More dinners from the T-House, or: A Selection of Goodies

Yo yo yo yo, babypop 

Continuing in the grand tradition of playing catch ups, I humbly present to you two more meals from the T-House which went down a treat. 

Yellow Thai Curry

A bit of a cheater. Vegan With A Vengeance set out a bewdiful recipe for homemade curry paste. Yet in the back of the pantry was a ready-made jar, ninja vegan. The recipe called for a number of separate steps to prepare the rest of the curry anyway, so the jar was opened. 

And it was good. We've made it again and the jar will give us one more batch too. We added rice noodles to bulk up the curry, and you see version-topped-with-coriander below but version-topped-with-basil was also excellent. Versatility! (I also recommend frying the tofu in soy sauce instead of oil. Or both, but be warned that you will be picking at the tofu after it's cooked like chippies).

Corn Chowder

I'm usually not a soup fan, preferring my dinner to be chewable. But this one, also from VWAV, was heeeeearty. It did involve removing half of the soup and blending it before returning it to the pot, but as we are absent a stick blender it was necessary to make this thick and smooth chowder. Buzz and I spent a very lamely amusing evening arguing over 'chOWder' and 'chow-DAIR'.

Hurry Up Alfredo

Vegan Yum Yum is the recipe book that keeps on giving. Having seen a number of bloggers, including Kristy, enjoy the creamy alfredo that Lolo at VYY created, we weren't surprised when it was bloody good. A tangy, creamy alfredo - go easy on the mustard - hit many spots. However, with the great big bowl of pasta that the fatty sauce thickly coated, and topped with Parmazano, this is a meal for after you've belted it out at the gym. 

Let's catch up! or, I mass upload

Hi Kiddles, 

Transmission has resumed!

Given the massive gap in which the T-House was offline, I've decided just to wham-bam-thankyou-blog and upload a lot of pics with little descriptions. 

Buzz and I have been continuing our quest to end same-same cookering with 3 or 4 new recipes a week, which has been working well and has cemented my love of the Vegan Yum Yum recipe book. 

Nuttelex Tofu (what else am I going to call Butter Chicken eh?)

 

It was ok - but really fatty by the time we'd fried the tofu and added the Nuttelex. A bit guilt-making. I'm loving this brand of spice pastes though - they do the Tom Yum that I was raving about and label the vegetarian packets, so there's just a little packet reading to check for vegan credentials.

Semolina porridge at The Mess Hall

Totally incredible and I've started making it at home. 

Chilli Linguine

One of the coolest Xmas presents we got was from my uncle Biffs and cousin Zacman, who gave us this packet of chilli linguine. It. Rocked. Hard .

We added chillis from the chilli plant that our friends Miss Jess and Mr Lach gave us at our housewarming.  I totally recommend this brand of pasta and will be giving gifts like this too!

Continued correspondence: I write again to Haigh's, or: I want my dark chocolate frogs!

Thanks Lisa for the suggestion! Still confused by Haigh's reply to my letter, I emailed them again:

Hi Olivia,

Thanks for your response and sorry for the delay. I have been unable to find any recent changes to food labelling standards and would very much appreciate it if you could direct me to the guidelines issued to you by the government. Perhaps this is a Commonwealth Government guideline?

As I understand it, the principal State Act that controls the sale of food in Victoria is the Food Act 1984. The Act is also the means through which the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code is applied as the law in Victoria, but the Code's website contains the following statement in relation to 'may contain traces of':  

"You’ll notice some labels say ‘may contain’ certain allergens, for example ‘may contain nuts. This is put on by the manufacturer who may be concerned that, while nuts aren’t added to the food, traces may be present due, for example, the product having been made on the same equipment as products containing nuts. Allergy consumer support groups are working with the food industry to make these labels more helpful to allergy sufferers."

I am also still confused because Standard 1.2.4 of the Code: "Labelling of Ingredients" provides the definition used in the Code and therefore also in the Act. It is: "ingredient means any substance, including a food additive, used in the preparation, manufacture or handling of a food". From your email it appears that Haigh's does not use or add milk in the preparation of dark chocolate.

