DAY 5
Eggs MAKE BABIES, NOT Breakfast
GOAL FOR THE DAY: Turn an egg-based meal into a scrumptious vegan delight.
I loved Sunday mornings so much as a little girl because that’s the day we’d always have my favorite breakfast: French crepes! I wasn’t allowed to watch my mom turn them over in the pan, though, because the perfect flip required intense concentration, and if I was watching, my mom would lose her focus and they’d invariably fall apart. So I knew the drill: if crepes were about to be flipped, I had to run out of the kitchen.
I was allowed to watch my mom make the batter, though. She’d whisk together all the basics: eggs, milk, flour, a dash of salt, and her special little addition of juice from a fresh-squeezed orange. One day, however, I noticed something strange about the egg she had just cracked as it sunk into the pile of flour. There were two little odd-shaped white things dangling about the yolk, and they didn’t look like something you were supposed to eat. “What’s that?” I asked. Trying to deflect my inquiry swiftly, my mom, in her British accent, calmly said, “What do you mean, ‘What’s that?’ It’s just the egg. Now go on. Set the table, please.”
A guest who overheard the conversation wasn’t quite as kind, and tried to stir up a little trouble in the kitchen. “It’s the head and the legs,” she laughed. From that moment on, my mother had to remove those stringy bits from every batter, and every dough, and everything else that she ever made again with eggs, knowing all along that they weren’t really the head and the legs, but that her little girl wouldn’t eat anything with eggs unless she did. Ah, my mom was the best.
As some of you may already know, those little white doodads are called chalazae (pronounced cuh-LAY-zee) and they serve to tether the yolk so it’s protected against hitting the inner wall of the egg if it’s bumped around. And although there are no preformed limbs in a non-fertilized egg, there are plenty of both unappetizing and unhealthy parts in an egg, as well as a tremendous impact on chickens and our environment. The more I learned, the more I realized that feeling that something just wasn’t quite right about eating eggs back when I was a kid was actually spot on. Here are a few things to keep in mind as you toss eggs from your diet:
THE YUCK FACTOR
This isn’t the best reason, but for some, it’s more than enough: if you think about it, eating eggs is kind of, well … gross. Just as women have their “period,” chickens do, too. The eggs in the carton are similar to the eggs women of childbearing age release each month, only much larger and with a hard shell. They hold the hen’s DNA and lots of saturated fat for the baby chick, should the egg become fertilized. Can you imagine someone forcing you (or your female friend) to ovulate faster to produce more eggs, and then snatching them up to make breakfast? Or for birthday cake batter? Don’t fault me for being disgusting; I’m not the one eating eggs. I’m just the messenger. Wink.
“There is no specific federal humane handling and slaughter statute for poultry.”
—Treatment of Live Poultry Before Slaughter, USDA Federal Register
NO MATTER HOW YOU CRACK ‘EM, EGGS ARE FULL OF CHOLESTEROL
Cholesterol: that icky, sticky stuff that clings to our artery walls, making the blood’s passageway smaller and smaller, until a little chunk of plaque gets loose, and plugs the whole damn thing up. BOOM: a heart attack. Well, eggs are packed with it. Yes, it’s true, cholesterol is essential for our bodies to function, but the great news is, if your body is working properly, it makes all the cholesterol you will ever need. You don’t need to go out and eat a single bite of dietary cholesterol, ever. Isn’t that nice?
So what’s wrong with a little cholesterol? Well, when it comes to eggs, it turns out it’s not very little. Instead of just throwing out a random number, let’s put things in perspective. A McDonald’s Quarter Pounder with Cheese (blah!) has 93.5 mg of cholesterol.1 That’s a lot. Guess how much cholesterol a couple of scrambled eggs have? A whopping 370 mg.2 Almost four times as much! If you buy extra-large or jumbo eggs, the cholesterol in your scramble is even greater. The greasy combo of excess saturated fat and cholesterol is your straight-to-the-front-of-the-line ticket to myriad health ailments including atherosclerosis, heart disease, and strokes—all of which too often lead to death.
