For the past few days there has been talk of Oprah Winfrey going vegan for 21 days<\/a> on the advice of author and advisor Kathy Freston and her book Quantum Wellness<\/a> which excludes sugar, gluten, alcohol, meat, chicken, fish, eggs and cheese for a “21 Day Cleanse”.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 Oprah is very influential over people, especially 40-60 year old women.\u00a0\u00a0 This could be good or bad, Oprah could end this at 21 days and make this the new Oprah fad diet.\u00a0 She will choose the book by Freston as her book club book.\u00a0 This will kick of the phase of every 40-something housewife thinking veganism is cool without looking at the longterm benefits only to stop at the 21 day mark. \u00a0 Maybe I am wrong and Oprah will come to the end point only to realize how good this is for her and continue. \u00a0 Either way it is good that veganism is getting the attention it needs. \u00a0 Tofu will start flying off the shelves once Oprah gets started.\u00a0 I have seen more than once the past day or so someone stating “Oprah goes Vegan!”, if you take vegan to mean absolutely no animal products then they are not making a true statement.\u00a0 Oprah is still wearing leather.\u00a0 She is wearing silk. \u00a0 Nowhere has she stated she has gone vegan, just a vegan diet.\u00a0 So those people should say “Oprah Eats Vegan!”, not that she consumes a vegan but, well, you understand and I am being picky.\u00a0 So, to put it the proper way, “Oprah has decided to eat vegan for three weeks.”\u00a0 Does this mean vegan chefs will appear for the next three weeks on Oprah?\u00a0 Vegan guests?<\/p>\n

Oprah’s blog<\/a> has a link to recipes for “The 21-day Cleanse”.\u00a0 One recipe, Artichoke and Oyster Mushroom Rockefeller<\/a>, has alcohol listed as an ingredient.\u00a0 Oversight?<\/p>\n

Hopefully, Oprah will be able to educate people about the advantages of a vegan diet.\u00a0 And maybe she’ll be able to stick with it beyond 21 days.<\/p>\n

Also making the rounds for the last week is an article at Slate written by a vegetarian .\u00a0 The writer talks of going vegetarian at 18 and announcing it to the cringes of friends and family. \u00a0 While the article can be entertaining he has one glaring point that I am in disagreement with.\u00a0 When mentioning bacon and whether he craves bacon he says:<\/p>\n

“We’re not insane<\/em>. We know <\/em>meat tastes good; it’s why there’s a freezer case at your supermarket full of woefully inadequate meat substitutes.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No, I don’t think or know<\/em> meat tastes good, and I am not insane.\u00a0 Don’t speak for all of us.\u00a0 That is the most asinine\u00a0 statement I have heard in some time.\u00a0\u00a0 If he thinks the substitutes are inadequate then why is he bothering with them?\u00a0 Also, he needs to look a little harder as there are some great items that he apparently hasn’t found.\u00a0 There are some good points in the rest of his little essay but that one rubs me wrong.<\/p>\n

On the cooking front I haven’t made anything groundbreaking.\u00a0 I did make stir-fry last night using whole wheat spaghetti in place of udon noodles.\u00a0 It works quite well. \u00a0 Just cook the spaghetti until still tough and uncooked in the middle, not quite al dente, drain and fry along with your veggies in sesame oil and the seasoning you prefer.\u00a0 I used Chinese Five Spice sauce of which I bought about five jars of on my last trip to Trader Joe’s.\u00a0\u00a0 Five spice is overall my favorite Chinese sauce and I have made it myself but the Trader Joe’s version works well. \u00a0 If you do decide to make your own you will need star anise, Szechuan peppercorns, cinnamon, cloves and fennel.\u00a0 Some variations alternate fennel for ginger.\u00a0 The basic recipe I use:<\/p>\n

2 Star Anise<\/p>\n

1 TSP Cinnamon<\/p>\n

1 TSP Fennel<\/p>\n

2 TSP Szechuan Peppercorns<\/p>\n

1 TSP Cloves<\/p>\n

Heat the Szechuan peppercorns in a dry pan for about 3 minutes over medium-high heat until you can smell the aroma.\u00a0 Place all of the spices in a grinder and grind to a fine powder.\u00a0 This makes enough for one use usually. \u00a0 You can make in bulk and store tightly covered.\u00a0 To make a sauce from the spice mixture add 1\/4 cup brown sugar, 2 tablespoons of soy sauce or tamari, 2 tablespoons orange juice and 1\/2 cup of water in a pan along with the spice mixture and heat until the sugar is dissolved and the sauce thickens a bit.<\/p>\n

Now off you go to Whole Foods for some Szechuan peppercorns and be sure to watch out for Oprah fans in the tofu aisle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the past few days there has been talk of Oprah Winfrey going vegan for 21 days on the advice of author and advisor Kathy Freston and her book Quantum Wellness which excludes sugar, gluten, alcohol, meat, chicken, fish, eggs and cheese for a “21 Day Cleanse”.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 Oprah is very influential over people, especially […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,79,9],"tags":[537,536,470],"class_list":["post-184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chinese-five-spice","category-oprah","category-recipes","tag-chinese-five-spice","tag-oprah","tag-recipes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nashveggie.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nashveggie.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nashveggie.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nashveggie.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nashveggie.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/nashveggie.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":484,"href":"http:\/\/nashveggie.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184\/revisions\/484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nashveggie.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nashveggie.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nashveggie.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}