I would really appreciate it if you could tell me what the trace levels of milk are when they must qualify as an ingredient. As I'm sure Haigh's will appreciate, this is an issue of interest and importance to all dairy-free people so I would like to be able to fully understand the reasoning behind Haigh's decision.

Thank you once again for your assistance and for your previous reply,

Regards,
Rachel Templeman

Haigh's responds, or: I just can't explain

But here's a lil' sumthin' sumthin' - I got a reply from Haigh's, but didn't notice it for a while because it landed in my Trash. Here was my original moment of glory.

I really can barely reply. The logic is so, so twisty-roundy circular. But it's nice to know that my email was discussed in a management meeting; God I feel special (actually, one time I wrote a letter of complaint to a company because I had been misinformed by staff about the vegan status of their products and was quite huffy, and they forwarded my email to all stores to let them know that there had been a problem - not in a bad way, just to inform in case they had any other queries - but they left my full name on the bottom of the email. And how do I know this? A friend of mine who is a manager in that chain rang me!)

Dear Rachel,

Thank you for your email. We understand what you are saying, however due to new standards of labeling we now have to list milk as an ingredient. We have not added milk, but as we produce both the milk and dark product on the same machinery, we have to list it as an ingredient.

To declare on labels “may contain traces of milk” the product must contain a specific amount of milk. Unfortunately our dark chocolate products contain above this particular level, therefore due to the new standards we need to include milk on the ingredients list.

Dark chocolate was never intended to be a pure vegan product, or dairy-free, as there are trace amounts of milk in all of our dark chocolate products.

The listing of milk as an ingredient in our Dark chocolate is at the bottom of the ingredients list, as it would only be trace amount, and it varies from batch to batch.

When the labeling changes came into effect we did place notifications in all of our stores for quite a few months.

Your email was discussed at the recent Management Meeting and this issue is constantly under review, but at this stage we are following the guidelines as provided by a government department.

We will advise you if there are any changes in the year ahead.

Best regards,

Olivia

Cut off, or: where oh where has my little ADSL2 connection gone?

Hello chickens,

Mea culpa … actually not really. I’ve been grave-like silent due to two things: a week long trip to visit the western wilds of WA (hello there cousins!) and also the cutting off of our interwebs at home as our provider (coincidentally also from the western wilds) needs to cut it of for up to 20 – oh yes 20 - days to move us to Naked DSL (which only saves us $10 a month because the moment you move from a paid phone line to naked, your plan – the very same plan – goes up). We’ve so far been incommunicado from 3 February until at least tomorrow night. And it’s been mighty hard yes sirree bob.

So we are desolate and in despair, and I am writing this naughtily at work just to let you know that I’ll be back and I shall rise again and take my dread sword in my right hand and my shield in my left and I shall smite mine enemies and I shall conquer. And blog.

Pip pip!

Only Planters, or: Michael Pollan and "Edible foodlike substances"

I have obviously deleted some crucial piece of code that allows me to use paragraphs. Sorry about the idiotic set out. I really do know what a paragraph looks like.  I really do admire Michael Pollan. I count The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defence of Food as some of my favourite, most life-changing books, and I love that he has managed to get issues of food quality, consumption and security firmly in the mainstream, middle-class eye. I love his pithy and simple mantra “Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much.” Although I obviously favour an eensy-weensy amendment which involves the subtraction of ‘mostly’ and the addition of ‘only’, in fact it’s this inclusionary approach which has allowed his message to be understood, accepted and adopted by a far wider range of people than just us Only Planters. 

 

In the NY Times, Mr Pollan once wrote a little blog entry asking for people’s food rules. They ranged from the popular “Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognise” to the amusing “Don’t eat anything bigger than your head”.

He has no released a little pocket sized book called “Food Rules – An Eater’s Manual” which presents 64 rules which elucidate “Eat food. Mostly Plants. Not too much.” A couple of rules are applicable only to the Mostly Planters, but the vast majority are applicable to everyone.

