Vegetarian Recipe - Artichokes stuffed with wild mushrooms and mascarpone

by Celia Brooks Brown from Saturday KitchenServes 4
Preparation time less than 30 mins
Cooking time 30 mins to 1 hour

Ingredients4 large fresh globe artichokes1 tbsp butter2 cloves garlic, chopped300g/10oz mixed wild mushrooms, especially morels, chanterelles and ceps, cleaned and chopped into small chunks2 tsp fresh thyme or lemon thyme leaves80ml/3fl oz vermouth150g/6oz mascarpone cheesesalt and pepper25g/1oz pecans, crusheda handful of flat-leaf parsley leaves, chopped1 potato, boiled and mashedolive oilvinegar
Method1. Bring a large pan of water to the boil for the artichokes. Add a good glug of both vinegar and olive oil to the water and plenty of salt.2. To prepare the artichokes, snap off the stem and slice about a third off the top. Pull out what you can from the middle and use a spoon to scoop out all of the hairy choke. Place in the boiling water and cook until tender, about 30-40 minutes. They are done when a leaf pulled from toward the centre comes away without resistance. Drain upside-down until dry. Preheat the oven to 220C/400F/Gas 6.3. To make the stuffing, melt the butter on moderate heat in a wide frying pan and add the mushrooms, garlic and thyme with a sprinkling of salt and pepper. When they have absorbed the butter and begin to soften, pour in the vermouth and cook, stirring, until it has mostly evaporated. Finally, stir in the mascarpone. Allow it to melt and coat everything with its sweet creaminess.4. Spoon into the middle of the drained artichokes. Sprinkle with crushed pecans and bake for about 10 minutes, until heated through and golden on top. Finish with chopped parsley before serving. When eating, use the leaves of the artichoke to scoop out the creamy filling. Serve on a bed of mashed potato.

BBC News | Organic food 'proven' healthier

Monday, 3 January, 2000

Researchers say there is now firm evidence that organically-grown produce is healthier to eat than conventional crops.

The Soil Association, the group which campaigns for organic farming, has told BBC Radio 4's Costing the Earth programme that organic crops contain more nutrients.

Conventional farming: "Devitalising our food"

Director Patrick Holden said research has shown that they contain more secondary metabolites than conventionally-grown plants.

Secondary metabolites are substances which form part of plants' immune systems, and which also help to fight cancer in humans.

Mr Holden said organic crops also have a measurably higher level of vitamins, and that this can benefit people who eat them.

By contrast, he said, "intensive farming is devitalising our food".

Mr Holden said the research, from Denmark and Germany, would be presented in the UK at the association's conference on organic food on 8 January.

Vegetarianism is a way to combat world hunger

According to Harvard nutritionist, Jean Mayer a 10% reduction in meat production would result in the release of enough grain to feed 60 million additional people.

If the land that is used to raise livestock for food and the grains that are needed to feed the livestock went instead toward raising food for humans, there would be more than enough food to feed every human being in the world. For example, twenty acres used to raise a cow provide less than a tenth of the protein twenty acres used to grow soybeans provide.

Ethical reasons for becoming a vegetarian

The green pastures and idyllic barnyard scenes of years past are now distant memories. On today’s factory farms, animals are crammed by the thousands into filthy windowless sheds, wire cages, gestation crates, and other confinement systems. These animals will never raise their families, root in the soil, build nests, or do anything that is natural to them. They won’t even feel the sun on their backs or breathe fresh air until the day they are loaded onto trucks bound for slaughter.

Animals on today’s factory farms have no legal protection from cruelty that would be illegal if it were inflicted on dogs or cats: neglect, mutilation, genetic manipulation, and drug regimens that cause chronic pain and crippling, transport through all weather extremes, and gruesome and violent slaughter. Yet farmed animals are no less intelligent or capable of feeling pain than are the dogs and cats we cherish as companions.

The factory farming system of modern agriculture strives to maximize output while minimizing costs. Cows, calves, pigs, chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, and other animals are kept in small cages, in jam-packed sheds, or on filthy feedlots, often with so little space that they can’t even turn around or lie down comfortably. They are deprived of exercise so that all their bodies’ energy goes toward producing flesh, eggs, or milk for human consumption.

They are fed drugs to fatten them faster and to keep them alive in conditions that would otherwise kill them, and they are genetically altered to grow faster or to produce much more milk or eggs than they would naturally. Many animals become crippled under their own weight and die within inches of water and food.

