The Future of Meat ( And the art of vegan whipped cream)

What is it about the phrase 'vegan food' that makes us think about fresh fruit and cardboard salads? Naw man, there is a ton of junk-vegan food too. And this is only to say this: going vegan doesn't mean you eat vegetables all day (although some do, do what you need to yo).

This pop-culture understanding of veganism is kind of a problem though. It really confuses people and derails veganism from promoting something far more important : That we now have the technology to make substitutes for all those 'familiar tastes and foods'. We don't need animal products to make food we are used to. And the more willing non-vegans are to support the market the bigger impact we'll make.

It doesn't take all of us to go vegan in order to change the reality of animal cruelty today. It definitely is a the best thing you can do environmentally right now. It definitely is the best way to illustrate your non-coolness with the epic amount of cruelty factory farming sustains.

That said,  to make at-scale change, I'd rather encourage more people know about substitutes and how supporting and willing to change a few things can create much less impact on animals. Why? Because I think it can make all of us come together for one cause: getting rid of factory farming.

Ditching dairy for plant-based mylks and following up on the latest on lab meat and plant-based meat trends (google The Impossible Burger) should be on the minds of all os us urban folk. My favourite vegan activist, Tobias Leenaert (The Vegan Strategist)  just put up a selfie with a man named Mark Post. Mark Post is not a vegan but he is the inventor of Clean Meat. This could revolutionise the way we eat chicken and make incredible impact on factory farming. So it's not just about veganism but the ability to invest, research, and support people who are doing amaze-balls things like this. These are the things that are going to at scale change our behaviours and keep us more conscious about what we eat. This is what Tobias posted along with the picture down below:

'With Mark Post (tall Dutch guy), the inventor of clean meat. He expects it can be on the market in three years!
Mark is not a vegan but he may yet help the animals more than a million vegans combined :) Everybody can help animals, vegan or not.'

Tobias (Left) and Mark Post (Inventor of Clean Meat) Photo Courtesy: Tobias Leeneart

One day eating actual animals instead of lab meat will raise eyebrows. That day shall come, I am sure of it. Not in the very near future. But we all can be a part of that journey if we are willing to keep up with this kind of information and then act on it.


Back to my starting point. We are already at the point (not mass available, especially not in india) where we can drink milkshakes and chomp on creamy cupcakes, fried 'chicken', 'beef' burgers, and Tiramisu that are  vegan. Basically we can make anything vegan- and that should be the point. The point is not eating vegetables ( I love most vegetables btw), the point should be why make our food by torturing animals when we can start supporting spaces making those same 'ingredients' vegan?

The simple act of us committing to support one plant-based business by ordering Plant based *Mylk ,  vegan curd/yogurt, or  vegan meat can help us scale up and create a larger demand for this. That means we'll see results in our lifetime, where dairy industries and meat industries start creating more plant-based food options.

*Mylk is the spelling we use for plant-based mylks. So the 'milk' made out of things like like cashew, almond, soy, coconut, oat and even rice. 

This will start lowering the demand on mindless dairy and meat consumption that has gotten us to this reality in the first place. Remember this: America is the leader when it comes to factory farming. To get to this very sad reality they have normalised eating meat, dairy and eggs everyday, at every meal, and at crazy proportions. America's health crises and massive cruelty is there for all of us to witness in real time. Urban india is going right into the same capitalistic arms. Our own parents ate way less meat and dairy then we do today, and it's all because of the market telling us we need more of it.

 Rethinking how everyday foods can be easily replaced can help us create a new ethical norm- where we use familiar ingredients that are not from animals.

So obviously now I have to relate this blabber to cooking/baking because contrary to my own belief this is a food blog. Here's a quick post about non-dairy whipping cream and how I made cake with it, and how it tastes like any other sugar-bomb cake. Just to make a point. That we can eat everything we're used to and still move into a new ethical way of dealing with our raw materials.

So I used Rich's cream that is non-dairy and vegan (blue box). It has to be kept frozen and thawed out hours before you use it. I got myself a hand mixer at Croma, weird I hadn't needed one till now. So I dumped like 3 cups ( made way too much, I was a whipped cream virgin) and then started the mixer on slow and went up to the middle speed. After a minute I threw in about a quarter cup of powdered sugar (note Rich's cream is already sweet). A couple pointers on whipping non-dairy cream.

Stabilise it Baby

You need to mix/whip your cream for about 7-8 minutes with a couple of breaks. Now to stabilize the whipped cream and to keep it all fluffy on the cake for the next 24 hours you need something to hold it together. It's simple, I just used corn starch. So after you've used your mixer to whip the cream for about 3 minutes start to shake in some corn starch. I used about 1/4th cup (For 3-3.5 cups of liquid cream). Don't dump the whole amount of corn starch in one go. Shake in parts of it over a couple of minutes. You will know your cream is all whipped when you can turn your bowl over and the whipped cream won't fall off. Don't do this literally because, um, it might all plop out. But you get the idea.

I also used blue gel colour. Just a like 2 drops (it's a powerful colouring agent this gel thing) - put those drops in mid-way. You can fill the cream in the piping bag and stick it in the refrigerator till you are ready to pipe it onto your cake/cupcakes. You can also just use a knife to spread it all over your cake ( I did both)

I made a regular vanilla cake, let it cool for 40 minutes, then split it in half. I spread a thick layer of chocolate ganache (cocoa powder, 4 tablespoons os coconut mylk, 1/2 cup of powdered sugar, a splash of water heated up till it's all sticky) on both the insides of the cake then sandwiched it together and topped the entire cake off with whipped cream.

Had some for breakfast today (totally not a healthy way to start your morning but meh) and it was so so good. Just like the birthday cakes of my childhood.

Let's differentiate between health and ethics. You want to eat healthy? You can do it both on a non-vegan and vegan diet. Want to do it unhealthily? Same thing applies. The question we should be asking ourselves is this: what's one actionable I can do right now to promote and support a plant-based substitute? Because one choice today can create exponential results tomorrow.

Leaving you fine people with some links on the future of vegan foods and lab meat:



http://www.itv.com/news/2017-02-27/scientists-set-sights-on-bringing-lab-grown-meat-to-the-supermarket/

http://www.nbcnews.com/mach/innovation/lab-grown-meat-may-save-lot-more-farm-animals-lives-n743091

http://www.onegreenplanet.org/vegan-food/why-the-future-of-artisanal-cheese-is-vegan/

Till next time!