Sadly, too many folks seem willing to take their chances and wind up with an early rendezvous with the reaper. About 2,150 Americans die of cardiovascular disease every single day. One out of every 3 people will die of cardiovascular disease at a rate of about 1 every 40 seconds.3 That’s just crazy. Let’s put faces to figures. If you have three hundred Facebook friends, about one hundred of them, on average, are going to die from cardiovascular disease. Knowing that LDL cholesterol contributes to cardiovascular disease, why on earth would you want to gobble it up if you don’t need to? No wonder the Easter bunny drops off those eggs. He doesn’t want them!
THE CHICKEN OR THE EGG
Spoiler Alert: It really doesn’t matter which came first, the chicken dies in the end either way. And they endure a living hell straight through that last desperate gasp to live—all for some fatty food that none of us need. Just as with the plight of dairy cows, I really loathe writing about how animal products wind up in the fridge and on the table, but I know from experience that for most folks, it’s information like this that will really help you stay the course; you’re going vegan, after all, and you’ll need to lean back on the why of it all when old habits come knocking. Knowing the facts will help you make an educated, heartfelt decision to say “No thanks!” to food made with eggs. So bear with me here for a few minutes, and then we’ll get to the good stuff. Trust me, I won’t leave you hanging feeling sad and helpless. This is a book of empowerment, not despair. You and I are changing the world, together, in a very easy and delicious way!
OK, up first, the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act. I know, the words humane and slaughter go together about as well as “beautiful diarrhea” but that’s honestly the name of the Act. Well, guess what? Birds aren’t covered under it.4 Nope. They left them out. Ninety-five percent of all the animals who are slaughtered in the United States are birds, and the USDA decided they aren’t entitled to even the slightest bit of protection under this law.5 With so few rules, their death is akin to medieval torture.
Once chickens can no longer lay eggs, they’re considered “spent” and they’re shackled upside down, paralyzed by electrified water, and dragged over mechanical throat-cutting blades, all while being conscious.6 The USDA allows this cruel system of slaughter to occur at a rate of 140 birds per minute; that’s one bird killed every .43 seconds. Not every 43 seconds, but one every point 43 seconds. And it gets worse. Because the machines move so fast, many birds miss the blades, and I don’t just mean a few dozen or even a few hundred. According to the USDA’s own records, nearly 1 million birds are boiled alive each year because they’re not killed before they’re dumped into the scalding water.7 Some birds are spared the knife, and instead piled into a small area and poisoned with carbon monoxide. Imagine being trapped in a room with a gasoline-powered leaf blower on full blast until you die from the fumes—all because someone wants scrambled eggs. And here’s the kicker: it’s all 100 percent legal. It’s just business as usual for an industry that profits from snuffing the life out of others on a massive genocide-like scale. The faster they can kill the birds, the more money they can make. It’s that simple—and that sad.
As for life before the kill, it’s not any better. I’ll try to give you a quick tangible example. If you have an iPad handy, please grab it. I have an iPad 2, and you know what? The “guidelines” given by the United Egg Producers state that a chicken doesn’t even need to have as much space as the size of my iPad, which is only 9½ x 7¼ inches.8 Now try to imagine a bunch of chickens being crammed into cages with other birds, each having less space than an iPad; that’s less space than an 8 x 10 sheet of paper. That’s how 250,000 million birds are living right now, as you’re reading this, in the United States alone. They can’t spread their wings, they defecate on each other because there’s no where else to go, and because the bottom of the cage is made of slanted wires so the eggs roll out, their feet become lacerated and their nails become overgrown and entangled in the metal.9
The bodies of the chickens who lay eggs in battery cages are so damaged that by the time they’re killed they can usually only be used for chicken soup or “pet” food. The male chicks are useless to the industry—after all, they can’t lay eggs—so they’re stuffed into garbage bags where they suffocate on top of one another, or are tossed into grinders while alive. Again, all 100 percent legal. I wish there was a nicer way to tell the story of a factory-farmed chicken, but it is what it is: inexcusably sad. It’s a madman’s house of horrors, far removed from any semblance of the bucolic farm most people imagine.
THE EGG INDUSTRY IS SCRAMBLING
As you’ll see on pages here, there’s a huge array of scrumptious alternatives to eating eggs or foods made with eggs. So huge that it’s scaring the bejesus out of the egg industry. Folks want healthier, more compassionate options, and with good reason. It’s not the ‘50s anymore; people, like you (hurray!) are learning the truth and making smart lifestyle changes. As you can imagine, watching a bunch of lightbulbs turn on in our heads isn’t going “over easy” with the egg industry. They’d rather we stay in the dark. Selling bird eggs fills their coffers, and they like their fancy things regardless of the consequences to those who consume eggs, or to those who die producing them. They’ve been worried about consumers learning the facts for a very long time, but no matter how hard the egg industry tries to persuade us, in the end, the truth always prevails.
Frustrated with the outpouring of scientific evidence that shows eating too many eggs makes folks ill, the egg industry whipped up a little official-sounding committee in the ‘70s called the National Commission on Egg Nutrition (NCEN) to counteract the bad press. NCEN hired an advertising agency, and began to blast the message that there’s “no scientific evidence that eating eggs increases the risk of … heart (and circulatory) disease,” and that eggs are actually harmless and needed for good nutrition.10 Say what?! People have to eat eggs? Thankfully the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) thought that smelled a little rotten, and filed a complaint charging them with having made “false and misleading statements” regarding the relationship between eating eggs and disease.
The result? Not only did the court issue a cease and desist order prohibiting NCEN from making those statements, they removed the deceptive cloak the egg industry was hiding behind. (Hello?! We see you!) The FTC said if they ever use the name “National Commission on Egg Nutrition” again, they must reveal NCEN’s true identity and disclose that it’s really just a bunch of “egg producers and other individuals and organizations of, or relating to, the egg industry.”11 Studies show eating eggs can be very unhealthy. Hey NCEN, disagree all you want, but you can’t say the evidence doesn’t exist. And while you’re disagreeing, you can’t pretend you’re not the egg industry. Save your creepy costume for Halloween.
Flash forward to 2015 and the industry is still trying to strong-arm stores and consumers into buying more eggs. Only this time the feud isn’t over scientific studies that prove eggs aren’t healthy, but a predictable (and possibly illegal) reaction to CEO Josh Tetrick’s successful start-up, Hampton Creek, a company that for the first time is on the fast track to make the consumption of eggs obsolete. Backed with investments from fiscal heavyweights, Bill Gates, hedge fund billionaire Tom Steyer, and Li Ka-Shing, who at a net worth of $31.7 billion has been crowned Asia’s richest man, Hampton Creek has the financial backing to move mountains, and they are. In just a few short years, Hampton Creek, now valued at $500 million, is the fastest-growing food company in the world, with no end in sight. Thanks to the avian flu, and other health concerns, their tasty egg-free products are being snatched up by consumers across the globe.
Enter the American Egg Board (AEB), responsible for boosting sales of eggs with catchy slogans like “The Incredible, Edible Egg” and other promotional campaigns overseen by the United States Department of Agriculture. While Hampton Creek’s sales have soared, egg sales have soured, falling 10 percent this past year alone.12 The egg industry watched on as Hampton Creek’s eggless Just Mayo replaced egg-based mayonnaise in every sandwich in every 7-Eleven across the United States. They endured the pain of seeing Compass Group, the largest food service company in the world, give up their egg-based cookies in exchange for Hampton Creek’s eggless cookies. Thanks to Hampton Creek, products that traditionally contain eggs are being replaced across the planet, from Yale University to the United States Senate; egg-free food is everywhere. Hampton Creek’s products are rolling out in Asia, Mexico, and Europe, too.
