Vegetarian Food

I don’t eat meat, and you would think a vegetarian meal would be possible on a flight with meal service.  Especially on United, since almost every flight I’ve been on in the last several years has offered two main entrees, one of which was vegetarian.  Usually the stewardesses can be found working the isles during food service, saying ‘pasta or chicken?’ to each passenger in turn.

The problem of course is that they tend to run out of vegetarian meals first, and if you are a vegetarian seated in the back of the plane, you may end up without a meal if you don’t make arrangements in advance.  You have to ask yourself why, if they often run out of vegetarian meals first so often, they can’t stock more of them to begin with?  For whatever reason this doesn’t seem possible.

I remember flying as a kid, and getting a vegetarian meal reserved on the spot by just asking a stewardess to set one aside for me, but for whatever reason they don’t do that anymore.

To be assured of a vegetarian meal on United, you have to book this at least a few days in advance, and you have to specify exactly what sort of vegetarian meal you want.  You have to choose between things like a diabetic meal, a Halal (Muslim) meal, a western vegetarian, a vegan meal, a lacto-ovo meal, an Asian vegetarian meal, and so on.  Even at this stage, it’s not possible to order a ‘normal’ — what everyone else gets — vegetarian meal.  For what it’s worth, I usually end up choosing Asian vegetarian, and it’s usually Indian food of some sort.  Other choices usually end up being a very dry, tasteless and processed vegan meal, or perhaps one that’s nothing but cheese and eggs.

Processed Foods

In the past these special meals on United used to be of pretty good quality.  It’s always an issue that they tend to apply dietary restrictions above and beyond what you stated, for example insisting vegetarians must eat margarine with their bread, even though many like me would prefer butter as it’s a more natural food.  Nevertheless, these kinds of things are small issues, and considering how difficult it can be to cater to everyone’s dietary needs, I don’t need to be too picky.

The real problem now however, is these special meals tend to be almost all highly processed foods, intended for long storage, emphasizing high fructose corn syrup (HFCS).  I can’t say anything about the regular meals, because I don’t get a chance to eat them, but the special meals no longer have any fresh or ‘local’ ingredients at all.  If there’s fruit, it’s canned fruit.  The only exception might be a little iceberg lettuce in a salad.  It’s always necessary to read the ingredients on label of all the foods, to make sure you aren’t eating total crap, especially if you want to avoid HFCS.

Considering all the places United flies, it really makes you wonder why they can’t source a little true local food, or at least something fresh from time to time.

For the beverage service too, it’s nearly all based on HFCS.  If you don’t want something to drink with HFCS, it’ll probably be alcoholic, water, milk or orange juice.  This is not really a selection most people would consider acceptable.  Especially since orange juice itself is very processed, and known to contain an unusually high level of pesticides on average, when compared to other foods and drinks.

Reading the Labels

Some of the common things in United meals are just a total mix of crap.  For example their vinaigrette must be reduced fat or something, and the ingredients are just a long list of chemicals.  Many things are not labelled!  For example, the jams and jellies are not labelled, and have the distinctive taste of HFCS.

The breads tend to be really processed and come in little plastic packages.

There was a bread on my outgoing flight with a Dutch sounding name that I forgot, that supposedly comes from Holland, but it’s made with HFCS.  While some foods are made with HFCS here, it goes by different names like glucose-fructose syrup, so it’s unlikely to truly be a Dutch food if it has HFCS and is labelled as such.  In any case, it wasn’t a name I recognized.

Here’s a bread that was served on my return flight:

This picture makes it look big, but this was really a small cocktail sized piece of bread, about 2″ or 5cm on a side.

And the ingredients label on the back?

So, does Rubschlager or United Airlines really think someone who ordered a special meal, is obviously concerned about and trying to figure out what they are eating, is really going to want to write them a letter while 39000 feet in the air travelling across the Atlantic?  Even if I did write them a letter, I would still never know what I ate or could of ate, because they have a number of different lines of breads and this one isn’t labelled as to which one it is.  Even on their website, they don’t list the ingredients.

There is virtually no country in the world where it’s legal to sell unlabelled food like this, it’s only because United serves this in international airspace that they can get away with it.

