advice sought on buying a plot to farm self-sufficiently & live on

Which in my case is about 2 slices of Marmite toast.

Nightjar

Yes, but this belongs in a completely different newsgroup ;-)

Newness equals rightness - now that does sound like propaganda :-)

You said it was "extremely hard" for vegans to avoid malnutrition, giving B12 as your main example, and now we're discussing whether it's 3 or 4 slices of marmite on toast a day that will do the job!

Other products that vegans consume a lot of also contain B12, such as soya mince. (The type I use has a protein content of 50%, much higher than meat, if anyone's interested. Yes OK, not as high as locusts).

You said it was extremely hard for vegans to avoid malnutrition. Now we're talking about a tiny proportion of people who have a certain medical problem?

Michael

No, its impossible, but that doesn't stop people deluding themselves.

Roughens my bum, that's what!

Oh I already do *that*! :-)

Yes OK on your definition. I wasn't trying to advocate any lifestyle, social solution, eco ideology or whatever.

Michael

It comes from a factory, a factory where none vegans work, therefore animals have been exploited to make marmite. You can also be sure they employ mouse killers and insect killers, not really a vegan product, but none are if you actually get down to it.

Nothing that smells that bad when cooking can possibly be fit for human consumption. Small sprigs picked daily from the garden are just about edible doused with butter and salt, but the giant stumps they sell in supermarkets are just evil.

My big love is dried fruit. You know it's picked only when fully ripened and, without the water, it can be shipped cheaply at any time of year. Makes more sense to me than flying unripe, tasteless fruit halfway across the world.

Not even with 90% cheese content?

I'm not a vegan, but I'm happy to let vegans define what a vegan is.

Michael

Orkneys probably .... and on current form several Greek Islands

I cook it for 6 minutes in a microwave steamer. It smells fine to me, but if you really don't like something, I suppose even the slightest hint of it is awful.

I also like dried fruit. Apricots are a particular favourite, also that good old fallback, California raisins.

I have relatives in South Africa. When I was a kid, they used to send us a large box of crystallised fruit each Christmas - they never posted early, so it used to arrive in February. But it was exquisite, with each fruit looking like a scaled down version of itself, which of course it was - dried and sweetened. Probably expensive.

The relative who used to send them died when I was about 20 so I haven't tasted them for 35 years. But there is a South African owned shop near me. My wife often calls in there for some of the unusual food and snacks they have. A couple of weeks ago she brought home some fruit sweets. They were thin, flat squares of what looked like jelly, but as soon as I tasted them I realised they were made from the same crystallised fruit I have loved as a child. Delicious!

I must admit I had a girlfriend who made wonderful cauliflower cheese. She used lots of strong cheese and also had the most beautiful eyes, which helped me forget completely that I was eating cauliflower. She could have fed me almost anything ... and probably did. Sigh. ;-)

My children used to say (correctly) that I was the only person they knew who made pink cauliflower cheese - with yellow cheese. Add enough cayenne and even that becomes interesting ....

Regards, Nick Maclaren.

Although I'm not a fan of cauliflower, I do make cauliflower cheese for other people because it is such a quick, cheap and popular meal. I have made it with Double Gloucester and also with a mixture of white and blue Stilton. My usual recipe, which goes down well with guests, includes mature cheddar and lots of garlic, topped with grated mature cheddar and finished off under the grill.

If guests haven't had this dish with me before, they tend to exchange puzzled glances when they realise I am going to eat something completely different. ;-)

If I was a vegan and a pigeon had a heart attack and died at my feet, would I be allowed to eat it?

I like it quite strong myself ;-)

You would probably be depriving some fleas or mites of a host, so no.

Owain

Then switch to natex (available in health food shops) and reduce your salt intake at the same time. I am told it doesn't have any salt in it at all.

Dave

FWIW, I'm vegetarian but not vegan and while I don't take milk (preferring the soya alternative), I eat eggs and various foods that contain milk products. The reasons I don't want to keep livestock include wanting to minimise the extent to which officialdom may poke its nose in, and also because I've still got a lot to learn about agriculture! :-) However my wife may be able to persuade me at some point that having a cow would be worthwhile to supply milk for cheese- making...

Michael

What about romanescu cauliflower which is at least green? :-)

Michael