Think! Eat! Act!: A Sea Shepherd Chef's Vegan Recipes
192
Think! Eat! Act!: A Sea Shepherd Chef's Vegan Recipes
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781621066668 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Microcosm Publishing |
| Publication date: | 07/01/2014 |
| Series: | Vegan Cooking Series |
| Pages: | 192 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.30(d) |
About the Author
Raffaella Tolicetti joined Sea Shepherd as a vegan cook in July 2010. Since then she has participated in three Antarctica anti-whaling campaigns, one Faroe campaign against the grind of pilot whales and one bluefin tuna defense campaign in the Mediterranean. She has been chief cook on board three different ships, the Steve Irwin, the Bob Barker and now the Sam Simon. Raffa has been vegan for over three years and was vegetarian for another four before that, although she thinks she was born vegetarian and forced fed meat and fish and eggs and milk.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
I became a cook a bit by chance. I used to cook for myself and my friends after moving away from home when I turned eighteen. I liked it but was never really passionate about it. Then I finished my university degree and decided to join one of Sea Shepherd's ships, which at the time was sailing in the Mediterranean after a blue-fin tuna defense campaign. I was helping on deck but two days after I arrived, the person in charge of the cooking told me that she actually hated cooking, and asked if I could take her spot. I developed a passion for cooking because it became a way for me to express my philosophy about ethics and animals to a lot of people and show them that you can have a beautiful and wide range of food exactly as with any other traditional diet. I also discovered how creative I could be with my hands, and after six years of studying books and theories it felt great to be able to put out something of my own that wouldn't be hand written on a piece of paper.
Back when I was 19, I became vegetarian because I couldn't bear the idea of an animal dying so I could eat it — it just didn't feel right. Since I was a kid I remember fighting against the force-feeding of meat and fish, especially when I could recognize the dead body on my plate. It disgusted me. It took me a few more years to understand the slavery behind animal exploitation, not only for their meat or their skin, but also for their milk, or for their bodies to be tested on. Everything became clear to me when I understood that it is not so much a question of whether our behavior and our habits are legal or not, but whether they are moral or not, and I do not believe that anyone can justify the slaughter and sufferance of billions of animals more easily than injustice in matters of gender equality or human rights.
There are many ways of refusing oppression and cooking is one, because choosing your food is definitely a "political" act. Choosing not to eat animals, not to be part of a system that exploits them, growing your food, or eating organic and local food are many small decisions that make a lot of difference for those who are killed as a consequence of our behavior.
The intent of this book is to make the connection between the food we eat and the ethics that we want to defend. The recipes are complementary to the other parts and couldn't exist without a reflexion on veganism or on activism. Cooking is fun and should definitely be thought of as a pleasure activity, but the simple decision of what to cook is strictly linked to a conscious choice that cannot be ignored.
Many times I have had discussions with my friends or family that in theory agree with most of my beliefs but think it is too difficult to be vegan, or do not fully understand. This book is an attempt to explain the reasons for being vegan, how to be vegan, and what is behind — not only the food, but the activism.
I hope it can help some people open their eyes, as much as it helped me in the past to read books and learn about the cruelty behind the curtains, the one that we don't want to see because it is too painful to admit it even exists.
I believe that if everyone tries their best, things can change and improve, so this is my little contribution!
Cooked and Rammed
Cooking on a boat is challenging. Cooking while sailing in Antarctica's rough weather is even more challenging. Cooking while being rammed by a ship eight times as big as yours, in the coldest seas of the planet, brings the challenge to a whole new level. But if all of this is possible, it means that there is nothing as simple as cooking a vegan meal at home.
During the anti-whaling campaign Operation Zero Tolerance, the plan was for our ships to obstruct the illegal refueling of the whaling fleet with their contracted tanker. That way, cutting the source of their energy, we could force them to go back home early in the season, killing as few whales as possible.
But the whaling fleet wasn't going to let us do that, and as tension grew, their factory ship, the Nisshin Maru, collided with us several times in an apparent effort to demolish us so they could go on with their illegal operation.
Every time we got hit it was coincidentally an hour or so before serving a meal, which is the rush time in the galley, so both times we got rammed. I was cooking. The dead lights shut down and there was no possibility of seeing what was happening; the only clues were coming from the bangs that I could hear from outside. As a further coincidence, both collisions happened on the portside stern and on midship, right where the galley is located.
Being rammed by another ship is a scary thought, as you can never be too sure what the damages are going to be until the collision is over, and you do not have a big picture of what is happening. You are just focused on trying to be safe and to make sure that no water is coming in. After taking a few seconds to realize what was actually happening, I turned off all of the electrical equipment, checking that everything was tied down really well, and then went upstairs to sea level. Despite the confusion, it's a moment where everyone and every gesture has to be extremely clear and efficient — you don't want to lose precious seconds in obstructing the deckies and the engineers that are making sure that the boat is still afloat.