As you can imagine, this makes the egg industry a wee bit cranky. Actually, more like raging mad. So mad that according to e-mail documents provided to The Associated Press, the AEB engaged in a two-year effort to damage Hampton Creek, including a documented e-mail exchange illustrating a plan to get Whole Foods Market to ditch the brand.13 Thanks to The Freedom of Information Act, the public was able to acquire and read six hundred e-mails sent out by the AEB, some of which showed that they went far above and beyond promoting eggs; they attacked a competitor, which is a big fat no-no for a USDA-run agency. The AEB allegedly sought out Google adds that promoted eggs whenever someone searched for “Hampton Creek” and the AEB advised Unilever, makers of Best Food Mayonnaise, on how to proceed in a false advertising lawsuit against Hampton Creek last year.14 One AEB member even joked (at least I hope it was a joke), that they “put a hit” out on Tetrick.15 As for the American Egg Board CEO Joanne Ivy, who told a consultant that she’d like to accept an “offer to make that phone call to keep Just Mayo off Whole Foods shelves,” well, she just “retired.” Early. As Upton Sinclair noted, “It is impossible to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it.”
All of this craziness should help you realize something supercool: It’s a great time to be vegan. The egg industry feels threatened with good reason; the good guys are winning and that means there will be plenty of yummy vegan food for you to eat. Lot’s of plant-based options coming down the pipes! Vegan eggs? Heck, when I went vegan, my doctor didn’t even know what the word vegan meant. If I said “vegan eggs” he probably would have sent me to the loony bin!
A PICTURE SPEAKS A THOUSAND WORDS
The Humane Society of the United States recently sent an undercover investigator out to Butterfield Foods Company in Minnesota to document the slaughter of “spent” chickens in the egg industry. If my words aren’t enough to help you stop eating eggs, you can watch their video, “Spent Hen Slaughter Exposé: Birds Abused and Scalded Alive” on YouTube. As promised, there are no sad photos in this book, but there’s no shortage of visuals if you need them to help drive the message home.16
OK, let’s get crackin’!
1. Think about all the meals and treats you currently enjoy that contain eggs, select one, and “veganize” it! Easy peasy.
PASTA: Believe it or not, most store-bought pasta doesn’t contain eggs, so if you love eating pasta like I do, you’re in luck! Check out the ingredients on your favorite dried pasta and you’ll likely see that it’s made from 100 percent flour (wheat, rice, quinoa, etc.) with little, or nothing else, added. Trader Joe’s has lots of vegan pasta for about a buck, and mainstream supermarkets have vegan pasta at a good price as well. It gets a bit trickier when you buy “fresh” pasta, which often contains eggs, so be sure to double-check the ingredients.
MAYONNAISE: Vegan mayo? Not a problem. Check out Follow Your Heart’s Vegenaise, Nasoya’s Nayonaise, Spectrum Natural’s Vegan Mayo, Sir Kensington’s Fabanaise, or Hampton Creek’s Just Mayo. Heck, even Unilever, who sued Hampton Creek, created its own vegan mayo called Hellmann’s “Carefully Crafted Dressing & Sandwich Spread.” You can find vegan mayos at grocery stores across the country. I’ve even found vegan mayo at The Dollar Tree for, you guessed it, one dollar! You can find vegan mayo in different flavors, too: chipotle, sriracha, pesto, horseradish, garlic, and more—perfect for dips, creamy salad dressings, and sandwich spreads. Want to make your own instead? Check out Miyoko Schinner’s recipe for “Classic Eggless Mayonnaise.” It’s from Miyoko’s book Homemade Vegan Pantry and you can find the recipe posted on Yahoo.17
MERINGUE: Well, here’s something “egg-citing!” You know that liquid you pour down the drain when you strain a can of garbanzo beans (chickpeas)? Well, it’s been coined “aquafaba”: aka bean liquid, and is magical! French chef Joël Roessel recently discovered that chickpea brine can be used in recipes to replace egg whites.18 You can even make fluffy white meringue with it! Check out my recipe for Easy Meringue Bites here.
