Low Carbon Food

The race is on to adopt a Low Carbon diet !

For truly Low Carbon food, you will need to consider a number of factors, including :-

(a)    The kinds of food you eat,
(b)    How far the food travels,
(c)    The Fossil Fuel inputs into growing the food,
(d)    How you cook the food.

To avoid using any Fossil Fuels in preparing your food, you could do with a biomass-burning, efficient Rocket Stove :-

http://www.rocketstove.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_stove

If you live in a place where this sort of open fire is not permitted, you might think of signing up to a Green Electricity or Green Gas company for your Energy. Here are some British examples :-

http://www.goodenergy.co.uk/
http://www.ecotricity.co.uk/news/green-gas-from-ecotricity-is-go!

To minimise the amount of Carbon Energy in the supply chain of your food, you probably need to think about becoming a vegan, as most meat-rearing and dairy good production is highly Carbon Energy intensive.

Most people who have never consciously eaten true vegetarian food before haven’t the faintest idea about what to cook.

Here are a few sample recipes to get you started on the road to greener food :-

Hellfire Dal
by Rachel from India

Good for every Season.

1. In a large saucepan, fry chopped onions, garlic, ginger root, powdered or dry red chilli peppers (chillie, chile), turmeric (haldi), cumin (jeera) seed or powder and black pepper in olive oil or sunflower oil.

2. Boil some water and pour into a glass bowl where you have placed Puy, green or brown dried lentils. Leave to stand for 20 minutes.

3. When the onions are translucent, add the lentils to the saucepan, together with some fresh or canned vegetables, including tomatoes.

4. Add a little more oil and water and cook the dal until the gram (lentils) are soft.

5. Serve with something cooling like soya yoghurt, or a cool drink, and some rice or pan bread.

Vlatch
by Madalina from Romania

This is a Winter Season dish.

1. Wash and chop up some root vegetables. A good selection would include potatoes, carrots and parsnips. Don’t peel the vegetables. The best flavours are in their skins.

2. Cook the root vegetables with some chopped up fresh ginger root in a pan of water with some vegetable stock (try a cube).

3. Meanwhile fry chopped up onions, garlic, dried green herbs and some kind of red peppers in some olive oil or sunflower oil. Red peppers are not technically a winter vegetable, but some of the long varieties (eg Romano) are usually available late in the year. If you cannot get them fresh, you can normally get them pickled or sundried. If you cannot get hold of any kind of red peppers, fresh or preserved, use canned tomatoes. If you do use tomatoes, you will need to use this soup the same day, as the next day the soup will taste sharp. Don’t tell me to use frozen peppers. None of us will be running freezers in the future.

4. When the root vegetables are beginning to feel soft, throw some chopped green vegetables into the pan. In late Autumn, this could include courgettes (zucchini). Later in the year, this could be some dried squash or marrow of some kind. Most likely this will be Winter cabbage (white or green), spinach or chard. Please don’t use broccoli as this spoils the overall taste in my view.

5. When the frying onions are translucent, add the onions and peppers to the soup pan. Cook a bit more. Serve with a little soya cream or yoghurt, black pepper and maybe a little Marmite (yeast extract) stirred in to taste.

Nut Loaf
by Jo from England

This is a Winter dish.

1. Put a variety of nuts in a bag and use a rolling pin to crush them into a coarse meal.

2. Fry some onions, garlic and some form of red peppers in a little olive oil or sunflower oil, with dried herbs from Summer : basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary, sage.

3. Meanwhile, make crumbs from leftover bread, and mix in with the nuts with a few more dried herbs, grated carrot, lemon (or other citrus fruit) juice and some yeast extract (Marmite) until you have something that is nearly like dough.

4. Mix in the fried onions, cook in an oiled roasting tray. Serve with roast vegetables at High Days and Holidays. On the next day, serve leftover slices in bread with chutney or salsa as a vegeburger.

Apple Jacks
by Yvonne from England

This is an Autumn dish.

1. In a saucepan, slowly melt some soya margarine.

2. Add in some sweeteners such as raw cane sugar, honey, agave syrup, date syrup, fruit sugar. Don’t tell me vegans shouldn’t eat honey ! I’ve heard that before and quite frankly, it’s pedantic to the point of absurdity !

3. Add in some chopped apples with the skin still on them. You can spice this up by using chopped dried fruit such as crystalline ginger, blackcurrants, cranberries, apricots, dates, cherries, raisins…

4. When the fruit starts to take up the fat, turn off the heat and mix in enough oats with a large wooden spoon to make the mixture quite stiff.