While the suffering of all animals on factory farms is similar, each type of farmed animal faces different types of cruelty. (goveg.com)

Can vegetarians get enough protein?

Absolutely!

The Food and Nutrition Board of the National Academy of Sciences sets the protein requirements at 6%
The World Health Organization sets protein requirements at 4.5%
The National Research Council sets protein requirements at 8%

The protein content of most plant foods is higher that what is generally known. The following represents the percentages of calories from protein according to the USDA Agriculture Handbook No 456

LEGUMES:
highest: soybean sprouts 54%
lentils 29%
split peas 28%
lowest: garbanzo beans 23%

VEGETABLES:
highest: spinach 49%
broccoli 45%
mushrooms 38%
green pepper 22%
lowest: sweet potatoes 6%

GRAINS:
highest: wheat germ 31%
lowest: brown rice 8%

FRUITS:
highest: lemons 16%
lowest: apples 1%

NUTS AND SEEDS:
highest: pumkin seeds 21%
lowest: filberts 8%

Therefore most vegetables are over the highest recommended rate of 8%.

Note that the strongest animals in nature are all vegetarians. ex. rhinos, elephants, gorillas, bulls...

Does a vegetarian diet provide us with all the nutrients we need?

Yes it does.

A vegetarian diet can provide us with all the nutrients needed by the human body including vitamin B12 which generally comes from animal sources. This is because vitamin B12 can be obtained from milk and from cheese which vegetarians eat as opposed to vegans who eat no animal products at all. (vegetarians only avoid eating meat and eggs). Note that I'm not promoting a vegan diet on this blog.

Also please note that everyone (including meat eaters) would benefit from taking a vitamin B12 supplement as well as many other supplements I will be discussing on this blog. This is because soil depletion caused by modern farming methods and by pollution have depleted the food we eat of much of it's nutritional value.

Ed

Health benefits of eating a vegetarian diet

Vegetarians have reduced rates of obesity, diet-related cancers, hypertension, type II diabetes, coronary heart disease, gall stones and constipation.

The percentage of pesticide residues in the US diet due to grains, fruits and vegetables consumption is less than eleven percent. The percentage of pesticide residues in the US diet due meat consumption is 55.

A few famous vegetarians

Albert Einstein, Dalai Lama, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Plato, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire, Leonardo da Vinci, Leo Tolstoy, Benjamin Franklin, Socrates, Sir Isaac Newton, Mahatma Gandhi, Tagore, Charles Darwin, George Bernard Shaw, Pythagoras, Buddha, Dick Gregory, St. Francis...

More evidence that humans are not natural meat eaters

Humans and vegetarian animals perspire through pores on their skin while meat eaters have no pores on their skin and perspire through their tongues. (think of Fido when he's tired after running after the ball.)

Humans and vegetarian animals have alkaline saliva while meat eaters have acid saliva.

Humans and vegetarian animals have weak stomach acid (not needed to digest animal product) while meat eaters have very strong stomach acid.

Our early ancestors were mostly vegetarians

Early humans ate mostly fruits, vegetables and nuts. They ate very little meat. That's why they didn't evolve with the big canine teeth and claws of carnivorous animals. Instead, they developed molars similar to those of vegetarian animals and fragile nails.

Human digestive systems are long and complex like those of vegetarian animals (ten to twelve times the length of the body). Carnivorous animals have short digestive systems because flesh decays very rapidly and can cause toxins which can poison the bloodstream (about three times the length of the body).

Vegetarian animals drink by sucking water up while meat eaters drink by lapping it up with their tongues.

A person would find it very difficult to eat meat unless it's cooked unlike carnivorous animals. On the other hand we can eat fruits, vegetables and nuts without preparation.

A meat diet has been shown by Dr. William Collins, of New York Maimonedes Medical Center, to have very harmful effects on vegetarian animals because of their difficulty in handling saturated fats and cholesterol.

Welcome to the eNutritionNews Blog

Welcome to the eNutritionNews Blog! My name's Ed Marin and I'd like to invite you to join me for some lively and informative chat about...yep, you guessed it...nutrition!

I'll be posting regularly about vegetarianism, organic foods, supplements, weight loss and many other subjects relating to nutrition.

And don't forget to leave me a comment and contribute to some useful and fun chat!