Going outside to check the damages, the paradox of the situation hit me vividly. Actions tend to happen on the most beautiful days, when the whaling fleet could get the chance to refuel; an operation possible only in calm seas. All around us is a landscape that inspires serenity and calm, and yet I am as far away as possible from being serene. In between growlers and icebergs, under the striking sun that is almost warm when the wind stops blowing, I can see the monstrous steel floating machine that hit us. In my mind, the ship is a living creature, roaring and steaming with uncontrollable rage and anger; and every time I think of it afterwards, I recall a deadly figure coming out of the ugliest nightmare. I cannot distinguish clearly between the men on board and the ship itself, as they all form one body, surreal, meant to destroy by any means.
And yet we still cook; food is as important as the rest of the efforts during the action, as it brings warmth, energy, and strength. No need to eat animal products to feel strong. The food we cook is vegan because it is a statement that we do not need to make other beings suffer to accomplish our desires, as much as we do not need to destroy the environment to make our way through life.
Neither the whalers nor us are people living in an isolated self-sufficient society relying on animals for their own survival. We can live without cruelty that is unnecessary; we have evolved as a species to a point where we cannot talk about eating animals as part of our survival. We eat animals to satisfy our desires and because we can dominate them easily with our modern technology, affirming our supremacy and our will to reign over everyone and everything. This is true from human to human too; but we have slowly built laws to forbid slavery, gender and ethnic discrimination, or violence against each other. It still happens and probably always will, but the fact that we have created institutions to protect us from each other is a sign of our internal battle, to elevate ourselves to a higher morale where our murder instincts are tempered by reason. Why shouldn't we apply that same logic where animals are concerned? Cruelty is the act of making another being suffer for no rational reason (self defense, survival instinct, etc). Within that definition, animals suffer as much as humans; and the meat, fishing, and dairy industries are responsible for the biggest slaughters that have ever happened on Earth.
It doesn't matter whether we are more intelligent than pigs and cows and tigers and ants (which we are not if you measure intelligence by the relationship you have to your ecosystem). Basing compassion on intelligence is opening the door to the most dangerous theories. What about a kid, with an IQ lower than an adult? What about an adult itself with a low IQ? Do they deserve to die from our hands because they look inferior to our eyes and thus less valuable?
We are the only species that have taken the law of the strongest as the law of the meanest. Animals kill each other in the wild because they need to eat; animals do not slaughter and eradicate another species for the sake of doing it and how it feels to do it. Animals still hunt the same ways they were thousands of years ago; they haven't invented weapons of mass destruction that can not only kill them all, but also kill us all. We invented the animal "industry." Scientific research is based on massive killing, domestication, and slavery on a scale that kills billions each year. We overkill, waste, destroy, all in the name of human progress. ...
Well, the real progress is to acknowledge our evolution and recognize that we can, and we should, live on vegetarian and vegan diets and survive ... and even more, feel better!
Vegan Facts
Being vegan means refusing to see animals merely as a product for us to use, and not supporting animal cruelty
(as much as refusing human cruelty — we are animals too). It means not consuming animal by-products for food as well as for clothing, cosmetic, medicine, and other consumption.
There are different viewpoints on what's vegan, and every individual should make a decision with their own conscience about what is the right behavior to have towards the Earth, animals, and other beings. The point of vegan outreach is not to impose anything, but to give an alternate view and emphasize the importance and impact of our daily choices. It's not about being the perfect vegan; it's about using our brain in an independent way to make actions that are not harmful towards animals, humans, and the earth.
It is important to underline that I am talking as a "westerner" — someone who can get access to an infinite range of choices, without having to worry about whether I'll have food on my plate tomorrow. I am aware of my luck and that this book can only reach certain people, but I do believe that a conscious choice of diet, like veganism, where food is distributed more properly, is one of the solutions to world hunger. There are more than 850 million people that are under-nourished in the world but a lot of food is wasted, and entire fields are purposed for only feeding animals — the same animals that are destined to feed westerners. Due to the industrialization of intensive farming, there is a growing need for space in farmland, causing the expropriation and displacement of millions of people. The use of heavy pesticides and chemical products in modern agriculture causes soil erosion and desertification in many areas, which are now infertile and polluted.
On the next page is a list of facts to illustrate how much cruelty animal consumption induces and how by stop eating animals we could start to redistribute food equally.
The vocabulary used is taken from official data and reflects the idea that animals are only tools for use and abuse as much as any other "thing" without a soul. I have kept it to show the materialism that is behind most of the studies, which do not aim to respect animals but are worried about how humankind will face the lack of resources if we continue on this path of exponential growth. Thinking of fish as "stock" or cows as "cattle," shows no consideration for life as an individuality but merely as a mass production commodity.
Thanks to my friend Susan for helping me put the facts together.
-Animals of the Sea-
The exploitation of the oceans and the animals of the sea can be seen with two different perspectives, which can be illustrated through different facts.
The first perspective is that animals of the sea are divided in people's mind. Mammals are mostly considered sentient beings while the other sea creatures are seen as ours to be consumed and exploited.