The Entree

So besides excessively processed breads, jams and canned fruit, what comes in a specially ordered meal on United?

I ordered an Asian vegetarian meal, and on my outbound flight the main entree was a serving of cooked white rice and a serving of peas next to it.  No sauce, no spices, absolutely nothing besides rice and peas.  It also had a totally inedible salad, with equally totally inedible dressing and a half canned peach.

The return flight was a little better.  In this case there was a very small serving of Saag Paneer, with a few pieces of cheese as well as a small serving of vegetable curry.  It also came with  a serving of yoghurt,   It was not terribly exciting, but not that bad.  What was funny however was, a few hours later when the snack was served, they decided at that point I couldn’t eat dairy products.  Since the regular snack came with butter and a serving of yoghurt, instead they served me something different with margarine and apple sauce.

Message to United

Your meal service is a disaster.

In an age where people increasing expect to eat freshly prepared food, and the dangers of eating HFCS are becoming more well known, you are serving processed crap full of HFCS.  You don’t even offer a realistic possibility for people to avoid HFCS if they want to.

Would it really kill you to offer a fresh piece of fruit instead of a half a canned peach?

Why don’t you honestly label the foods you serve, or better yet serve unprocessed foods that don’t need to be labelled?

Even on your domestic flights, where you offer meal boxes for sale, you only offer processed foods full of chemicals.  What you offer is also not very suitable for vegetarians.

How about charging us $5 more when we book our flights, and invest this in improving the meal service?

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The first ears of Strawberry popcorn in my garden are drying out.  They look really exciting!  The ears are small, but they are suppose to be.  They have a nice rich red color.

The kernels are also small, even though this close-up makes them look big.  The parts that were in the cob are white, and the outside parts are the red color.  Getting them off the cob was quite fiddly and tedious work.  The reason may be because they were still a little bit moist.  Even though the seeds were hard enough not to be damaged as they were removed, they were still a little stuck.

I put about 50g into my hot air popper.  They whirled around, made lots of noise — smelled fantastic!  The smell was like hot buttered sweet corn!

But this is what came out!  You can see they only popped a little bit, if at all.  The next time I try, I will let them dry out a little more, but I wonder if that was really the problem.

Anyone have any suggestions?

The taste by the way, even half popped, was fantastic.  No real need for extra butter or salt, the taste was rich enough all by itself.

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This bean I’m growing this year came from Søren, called Gold of Bacău.  Søren gave me the seeds two years ago, but last year I only grew it in order to save more seeds.  This year I’m growing it to eat, and the glut has begun!  I have 6 poles of this bean, and it’s more than the 2 of us can eat especially considering we’re growing other beans too.  It was pretty much my earliest pole bean, of the roughly 20 varieties I have this year.  Most of the others I’m growing for seeds or as a trial.

It’s a Romanian bean.  It has a very nice taste.  I’m not a big fan of wax beans, and the taste of this is really something different.  The texture is very soft, but still crisp and not mushy.  Mostly the beans are yellow, but as you can see in the picture sometimes they are a little streaked with green, probably because I picked them a little early.  They mature from green to yellow.

This bean will become a regular feature of my garden, at least for now.  I will certainly want to grow it again.  Does anyone know of other similar beans?  It might be nice to compare and contrast them.

Update:  Someone asked me what the seeds look like.  Here’s a picture:

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Anyone else have new outbreaks of blight?

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For Immediate Release
7 August 2010

‘A Garden Party to Make a Difference’ – the ultimate garden party for the eco-conscious will open at The Prince of Wales private gardens in Clarence House and the gardens of neighbours Lancaster House and Marlborough House on 8 September 2010 and will run until 19 September. This unique garden party is an imaginative part of The Prince of Wales’ ‘Start’ initiative launched in February. The aim of the twelve day event is a fun day out for people of all ages but also to engage them via the exhibits that will illustrate that small steps are being taken by those interested in building a more sustainable future and what a difference they can make.

In addition to the garden focused exhibits in the grounds of these private gardens opened exclusively for this event, A Garden Party to Make a Difference will also feature appearances, debates, comedy and advice from the likes of Jools Holland, Sir David Frost, Alan Tichmarsh and Anthony Worral Thompson over the twelve days.

The Future Cities Garden – Innovative Edible Gardening

Renowned organic farmer, gardener, writer and broadcaster Tom Petherick has formed an association with garden and landscape design team Lulu Urquhart and Adam Hunt and the first joint project will be their ‘Future Cities Garden’ installation on the South facade of St James’s Palace – a project conceived for this special garden party.

Petherick, Urquhart and Hunt aim to combine their expertise and experience to create a future orientated landscape design practice. A consultancy with a point of difference that will champion sustainable, spiritually intact gardens and working landscapes with integrity.

The team believe that the ‘Garden Party to Make a Difference’ is the perfect launch pad for their new association. “We couldn’t have wished for a better opening opportunity to showcase our skills. The Prince has a passion for the environment and all things sustainable and this is totally in line with our ethos. When we were approached to come up with a display for the South Facade of St James’s Palace it was a unanimous yes”

Tom, Lulu and Adam are keen that their display will convey to visitors that gardening in small spaces is both possible, desirable and with a little effort can herald spectacular results that combine invention, inspiration, amusement and accessibility. The intention is also to show that both quantity and quality can be realized from small areas. Visitors will not fail to be inspired by such a simple and clearly executed ‘ABC of how to grow edible plants’ and how to achieve a lot from a little effort.

All four seasons will be represented and demonstrate what can be grown in each quarter of the year. Productive gardening happens all year round and is not confined to spring and summer. The idea is to show a rhythmical display following the seasons. Novice gardeners will learn how to convert existing spaces on to a more sustainable footing.

A fifth area will combine demonstrations of compost and tools and show how to convert space and containers into growing areas. The display will be overflowing with edible fruits, plants, traditional vegetables and edible & medicinal flowers and will show how everyday items that are cheap or recycled can be used to create innovative and funky growing spaces, both vertically and horizontally.

The overall aim of the team is to provide an attraction that encapsulates the show philosophy of getting people in cities growing plants, growing food, loving plants and being more sustainably aware.

Tickets, priced £15 for adults and £7.50 for children are on sale now. Tickets are timed for purposes of entrance only. Full details are available on the Garden Party website www.startgardenparty.co.uk <http://www.startgardenparty.co.uk/>

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It’s one more reason why consuming HFCS is a really bad idea.

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Staff at the facility say a planned move would take at least 15 years to complete, and they are being given just 3 months.  The loss to science and global biodiversity would be devastating if this forced move proceeds as planned.

The institute lost a case in court brought by property developers who want to use the site to build exclusive housing.  An appeal to the ruling is pending, but this is expected to lose.  Apparently in this case the law seems to be solidly on the side of the property developers.

The last remaining hope is intervention by either Russian President Medvedev or Prime Minister Putin, either one of which can set aside the court ruling.  Via Twitter, President Medvedev announced he would look into the matter.

You can help by making a personal appeal to the Kremlin!  You can sign an online petition here.  You can also write the Kremlin a letter.  Or tweet them at @KremlinRussia_E.  Time is running out!

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Visit UK Veg Gardeners

Gillian Carson of My Tiny Plot just created a new gardening discussion forum!

In particular she’s networked with many of the top UK gardening blogs, meaning in one place you can now rub shoulders with lots of your favorite garden bloggers — including me!

Here at Bifurcated Carrots you can read what I write, and leave comments, but if you actually want to chat with me or other readers this wasn’t really possible until now.  Now, if you go to UK Veg Gardeners, you can post your own material, and start your own discussions.  I have wanted to set something up like this for a while now, but this takes a lot of time, so I’m really happy Gill has done it for me.

I host the Heritage Fruit and Veg group, and my picture looks like the one above at the top of the badge.  When you join, be sure to say hi.  Any reader of this blog interested in fruit and vegetable gardening in the UK is welcome!

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Yesterday, they announced they are going from closed beta testing to open beta.  This means anyone who wants to can sign up without the need for an invitation.  It also of course means they still consider themselves to be in the testing phase, but my experience with it so far has been very good and it all seems to work well.