   A couple of sparkly highlights (Mr Pollan’s highlights are here):  

• Avoid products that make health claims. Fruit’n’veg rarely need to, or have the resources to, make claims about their benefit to your heart/blood pressure/cholesterol. “Don’t take the silence of the yams as a sign they have nothing valuable to say about your health”. Oh guffaw, Michael!
• Only eat foods that will eventually rot.
• Eat only foods that have been cooked by humans. And the related: Don’t ingest foods made in places where everyone is required to wear a surgical cap.
• If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t. (One for the Only Planters!)
• It’s not food if it’s called the same name in every language. Think Big Mac, Cheetos or Pringles. (But don’t think quinoa or hummus).
• Don’t eat breakfast cereals that change the colour of the (Ed:soy)milk.
• Eat all the junk you want as long as you cook it yourself.
• Pay more, eat less.
• Eat when you’re hungry, not when you’re bored. Food is a costly antidepressant.
• Spend as much time enjoying the meal as it took to prepare it.
• Don’t get your fuel from the same place your car does, and also: It’s not food if it arrived through your car window.

I find some sensible rules hard to follow. I eat when bored, and always have. I have told almost everyone I know that the day I found out that BBQ Shapes were vegan was the best day of my life. I don’t feel satiated unless I’ve had some simple carbs. And I just like big portions and am grumpy if I’m not full.     

But I don’t get food though my car window, or buy much food from the centre of the supermarket. I cook and I use ingredients with one leg (like a mushroom, as opposed to two like a chook or four like a lamb). I have few processed foods around, and they’re not used all that often. And I would wager that 95% of what I eat is food, not an “edible food-like substance”.   

If I had to come up with a few rules of my own (food-related rather than vegan, in which case I’d simply say “How could you kill and eat a living thing that feels happiness, fear and pain?”), I think I’d begin with:      

• Don’t eat anything that requires packaging, unless it’s for sanitary or storage reasons (seriously, cous cous needs packaging and I don’t want anyone else’s grubby hands on my bread slices).
• Flourescence is not found in nature’s larder.
• If it has a made-up name, it’s a made-up food. Coco Pops, Froot Loops, luncheon meat, and (shudder) BBQ Shapes are not real things. Pasta is thing. Peanut butter is a description. Vegemite is an exception.
• If the packaged, easy convenient version costs five times as much as the basic staple, it’s a rip off. Uncle Ben’s Rice is not rice.
• Young children should be encouraged to enjoy cooking and eating and be allowed to express preferences, but there is a reason that an 8 year old is not allowed to drive a car. Neither should they be allowed to dictate the contents of the shopping trolley.
• It is parents’ responsibility to provide their children with a wide range of healthy foods. Your child’s refusal to eat is a separate issue. Seitahn has an excellent, rhyming rule about how many mouthfuls her kids must try before they’re allowed to say they don’t like it which I can’t remember but which I hope she’ll repeat.

What are your rules? What would you say?   

A little bit about the current state of food law in Victoria, or: I just don't geddit.

Clearly the lack of readily available dairy-free chocolate at the Paris end of Collins Street has made me a leeeedle bit cuh-raaaaayzy. 

I've done some digging, using the host of I-used-to-be-a-lawyer-and-I'm-very-nosy-and-pissed-off skills at my command, and here is my potted summary of the current state of food labelling laws in Victoria in relation to 'may contain traces of' (incidentally, the most recent changes to Victoria's Food Act have to do with the reclassificaiton of food selling outlets. I couldn't find any recent changes which mentioned trace elements. If there are, please feel free to direct me to them). 

And so, an act in ten parts:

1. The principal State Act that controls the sale of food in Victoria is the Food Act 1984 (the Act). Quite funnily, the Act is noted on the DHS website as being "the applicable legislation for ensuring the wholesomeness and purity and standards for food sold in Victoria." Oh giggling! 
   
2. The Act is also the means through which the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code is applied as the law in Victoria (the Code).
   
3. The Code's website contains the following statement in relation to 'may contain traces of':  
   

   "You’ll notice some labels say ‘may contain’ certain allergens, for example ‘may contain nuts. This is put on by the manufacturer who may be concerned that, while nuts aren’t added to the food, traces may be present due, for example, the product having been made on the same equipment as products containing nuts. Allergy consumer support groups are working with the food industry to make these labels more helpful to allergy sufferers."
   

   
   
4. Under Chapter 1 - General Food Standards, Part 1.2- Labelling and Other Information Requirements, the Code has a number of provisions relevant to us.  They are: Standards 1.2.3: Mandatory Warning and Advisory Statements and Declarations, and Standard 1.2.4: Labelling of Ingredients. What does each Standard say that is relevant to us?
   
5. Standard 1.2.3: Mandatory Warning and Advisory Statements and Declarations says that certain substances must be declared on labelling where the substance is present in food as an ingredient, an ingredient of a compound ingredient, a food additive or component of a food additive, or as a processing aid or component of a processing aid.  (In case you're wondering, wine doesn't declare the use of milk solids or isinglass used as a processing aid as it is not longer present in the food). 
6. So what is the definition of 'ingredient'? Standard 1.2.4: Labelling of Ingredients provides the definition used in the Code and therefore also in the Act. It is: "ingredient means any substance, including a food additive, used in the preparation, manufacture or handling of a food".
7. So at this point a person might, quite cleverly, conclude that this all hangs on the definition of ingredient, and that seeing as milk in the formerly dairy-free dark chocolate at Haigh's is not a food additive, or used in the preparation, manufacture or handling of the chocolate, it is therefore not an ingredient. 
8. But then! You may encoutner Standard 1.4.2: Maximum Residue Limits. You might open the attachments. And unless you are a biochemist familiar with residues named SUM OF AVERMECTIN B1A, AVERMECTIN B1B AND (Z)-8,9 AVERMECTIN B1A, AND (Z)-8,9 AVERMECTIN B1B and ACIBENZOLAR-S-METHYL AND ALL METABOLITES CONTAINING THE BENZO[1,2,3]THIADIAZOLE-7-CARBOXYL MOIETY HYDROLYSED TO BENZO[1,2,3]THIADIAZOLE-7-CARBOXYLIC ACID,
   EXPRESSED AS ACIBENZOLAR-S-METHYL and BOSCALID COMMODITIES OF PLANT ORIGIN:  BOSCALID COMMODITIES OF ANIMAL ORIGIN:  SUM OF BOSCALID, 2-CHLORO-N-(4’-CHLORO-5-HYDROXYBIPHENYL-2- YL) NICOTINAMIDE AND THE GLUCURONIDE CONJUGATE OF 2-CHLORO-N-(4’-CHLORO-5- HYDROXYBIPHENYL-2-YL) NICOTINAMIDE, EXPRESSED AS BOSCALID EQUIVALENTS  .... then you too will have no idea what these residues are, let alone whether they affect your beloved dark peppermint chocolate frogs. (Actually, Cindy?)
9. But it remains: subject to the caveat that some of those hoxy-poxy-di-deca-coagulate-thingummywhatsits might indicate a certain trace level of milkiness, milk is not an ingredient in the formerly dairy-free dark chocolate at Haigh's. It does not meet the definition. And what's more, there has been no recent change that I can see to Victoria's food safety laws. Indeed, the Act nominates the Code as being of binding force in Victoria, and the Code notes that allergy groups and manufacturers are currently working together to address the trace element issue. It does not say that too much residue is classed as an ingredient. It does not suggest that the way to address the possibility of too much residue in a product is to simply pop it in the ingredients list. It does not suggest that manufacturers urgently need to change their labelling.
10. 
    
    And if I'm wrong, which I might be; or if this is a contentious matter, which it is; or if I was just a little bit tired and woozy when I wrote this, which I am; or if this, like almost every legal matter, has more than one way of viewing both problem and solution - then why don't we know about it? Why is it so hard to figure this out? Perhaps a friendly biochemist, food technician or food safety lawyer might wish to swing by here to enlighten us. I'm sure we'd all welcome the opportunity to learn more, and I would certainly welcome the possibilty that I might get my dark peppermint frogs back.