Fish are often considered "non-animals" and sometimes offered as a vegetarian option. The fact that fishes are counted in tons and not as individuals is a clear indication of how little they are considered a sentient being that can feel pain and suffer.
The second perspective is the more global approach to the ocean's exploitation and destruction, which includes large-scale fisheries, poaching, over fishing, but also pollution, over traffic, and destruction of the habitat, which altogether leads to a serious threat of extinction and desertification of the sea.
• About 100 million sharks are killed each year. That's approximately 275,000 per day, the equivalent of the entire population of a medium city, with 1 out of 15 sharks getting killed by fisheries.
• It is estimated that at least 90 to 100 million tons of fishes are killed every year. The Food and Agriculture Organization estimates the annual catch for 2011 to be 154 millions tons (both from capture and aquaculture), of which 131 are destined for human consumption.
• In the past 50 years we have eaten more than 90% of the big fishes. The world fish food supply has grown dramatically in the last five decades, with an average growth rate of 3.2 percent per year from 1961–2009, outpacing the increase of 1.7 percent per year in the world's population.
• 60 to 75% of the world's fisheries are fully or over-exploited
• Sonar in the oceans is the cause of death to many cetaceans, provoking damages to the tissues, to the livers and kidneys which leads to decompression sickness which is fatal to many sea animals
• 80% of the coral reef has disappeared due to overfishing and land-derived pollution since the beginning of the 20th century
• Bluefin tuna, a top predator of the sea, have been reduced by more than 82 percent. The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) estimates that as few as 25,000 individual mature Bluefin tuna remain, although the proposal to ban its international trade as an endangered species has been rejected. Among the seven principal tuna species, one-third are estimated to be over-exploited.
• The disappearance of the predators of the sea leads to a threat to the ecosystem with the uncontrollable growth of algae, jellyfish, or smaller fishes, causing an "ecological imbalance."
• Six species of turtles are listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. Each year, more than 250,000 endangered Loggerhead and Leatherback turtles are caught by long-lines worldwide.
• Krill (both as an oil and as a meal) is food for many animals and therefore harvested for fish farming. It is also used by human consumption for its oil. It is hard to find global data, as commercial operations only exist for Antarctic krill, caught in one of the most pristine and fragile environment of the world. In 2007, 118,124 tons were caught around Antarctica.
• About 25% of fish caught are considered "by-catch" and thrown back dead into the sea, mainly because driftnets, which are up to 50 km long, catch anything from small species to big cetaceans like dolphins, and are extremely devastating for marine wildlife as a result. Driftnets are banned on high seas and their size is limited on other seas but the lack of ability to police their use globally allows fisherman to still use them heavily around the globe.
• Farmed fish, or aquaculture, consume 53% of the fish population. It takes about three kg of fish to feed one kg of farmed salmon, and the ratio rises to twenty to one for tuna. Out of 200, eight of the farmed species use 62% of the total fish food.
• Farmed fish are food for many land-farmed animals, as "animal feed." But farmed fishes also rely on terrestrial animal protein meals and oils, leading to a situation where we farm land animals for aquaculture and farm water animals for factory farming.
• In the last three decades aquaculture has expanded by almost 264%. About 600 species are raised in captivity in 190 different countries for production in the farming system
• Long-line is another cruel and wasteful fishing method. It is made of a line with baited hooks all the way down, and it stays in the sea until the fishermen come back later to retrieve its victims. Used mainly for catching medium fishes, the long-lines kill seabirds, turtles, and sharks by the thousands.
-Animals on Land-
Number of Animals Killed
• Worldwide: (by weight) 2011: 297 million tons
• United States: (by head count): 2012/approximately 9 billion
*this number does not include rabbits or horses, as the United States Department of Agriculture (the body that regulates animal agriculture in the U.S.) does not keep track of those numbers.
Meat Consumption
• Worldwide: (on average) 42.3 kilos (93.3 pounds)
• United States: 200 pounds each year per person, roughly half-pound per day, 52 billion pounds total
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Think! Eat! Act!"
by .
Copyright © 2014 Raffaella Tolicetti.
Excerpted by permission of Microcosm Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
THINK,
INTRODUCTION,
COOKED AND RAMMEO,
VEGAN FACTS,
ANIMALS OF THE SEA,
ANIMALS ON LAND,
ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF ANIMAL AGRICULTURE,
GARDENING RESISTANCE,
COOKING FACTS,
EAT,
FIRST COURSE,
PASTA,
MAIN DISHES,
SOUPS,
BREADS,
DESSERTS,
RANDOM,
ACT,
SEA SHEPHERD CONSERVATION SOCIETY,
INTERVIEW WITH TOMMY KNOWLES,
INTERVIEW WITH MARLEY DAVIDUK,
INTERVIEW WITH JORDAN CROOKE,
THE HUNT SABOTEURS ASSOCIATION,
SUPPORT VEGAN PRISONERS,
INDEX,
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS,