Veganism

Home made vegan Nutella

1/2 cups hazelnuts

1 tsp vanilla

3/4 cup powdered sugar

1/4 cup cocoa

3-4 tbs vegetable or safflower oil

2 tbs soy milk

Using a food processor, grind the hazelnuts until fine and powdery. Process for another minute or two until creamy and smooth.

If you're using a less powerful food processor, this won't happen.

Add remaining ingredients and process until smooth and creamy, adding a little bit more soy milk to get the desired consistency.

There are so many great vegan foods and vegan recipes that most vegans don’t even think of what they do as “substituting.” It’s just eating great food.

New vegans may want to use old non-vegan recipes. There are plenty of products vegans can use in place of animal ingredients that will make vegan cooking easy.

• Substitute soy milk, rice milk, oat milk, almond milk, cashew milk, or hemp milk for cow’s milk in a recipe. You can use the same amount called for in the recipe.
• Substitute 1 tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice mixed with one cup of soymilk, rice milk, oat milk, almond milk, cashew milk, or hemp milk for buttermilk.
• Some vegetarian cheeses contain casein, which is not vegan, but at least two brands, Follow Your Heart and Daiya, are vegan. You can use these in the same manner that you would use dairy cheese. Many vegans make great cheesy sauces and toppings with nutritional yeast.
• You can use cubed or crumbled tofu in place of paneer, cottage cheese, or ricotta.
• Substitute tofu scramble for scrambled eggs. Tofu scramble is usually made with salt and pepper (just like scrambled chicken eggs), and often with turmeric (the spice that gives curry its yellow color) and nutritional (brewer’s) yeast. If you’re not handy in the kitchen, there is even a product called Tofu Scrambler that you can buy at the store store that you then mix with crumbled tofu and heat in a frying pan. You can add tomatoes, peppers, onions, potatoes, vegan bacon bits, or whatever you like.
• Substitute applesauce, pureed soft tofu, Ener-G egg replacer, or mashed banana for eggs in baked goods. My favorite egg substitute is a flax egg (1 tablespoon ground flax seeds plus 3 tablespoons warm water or other liquid, whipped with a fork until stringy).
• The flax egg also works for loaves, patties, burgers, and other dishes that call for eggs as a binder. You can also use oat or soy flour, rolled oats, cooked oatmeal, bread crumbs, instant potato flakes, peanut butter, tomato paste, or cornstarch or cornstarch in these recipes instead of eggs.
• Use soy milk instead of egg whites for glazing pastries.
• Vegetable broth or reconstitute bouillon cubes or broth powder are an easy substitute for beef or chicken stock.
• There are many vegan margarines on you can use to substitute for butter. Read the labels, because not all margarines are vegan. Earth Balance is a good one. You can also use oils like canola, sunflower, olive or corn instead of butter or margarine.
• Soy yogurt is available in the stores in plain and fruit flavors and works well in place of yogurt in recipes. Plain soy yogurt is also a good substitute for sour cream. There are also vegan sour creams on the market.
• There are also vegan mayonnaise products on the market that you can use just like egg-based mayo. There are also lots of recipes for vegan mayo.
• Agar flakes or powder are a great substitute for gelatin. Agar is a sea vegetable that will thicken as it is heated, and set as it is cooled.
• Maple syrup is a good substitute for honey. Other vegan sweeteners may not be as sweet as honey, nor the same consistency, including agave syrup, corn syrup, malt syrup, molasses, brown rice syrup, frozen or bottled fruit-juice concentrates, sorghum syrup, and concentrated fruit syrups. You may have to experiment with these in recipes to get the right amount.
• Use beet sugar, fructose, organic unbleached cane sugar, fructose, turbinado sugar, date sugar, maple crystals instead of white sugar. White sugar often is refined using the charred bones of animals, so many vegans avoid it. Vegans and others know that white cane sugar isn’t as healthy as other sweeteners and it can be full of pesticides. In addition, some object to the treatment of workers on sugar plantations. Some crystallized sugars dissolve better than others, so you’ll have to experiment.
• Many varieties of dark chocolate are vegan. (Check the label for any dairy products.) You can also substitute carob (powder and chips) instead of chocolate in your recipes.
• There are vegan varieties of deli slices, burgers, meatballs, sausage, bacon, burger crumbles, chick’n patties, nuggets, loaves, steak, jerky, and whole Tofurkeys and roasts for for holidays.
• There are many vegan recipes for roasts, loaves, patties, pates, and other foods that people have made out of animal flesh.
• There are also many varieties of vegan ice cream, including those made from soy, rice, and coconut. In addition, most sorbets are vegan.

Burger King is rolling out the meatless Impossible Whopper in several states, providing a new fast-food option for casual vegetarians (more on that “casual" descriptor in a moment). Eventually, every Burger King will likely offer the Impossible Whopper, since the burger has sold relatively well in test markets and has elevated the Burger King brand.

Unlike many vegetarian burgers, the Impossible Whopper is designed to taste like real meat—and some tasters claim it achieves that lofty goal.

“I couldn’t tell the difference, and I was shocked myself,” one Burger King assistant manager told The Washington Post.

So, what’s in the Impossible Whopper?

“Mostly soy protein, potato protein, coconut oil, sunflower oil, and heme,” the Impossible Foods' Whopper website reads.

Impossible Foods has spent years developing meat substitutes. The soy protein provides a “more beeflike texture,” per The Washington Post, and methyl cellulose provides a juicier bite. The secret ingredient is the iron-rich heme, produced through a complex genetic engineering process. Heme naturally occurs in all plants and animals but is found in higher quantities in animal muscle, and the soy-derived version used in the Impossible Whopper is fairly similar to its animal-derived counterpart.

There’s another reason the Impossible Whopper tastes almost like the normal Whopper: Both burger patties are fairly thin, and much of the Whopper taste comes from the bread, mayonnaise, and other ingredients.

So, should you try the Impossible Whopper? That depends. The Impossible Whopper is cooked on the same grills as other Burger King products, so contact with meat particles might make it a no-go for strict vegetarians. However, the chain does offer a vegan version, skipping the mayonnaise and cooking the patty in a microwave, away from any potential contamination.

And if you’re hoping to switch to the Impossible Whopper for health reasons, you might be disappointed. Although the Impossible Whopper has slightly fewer calories than the original (630 instead of 660), the vegetarian-friendly version has much higher levels of carbohydrates and sodium.

"The Whopper has 980 milligrams of sodium while the Impossible Whopper has 1,240 milligrams," dietitian Jessica Stafford told KMOX in St. Louis. "The American Heart Association recommends no more than 2,300 milligrams of sodium a day, and with the Impossible Whopper, you're getting well over a thousand. So the Impossible Whopper is half your day's worth of sodium, but that's okay. You can have that, but make sure everything else you have the rest of the day is naturally low in sodium."

With all that said, the Impossible Whopper should delight vegetarian diners who are looking for a fast food option. It’s not quite magical, but by all accounts, it’s fairly tasty—and while it’s about $1 more than the regular Whopper, that’s a small price to pay for peace of mind.