To briefly summarize, with Flattr you can give small amounts of money to this and other websites which have signed up and have a Flattr button.  You choose the amount of money you want to commit to giving away each month, with a minimum of €2, and this amount is spread among the people who’s Flattr buttons you click on.  There are some costs, the fees for depositing and withdrawing money, and a 10% commission to Flattr themselves, which they promise to try to lower over time.

If you have a website yourself, you can also solicit donations through Flattr.  There is also a service called imflattrd, where you can create an online profile and flattr button even if you don’t have a website.  In particular this is useful with social networking tools.

For more detailed information, have a look at the Flattr website by following the link above.

I would really encourage all readers to become part of Flattr.  As well as being able to donate small amounts of money to my efforts here, there are an increasing number of other sites accepting Flattr donations as well.  The amount of money you have to commit is relatively small.  After you have paid fees and the like, the minimum cost is around $30/yr, and if you have a website this will be partly or completely offset by donations others give to you.

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Aaron Whaley, Executive Director and President of Seed Savers Exchange, Inc., has resigned.  Do you think you have what it takes to be the head of the Seed Savers Exchange?  If you ask me, they need someone with good people management skills…

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I’ve purposely skipped over the points I didn’t find interesting, which is why some of the numbers are missing.

Here is my response to their response to our previously stated concerns…

1. Low-energy bulbs produce unpleasant light

Five or so years ago, many low energy bulbs did produce rather weak, cold and unnatural-looking light. But times have changed and modern eco bulbs are better than ever before.

American magazine Popular Mechanics put such claims to the test, asking people to rate the light from eight different bulbs. The result? The seven eco bulbs all scored better than the one regular bulb.

Many people continue to complain about the quality of light from these bulbs, still!  I personally find them very harsh, and at the high end do not do an adequate job of lighting up a room as a supposedly comparable regular bulb.  I think rather than continue to tell us the light is no longer unpleasant, like they’ve been saying for years now, manufacturers need to simply start making more pleasant bulbs and people will start buying them.

2. Eco bulbs flicker and take ages to turn on
Again, this is mainly a thing of the past. Most modern low-energy bulbs turn on within a second, with no flickering. But it’s true that they can take a few seconds to reach their maximum light levels, especially in a cold room.

I think it’s pretty clear, they do still sometimes flicker and they do take a long time to turn on.  Especially taking a while to come up to full brightness, I find very annoying.  Time will tell as the newer bulbs wear out, but all the previous generations have started flickering and dimming as they got old, and I can’t see any reason not to suspect the same will happen with the newer ones.

3. Low-energy light bulbs are expensive
Prices have plummeted in recent years and, thanks to subsidy schemes, high quality bulbs are available in the UK for as little as £1 each. The more obscure eco bulbs are pricier, but still excellent value if you factor in how long they last and the comparative cost of using regular bulbs.

I think this is pretty expensive!  Standard bulbs cost just a few cents.  What’s also the problem is you just don’t know what you’re paying for with the newer bulbs.  If you buy a cheap one at a market somewhere, will you be punished?  Will the light be blue?  Will it start flickering after a few hours of use or just burn out completely?  With the older bulbs, you know what you are buying and there are few risks in buying a cheap one.

For some time now the manufacturers of the newer bulbs have manipulated us into buying and rebuying bulbs that were of poor quality, and we’re supposed to believe them now?  At best the idea the new bulbs last longer is very dubious, and my experience is they are far from value for money.

In addition, traditional bulbs can be manufactured with the idea of lasting longer, but now there is a lot of pressure to make electricity-efficient bulbs.  This results in bulbs that burn out faster and probably consume more energy in total.

4. Low-energy bulbs take lots of energy to make, offsetting their environmental benefits
Energy saving bulbs take around four times more energy to make than regular incandescent bulbs do. But they last five to ten times longer, so they can actually help reduce the total energy used in light bulb manufacture and distribution. Even if this were not true, the energy used in producing an eco bulb would be outweighed by the 80 per cent energy savings it can make.

The problems with this argument are numerous.  First of all it’s pretty clear the claim of 80% energy savings with the new bulbs is little more than a lie.  It varies from bulb to bulb, but 60% is probably a lot more realistic.  You’ll notice this claim is not made much any more, and there have been threats of legal action for manufactures who use it in their marketing.