EGGNOG: There’s lots of vegan eggnog recipes you can get for free online using a wide range of ingredients: everything from combining cashews with coconut milk to silken tofu with soy milk.19 I usually just wait for the holidays to roll around and buy some from the grocery store as a treat, or simply warm up some almond milk with a little vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Califia, So Delicious, Silk, and Rice Dream all make holiday nogs, which come in a variety of flavors and thicknesses, so it’s just a matter of taste as to which one you’ll like best.
CUSTARD: When I was a child, my mother would always make Bird’s Traditional Custard, which was developed in Birmingham, England, by Alfred Bird, back in 1837, because his wife was allergic to eggs.20 My mother made it with whole milk, but it’s easy to make with a plant-based milk, too. You can find it in many supermarkets in a bright red and yellow tin can. It won’t be quite as thick, but it’s still delicious. There’s also a variety of recipes online using a combo of ingredients that usually include cornstarch, vanilla, a plant milk of your choice (the thicker the better) and sugar to taste. And heads up: If you enjoy your custard in the form of a crème brûlée, and are ever in Mendocino, California, swing by Raven’s Restaurant; ooh la la!
EGG ROLLS: If you’re near one of over 450 Trader Joe’s stores, check out their tasty Stir-Fried Vegetable Egg Rolls; they’re vegan! Or better yet, make your own! Just find an egg roll recipe of your choice online (so many to choose from!) and substitute a little bit of crumbled tofu or shiitake mushrooms for any animal products. Make sure to add the veggies you love! Most store-bought egg roll wrappers contain egg, but it’s simple to make your own. Just mix 1 cup flour with ¼ teaspoon salt, then slowly add ¼ cup of warm water, knead, and let sit, covered with a towel, for 20 minutes. Then roll, cut into the shapes of your choice, dust with a bit of cornstarch, pile them up, and store in the fridge until ready to use. So easy!
SCRAMBLED EGGS AND OMELETS: Most vegans I know, myself included, really enjoy a good veggie breakfast scramble every now and then; trust me, we’re not missing the eggs. Vegan scrambles are traditionally so flavorful and satisfying, that cracking a slimy ovum into the pan is the last thing our taste buds crave. Yuck. Check out my recipe for a breakfast scramble on the next page and adjust to taste. Or if you just want a side of fluffy scrambled vegan eggs with a texture similar to chicken eggs, consider trying Hampton Creek’s recently hatched Just Scramble, soon to be available nationwide. It’s made from Canadian yellow peas, along with other non-GMO plants that together mimic an egg emulsion. Or you can grab Follow Your Heart’s VeganEgg, which is also GMO-free. Just Scramble and VeganEgg both work well for whipping up omelets, and making French toast, quiche, and fritattas as well!
Vegan breakfast scrambles are super easy, hearty, and delicious. I like making them colorful and healthy, too. Here’s how I make mine:
SERVES 2 AS A SIDE DISH
1 to 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
8 ounces tofu (about half a standard container of tofu), drained
1 cup chopped veggies (bell peppers, mushrooms, onions, etc.)
2 heaping teaspoons nutritional yeast
2 dashes ground turmeric (for color)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh garlic
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 small handful fresh parsley or cilantro, chopped
1. Add enough oil to lightly coat the bottom of a skillet and place over low to medium heat.
2. Break up the drained tofu into scrambled egg–sized pieces with your fingers, and place in the pan. Add the veggies, yeast, turmeric, and garlic and sauté until all the ingredients are hot and lightly browned, seasoning with salt and pepper to taste.
3. Just before serving, fold in the chopped parsley or cilantro, and immediately remove the scramble from the heat so it stays vibrant.
