SAE to 48 Bury Rd, Old Harlow, Essex CM17 OEE.
The holiday season will soon be upon us and as I have received several queries asking for
travel information lately, I have composed the following list of useful travel books which
should answer all your questions!
Travel Books:1. The Vegan Travel Guide. Published by the Vegan Society (UK).
This handy little book covers places to stay and eat in the UK and Southern Ireland and is
available from the Vegan Society for £4.95.
2. The Vegan Passport.
Also available from the Vegan Society (UK) the Vegan Passport lists what vegans eat and
don't eat in 38 languages. Price £2.99.
3. Vegetarian London.
A guide to London's veggie/vegan eating places and health food shops. Available from the Vegan
Society for £4.99
4. Scotland the Green by Jackie Redding.
A cruelty-free guide to Scotland which includes accomodation, restaurants and outdoor centres.
It's available from Viva! Books for £4.50.
5. The Vegetarian and Vegan Guide to the Lake District.
Lists many veggie eateries and sleeperies and is available from Viva! Books for £0.65.
6. The North West 1998 Veggie Guide.
Covers Lancashire, Cheshire, Merseyside and Greater Manchester. Available from Viva! Books for £2.00.
7. Vegetarian and Vegan Guide to Ireland.
Lists guest houses, hotels, hostels, wholefood shops and restaurants. Available from Viva!
Books for £2.00.
8. The Cruelty-Free Guide to Amsterdam.
Covers restaurants, shopping and accomodation. Price £3.00 from Viva! Books
9. The Vegan Guide to Melbourne by Alan Glen.
Price £3.25 from Viva! Books.
10. The Vegan Guide to Berlin by Max Freidman.
Price £2.50 from Viva! Books.
11. The Vegan Guide to New York City by Max Freidman & Dan Mills.
Price £2.50 from Viva! Books.
12. Edinburgh Vegans
Publish 'The Cruelty Free Guide to Edinburgh.' They can be contacted at:
5/6 Kingsknowe Court, Kingsknowe, Edinburgh, EH14 2JT. (Phone: 0131 443 8294.)
13. The Vegan Information Centre for Ireland
Publishes lists of vegan caterers and accommodation specific for Northern Ireland.
Their address is: Braidujle, 120 Knockan Road, Ballycloghan Td, Broughshane,
Ballymena, N Ireland, BT43 7LE. (Phone: 01266 861202.)
14. The World Guide to Vegetarianism
15. Iceland for Vegans. (Vegan News, July 1997.)
What's Happening in the Veganic
Garden This Month?1. Sowing and Planting
This month make outdoor sowings of broccoli, kale, winter cauliflowers, ridge cucumbers
and winter cabbages. Also, continue to make further sowings of lettuce, salad onions, carrots, beetroot,
main crop peas and radishes. Although May is usually warm, there is still a good chance of night
frost, so I usually start off my runner beans indoors and put the plants outside at the end of May,
or in early June. Don't be in too much of a rush to sow your runner bean seeds, though, as bean plants which are planted out a little later,
say in mid-June, often produce a better crop in very dry, hot summers. And while you are waiting
for your beans to germinate you can, of course, be erecting your bean poles or bean netting!
2. Other Jobs
Check for blackfly on your broad bean plants and if it is a problem, then spray them with a soft soap
solution. Check to see if you compost is nearly ready as you will need a good supply of it next month
when you plant out tomatoes and runner beans. Finally, if you haven't obtained a water butt yet, then
it may be a good idea to get one as it looks like being a very dry summer again this year. (That comment
is probably enough to make it rain solidly for quite some time!) Still if you install one now, before
the summer arrives, then it will have plenty of time to fill up!
3. Harvesting
Crops which can be harvested this month include: salad onions, asparagus, rhubarb, spring
cabbage and spinach.
4. Wildlife Gardening
This Month - Bats!
Any Queries?You should visit the World Guide to Vegetarianism which lists many vegetarian and vegan eating places in the UK and also covers other European countries, so you may also be able to look up suitable eating places in Switzerland, Italy and Paris here, too. The Vegan Society (UK) has just published a useful little book called 'The Vegan Travel Guide' which covers places to stay and eat in the UK and Southern Ireland and costs £4.95 + postage. It can be obtained by mail order from The Vegan Society (UK) at the address in the travel tips section above.
Help Needed! If anyone in the States knows of a mail order supplier of Comfrey (Bocking 14) in the USA, then could they please email Linda Koch at: lkoch@qnet.com
Vegan Organisation Review
Non-animal alternatives which have been developed using funding from the Dr Hadwen
Trust include:
If you would like to support the Trust's valuable work, then you can help either by making a donation or by purchasing something from their vegan mail order catalogue. The catalogue offers many vegan food items, including nearly a dozen different kinds of yummy vegan chocolates! Non-food items which can be purchased include: recycled stationary; xmas cards; animal-free cosmetics (by Meadowsweet, Honesty or Montagne Jeunesse) vegan aromotherapy candles and jewellery and you can even purchase a 'grow your own rainforest kit'!
For more information, or a copy of their catalogue contact:
Dr Hadwen Trust, Freepost SG335, Hitchin, Hertfordshire. SG5 1JW.Tel: 01462 436819.
Alternative News 64 is The Dr Hadwen Trust's online newsletter.
Other Interesting Vegan Websites.
May Book ReviewSimply Vegan by Debra Wasserman and Reed Mangels
Printed on recycled paper, Simply Vegan isn't just a cookbook, but a fairly comprehensive guide to vegan living. It contains sample menus, meal plans, nearly a hundred pages of easy vegan recipes and a seventy page vegan nutrition section which includes many useful scientific references.
All of the recipes are easy to prepare and quick to cook (most can be cooked in under 25 minutes) and they use mainly fresh ingredients with the addition of tinned or dried beans/chickpeas. Ingredients are measured in cups, but as most of the recipes are very simple anyway, I don't think that this shouldn't pose too much of a problem for people living outside the USA. I simply used a small (200 ml) cup as a measure and all the recipes I tested turned out well, although it is possible that this method may not work with the cake recipes, which I did not test. (Incidentally, if anyone wants to convert American oven temperatures to British ones, or need some information on converting liquid measurements, then they may find my conversion file useful.)
At the back of 'Simply Vegan' you will find a useful list of vegan mail order suppliers (USA) which includes suppliers of vegan food products, vitamins, cruelty-free cosmetics, household products and items of clothing.
UK readers can obtain a copy of this book from The Vegan Society (UK) price £11.99 and U.S. vegans can order a copy for $12.95 from: The Vegetarian Resource Group website where it is possible to see sample recipes and some quotes from the book.
Debra Wasserman has also written The Vegan Handbook and Conveniently Vegan.