In addition, the manufacturing energy costs do not take into account that the new bulbs come from China, where the old ones were made locally in many places like Europe and the US.  These energy costs also don’t take into account recycling and disposal costs that were not necessary with the older bulbs.  Consider too that many people will be recycling the newer bulbs by taking them somewhere in their car.

7. Low-energy bulbs don’t work with dimmer switches
This was true until recently, but you can now buy fully dimmable low-energy lights (see Varilight and Osram). They’re more expensive than regular eco bulbs but they can still save you plenty of money in the long run. Also, the Philips energy-saving halogen bulbs mentioned above are fully dimmable (as are some Megaman bulbs, though you may have to change your fittings).

I think the real question is, if you want a dimmable light, why not use a regular bulb?  Why is it necessary to go out and buy a very expensive bulb of dubious quality, in order to have a dimmable lamp in your home??

8. Low-energy bulbs are bad for us and the environment as they contain mercury
It’s true that low-energy bulbs contain tiny quantities of mercury (around 100-300 times less than you’d get in a thermometer). However, this can be safely disposed of by taking old bulbs to your local dump for recycling. It is important not to throw bulbs into landfill as mercury is harmful if it enters water courses and the food chain.

The largest source of mercury in the air is the burning of fossil fuels – in coal-fired power plants, for example. So, provided they’re properly disposed of, low-energy bulbs can actually help to reduce the amount of mercury energy entering the atmosphere by cutting the demand for electricity.

The problem is not mercury in the environment, the problem is mercury in our homes!  Mercury is poisonous and no safe level has been established for human exposure.  If these newer bulbs break they spread the mercury around our homes.  If someone throws one of these bulbs on the ground or it gets buried, the mercury will leach out and remain effectively forever.  If someone grows their food on that ground, the mercury will be taken up by the plants.  It’s chemical waste, and if the ground gets contaminated, it needs to be cleaned up.

In order to deal with this waste the consumer needs to turn the bulbs in for disposal, which should not be their responsibility and involves more wasted energy.

Traditional light bulbs don’t have poisonous waste in them, and special recycling is not necessary.

What do coal-fired power plants have to do with this argument anyway??

9. Regular bulbs don’t waste energy, they just produce heat that helps warm the home
It is true that the ‘wasted’ energy of a regular bulb is given off as heat but this is only useful on cold days. Gas boilers produce heat far more efficiently than electric light bulbs. And as hot air rises, bulbs on the ceiling aren’t exactly the ideal place to produce heat for your home.

I don’t know many people who heat their homes with light bulbs, do you?

The question is not if this is a sensible thing to do, the issue is if the wasted energy from less efficient bulbs gets at least partly offset by your home heating system.  Since darkness and cold weather go together in most parts of the world that experience a winter climate, it’s a very common situation where people use light bulbs at the same time as their central heating.  Sunlight generates heat and light, and lack of sunlight generally means the need for lighting and heating.

‘Gas boilers produce heat far more efficiently than electric light bulbs’ is a very subjective statement.  In my case for example, my electricity comes from a nearby gas fired power plant that’s very efficient.  Other people may have wind generated or other ‘green’ electricity, that’s actually more environmentally friendly than a gas boiler.

Even though the light bulbs are usually on the ceiling, electricity lost from low efficiency is not lost, it’s converted to heat that heats your house together with your central heating system.  There is some energy lost because gas heating is more efficient than electricity, but for many people this could be as little as 20%, meaning very little difference in total between newer and older light bulbs.

The real issue here is that the amount of energy used to light the average home is very small compared to the energy used for airco and heating, and in the case of heating a percentage of this is offset when you use lights.  While wasted energy is important, the emphasis being put on low energy lighting is disproportionate to what lighting consumes.  The real issue is manufactures are trying to trick and force us into buying more things that are a disposal problem and we don’t need.

If you were to do a true and honest assessment of the energy difference between new and old bulbs, including all of my points here, I think you would find the newer bulbs consume more energy overall — in addition to creating a disposal problem.  In any event the difference in energy consumption is not huge.

I’m not saying it’s bad to use the new bulbs, but you have to consider your personal circumstances carefully, and they are not for everyone.