5. Spread and flatten in an oiled tray and bake for around 20 minutes in a hot oven, until the top looks golden brown. Mark lines in it while it’s still warm. Allow to cool in the tray before levering out. Good for cholesterol-busting as well as the planet !

Crunchy Salad
by Karin from Belgium

This requires no cooking and is good year-round.

1. Take a variety of leaf vegetables, including white cabbage and fresh herbs and chop and grate into a bowl. The basic idea is to make all the pieces as small as possible.

2. Chop and/or grate in a carrot and maybe an onion. Raw broccoli or cauliflower is good to add as long as it’s chopped up really small.

3. Add some chopped tomatoes or peppers in season.

4. Serve with a vinaigrette of oil mixed with vinegar or lemon juice, and maybe a touch of soya sauce.

Houmous (Hummus, Hummous etc)
by Ali from Lebanon

This is a year-round dish.

The basic principle is to make something that has a high protein content that can be spread on bread.

1. Cook some chickpeas. Or open a can. Place in a whisk-proof bowl.

2. Chop some garlic into the chickpeas.

3. Add some olive oil.

4. Add some sesame seed paste. This is called tahini.

5. Add some lemon juice.

6. Use a hand-held blender to whisk all the ingredients together if you live in an industrialised country with a reliable source of electricity. Otherwise, mash and grind and mix by hand with a wooden spoon.

7. Eat.

Notes : of course, some people are allergic to sesame seeds, so be careful when offering it to other people. The addition of diced red pepper or fried (caramelised) onions is exceptional. If you do not have tahini, you could use peanut butter instead – but be aware that again, many people are allergic to peanut butter. Also, if you don’t have chickpeas, you can use any kind of soft white cooked bean, even from a can.

Vegan Pad Thai
by Jo from England

1. Two days before you want to eat, peel and chop some fresh ginger root and marinate in lemon juice in a small ceramic bowl with a saucer to cover.

2. In a saucepan, in some olive oil, fry some onions, fresh garlic (or cheat with a jar of garlic preserve from the delicatessen shop), the root ginger you prepared earlier, some kind of chopped peppers, lemon grass puree (another cheater’s jar from the deli), some lime leaves (if you have some), some dry red chili peppers (chillie, chili, chile). If you have some, add a few drops of roasted sesame oil and chopped spring onions and lime juice.

3. When the onions are slippy and translucent, add a can of chopped tomatoes (or fresh if you have them), some tofu cubes, some chopped root vegetables such as carrot and parsnip (in Winter) and some hand broken durum wheat spaghetti pasta. Add a little water to make sure all the ingredients are just covered with liquid.

4. Cook for around 20 minutes, or until the root vegetables and the pasta are cooked properly. A few minutes before serving, throw some chopped white cabbage and broccoli into the pan to soften a little.

Yes, Pad Thai is supposed to be made with rice noodles. I just didn’t have any in the cupboard, but rooting around I found a long forgotten handful of dry spaghetti which did the trick. If you are a coeliac (celiac) and allergic to gluten, which is found in wheat and many related grains, you will need to get some rice noodles.

And yes, it’s supposed to have tamarind paste in it, but I hardly ever cook with that.

You can add peanut butter for the fuller flavour. Of course, many people are allergic to peanuts, so in that case use cashew nuts instead. Peanuts are pulses like peas. Cashews are really nuts, and some people are allergic to them as well. In that case, add sunflower seeds, unless you are allergic to seeds as well, in which case don’t bother.

There’s no real need to add soya sauce (soy, tamari), but you can if you like.

Alternative sources of protein than the tofu cubes :-

–> Fried tofu cubes (to seal them)
–> Quorn pieces (if you are running a freezer and you have some in the freezer)
–> Light flavour mushrooms (making sure you add a little peanut butter in this case, if you’re not allergic to peanuts)
–> Falafel (chick pea and herb balls)
–> Cooked chick peas
–> Any kind of cooked beans

Garlic Mushrooms
by Diana from Scotland

1. Make sure you have some tomato paste. If you are not running a refrigerator, you may need to make your own tomato paste or passata by chopping up and cooking tomatoes in a saucepan with no extra liquid, with the lid off so the water can evaporate and the tomatoes reduce to a thick pulp.

2. In a frying pan, in some olive oil, fry some onions, garlic and fresh rosemary needles (remember to pull the needles off the twigs before adding. The twigs are inedible).

3. Add the tomato paste and sliced mushrooms. Cover the pan and reduce the heat and cook a while until you can’t resist eating.