YOUR BREAKFAST SCRAMBLE
Cue Frank Sinatra’s “I did it my way,” please! Seriously, feel free to get creative here; there are no rules when it comes to making a delicious breakfast scramble. The two “biggies” for many vegans are the turmeric, which will give the scramble a beautiful yellow hue, and the nutritional yeast, which adds that distinct umami (pronounced oo-MAH-mee) flavor. I’d stick with those two items, and as for the rest? I say, go for whatever your tummy desires! Add an assortment of veggies you have in the fridge, and spices that you enjoy. There’s the organic 21 spice mix at Costco that I love to use, or you can find a smaller version of it at Trader Joe’s. I often add a squirt or two of sriracha to the tofu in the pan, and a little Bragg’s Liquid Amino once plated. If you want to skip the oil, you can just sauté your scramble in a little water, and if you’d rather pass on the tofu, you can use potatoes instead. You can bake them in advance, then chop them up for your scramble, or chop into small cubes, and cook them in the pan like “country potatoes” before you add the other veggies. Just remember that some veggies cook a heck of a lot faster than others, and a few, like potatoes, can take a while. I add delicate veggies, like mushrooms and spinach, at the very end so they don’t shrivel up and disappear. I like to avoid that “Oh no! Where did they go?” feeling. I add fresh garlic toward the end, too, so it keeps its kick. Some folks even add Kala Namak, a Himalayan black salt (it’s actually pink in color when it’s ground)—it smells and tastes like eggs. Hopefully your mind is scrambling with ideas; the possibilities are truly endless!
WHAT TO USE INSTEAD OF EGGS WHEN BAKING
One tbsp of ground chia seeds or 1 tbsp of ground flax seeds + 3 tbsp warm water (let stand for 10 minutes) works well for binding. One half smashed ripe banana, or ¼ cup applesauce, works well to replace an egg, too—just be prepared for a little extra moisture and sweetness. If you want your baked goods to be light and fluffy, try 1 tsp baking soda mixed with 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar per egg. Or, you can buy EnerG Egg Replacer. You can find it at most health food stores in a bright yellow and red box. Sometimes I just add a little extra almond milk, and everything turns out just fine, especially when I make pancakes. Or use Aquafaba! 2 tbsp = 1 egg white; 3 tbsp = 1 whole egg
2. Understand what the terms free range and cage free really mean.
So what quality of life do the chickens have while producing these so-called “free-range” eggs?
Your guess is as good as mine. There are no requirements for the amount, duration, or quality of outdoor access for animal products labeled as “free range,” so who knows? The label “free range” sounds like the animals are raised running around happily in a field, but in reality, the USDA only requires that producers must demonstrate to the agency that the chickens have been allowed access to the outside. So, an overcrowded indoor chicken farm could have a small door to a tiny fenced-in concrete parking lot without a single blade of grass, and that would qualify as free range. Gee, thanks, USDA.
But “cage-free” eggs are OK, right?
The problem is cage free doesn’t mean cruelty-free. Unless you get your eggs from a chicken who was rescued from abuse and lives with someone who you know personally, the farm he or she came from likely:
Still buys their hens from hatcheries that kill the baby male chicks (more than 200 million male chicks are killed each year in the U.S. alone21—and over 6 billion annually worldwide.22)
Still doesn’t allow the hens outdoor access since none is required.23
Still kills the hens at two years old once they’re “spent,” which is much shorter than their natural lifespan.
Still doesn’t adhere to any regulated method of “humane slaughter” since chickens aren’t protected under the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act.
So, although the chickens might get a little extra room, buying cage-free eggs doesn’t equal happy chickens. It’s like asking someone if they’d rather be punched in the face one hundred times or ninty-five times. Of course they’d pick ninety-five, but heck, who wants to be punched in the face?
Checklist
□ Did you create a vegan version of a meal or treat that would normally contain eggs?
□ Did you set to memory what “cage-free” eggs and “free-range” eggs mean so when you’re in the store, you won’t be tempted to buy them?
□ Did you exercise today?