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HRH The Prince of Wales will open his private gardens in Clarence House and the gardens of neighbours Lancaster House and Marlborough House to the public. This will run from 8-19 September. Tickets are available, together with more details on the garden party website.

The theme is Sustainable Landscape Design.  Visits from Jools Holland, Sir David Frost, Alan Tichmarsh and Anthony Worral Thompson are expected over the course of the 12 days.

If you go, please report back!

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I’ve posted before about my black alder trees.  I’m really pleased with them, and I thought it was time for an update.  They are now almost 2 years old, and I think I’m just really starting to see some of the benefits.

They are nitrogen fixing trees, meaning they put nitrogen into the ground as they grow.  Many gardeners plant beans or peas for this reason, but the difference with a nitrogen fixing tree is it is perennial so it keeps growing and it’s also large and deep rooted, so it fixes a lot of nitrogen deep into the ground.  Black alders are also a native species for me, which is an important reason why I choose it and like it.  Now that I know what I’m looking for, I see them in a lot of wild places.

It’s a tree, which means if you let it grow it will get huge.  I don’t do that.  As well as getting big, it doesn’t mind being severely cut back.  Whenever I think it’s getting on the large side or it’s in the way, I just whack off as much as I want and it cheerfully grows back.  About the size you see in this picture is what I generally find best, a slightly overgrown stump.

By cutting it back, it also helps it release it’s nitrogen into the ground.  By cutting leaves and branches off the top, it causes some of it’s roots to die and rot, and so release nitrogen.  Also, by cutting the tree back around the time it’s trying to produce seeds, it prevents it from putting resources into producing seeds and so consuming some of the nitrogen it already fixed.  It also keeps it from producing too many weeds.

By now a number of these trees are becoming well established, and they are making a noticeable difference to their surroundings.  At the beginning they caused a bit of a weed problem, because they were fixing nitrogen close to the surface.  As they became established, they fix nitrogen much deeper, meaning there was no immediate weed problem and the overall improvement in soil health of the area meant fewer weeds in general.  I would say however the benefits of the trees are not seen much beyond a meter or 2 from the tree itself.

One of the things I decided to experiment with was companion planting my garlic with some black alder trees.  I had little choice in fact, because the trees were established were it was time to rotate the garlic crop too.  Rather than removing the trees, I decided to see how it went.

Normally garlic, and alliums in general, are considered companion ‘enemies’  to nitrogen fixing plants.  They tend to stunt one another’s growth.  What I found was quite the opposite.  I couldn’t really say if the alder’s growth was stunted, as they grow pretty fast regardless, but the garlic planted near the trees developed quite large and healthy bulbs.  I guess because the roots of the alder are so deep, there’s little or no conflict between the plants.

I’m so happy with the alders in fact, this winter I’m going to try to buy some more.  I found them before on a local EBay equivalent for €1 per tree, and I’m going to see if I can find the same thing again.  I guess I have 20 or so trees, and I would like to double that number.  In particular, I would like to plant new trees in poorer parts of my garden, and perhaps remove some of the larger trees that are getting a little in the way by now and aren’t needed any more.

If you want to try something similar in your garden, I suggest looking for a native species that fixes nitrogen.  There are quite a number of possibilities.  By getting a native species, you know the plant will grow and thrive but at the same time not naturalize and turn into an invasive weed.  In some climates, the black alder is considered invasive.

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This is certainly the year for sunflowers at our community gardens.  It seems like everyone is growing them.  I don’t remember seeing so many in past years.  Kathy was just talking about this too.

I’m growing them too.  In fact I’m growing a variety called Titan, that’s in the Guinness Book of World Records as producing the largest recorded Sunflower.  In fact the plant was grown not too far from where I live in the Netherlands.  I don’t think it’s a variety that’s commonly available here, so I’m curious how my sunflowers compares with the others.  I planted mine a few weeks later than everyone else, so they aren’t flowering yet.

Below is someone obviously attempting the thankless task of trying to save some seeds from the birds.  You can see he’s put bags of some sort over 2 of the flowers, and behind he built a scarecrow.

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Infographic by Recycle – Don’t bin it, recycle it

Click image to see full sized.

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