Month: January 2018

This year I’ll be sharing a maximum of 9 ‘Mix in the Making’ type lists. I’m not suddenly going to become a silver surfer, but I’m going to be spending the music funds, if there are any, on shows I valued from TV or movies watched overseas from street DVDs or other ways of getting unavailable english programming. Legal and moral details are not always known, but I only started contributing what I could in the last year or so directly. Until recently I was spending too much on new music and getting ahead of myself. What I’ll do to share on this site is undetermined, but will most likely be the usual: other entertainment and food; possibly philosophy or news. Each list of music will be unrestricted by style and published once a month until October.

Ckwal

I was going to update an earlier post with this information, but an idea that keeps re-themeing itself to me is this:

Many of the products we consume on our journey to live free of animal products and cravings as well as using animals for the testing of them, end up leaving us feeling like we were never vegan. I call myself strict, especially with my addition of a non-gmo requirement, and many times want to quit because after a year and five months I may have crutched on certain products that were hardly vegan. Oreos were one, several months ago, when I was living in Denver. I had heard they were secretly vegan, but recently read on their site they are not suitable. What a shame! Anyways, don’t give up, you still are saving lives and helping to change the world. About 6% of Americans identify as vegans which has grown from 1 or 2% in only a few years. One day we will miss the struggle.

The good news is there are a lot of vegan products that are verified and though not always cheap, a lot of your supermarkets are carrying them to lower the price from your typical specialty store. Try ***Amy’s Organic Chili (regular and black bean), Lotus’ Biscoff (actually not labelled ‘airline cookies’ cause those ones have milk in them), Tofurkey’s ‘sausage-like’ creation in 4 packs (which are good and filling right out of the package) and popchips’ ‘sea salt’. Check the package for the vegan ‘go-ahead’ first. This is possibly the lazy way to shop, but I’m trying some as an excuse for those out there who want more options and don’t want to turn over every package***^. The last note is, most companies (probably by requirement) should be labeling their products if they are produced next to or on the same line as another for allergy and religious reasons, so one you are going to eat something as a staple, don’t take the fine print for granted.

Until I have my own kitchen, I’ll be eating out of the package and pan in the trees!

Has anyone mixed the last post?

***Update 7.3.18 Not strict vegan with processing.
***^Update 7.13.18 Vegan Action (V symbol with heart) is not very strict with shared machinery and also does not require documentation on cleaning products used (i.e. cruelty free status or plant based). No additional information was given on this topic. See vegan.org for their most recent policies and FAQ.

P.S. Happy Birthday Stacy!

These radar-like predictive tracker video-like images (from Cnn.com) are probably the best I can find at the moment with criteria for ‘the best’ being visuals and usefulness. We are expecting a blizzard in an hour or so and debating whether I should buy some food in case I cannot go outside. I guess it’s good I am taking an extended break from making mixes as I may have otherwise suffered this month more than possible. Also, donating another double unit of blood, so if anyone else is joining me this month, have some Dark Chocolate Silk Almond Milk ***(Update Pareve dairy symbol – shared machinery) and Arran’s vegan granola or Kashi vegan cereals(not sure if all these are strict, so check first). They are really good for this purpose. If it’s the first time on double, it shouldn’t be that bad, but do this afterwards for awhile because most iron supplements have some animal product in them. I don’t know about the second time, but I don’t think I paid enough attention to it until recently. Also, saw my first video in awhile to celebrate the break. War for the Planet of the Apes. It is appropriate for this site as the radio suggested it in the top videos of last year and goes with veganism in an animal take-over sort of way. Also, it’s a sequel.

Cheers

One other note for today. If you are passing through Kearney, Nebraska, there are two pets overdue for a good home I can vouch for personally. Bear is a bit intimidating as he is a big dog and needs space, but loves walks and trying to socialize. Also, he is as sweet or sweeter than a little pup. If you need a cat, Daisy is an intuitive and protective one. She likes towers and hanging out in high places. If you are creative with games you might be able to capture her attention, otherwise she can hang out all day and is great company. Ask the staff for more info or other recommendations depending on your lifestyle. They are at Kearney Animal Shelter west of the UNK campus and Buckle factory on the north side of the main road across (NW/kitty-corner) from Cenex.

Happy Birthday to my cousin Sam. Before I left facebook, he was a big supporter of equality online which is part of Ckwal’s name and original logo. I don’t know how else to reach you; maybe you’ll see this post!

A few new hints or tricks I learned trying to cook in the winter. One is about those detachable propane tanks for portable grills. If they get too cold, they may stop flowing properly and your flame may not be healthy enough to cook bread properly or whatever you are trying to make before your hands freeze. If you have two of them you may be able to swap one out and warm it back up in your coat or whatever part of you is warm and cook until the same thing happens again and repeat. This is also the same for spray bottles of coconut oil. It is more finicky that the propane and you must spray what you need and return it to somewhere warm (under your arm or in an insulated pocket). I will update this post if I have to try it out in colder temperatures than 15-20 degrees, so with some hand warmers and quick, smart cooking, you can still make that ‘down-to-the-penny-save-my-veganism-meal’ (if it ever comes to that to save a cow, your life or whatever it may be). More advanced but costly tanks and grills are better prepared for the winter temps, but this is the budget Coleman stovetop with budget gas from Walmart or Target which makes it a lot easier than trying to balance your pan on a skinny Tower of Pisa.

I went on an email spur one day because I couldn’t listen to music for some reason and wanted to find some strict vegan and non-gmo foods/snacks. I was getting back a lot of bad news and started searching on how to make my own licorice. Well today I think I have received some acceptable information and have added some new foods to my list of ‘probably fit all my requirements’ to eat. In addition to most On The Border Chips (Organic blue & yellow) and Salsas (which say they are vegan and /or Non-gmo on the website), Clif Bars (blueberry, oats & raisins, PB, nuts & seeds and pomegranate are strict at the time of this post, but the package is not recyclable) and what I usually use are: the King Arthur flours. **Another disappointing thing is that most chip bags are not recyclable. If it says TerraCycle, do this research and start a collection.

Robin Hood Flour
Hudson Cream Flour
Still waiting on a canned bean I can approve
Ro*Tel Original Diced Tomatoes & Green Chilies or Hunt’s Diced and Petite Diced Tomatoes
Update- Conagras brands and Campbells other brands include meat products so I wouldn’t continue eating/drinking them.
**​Many of these V8 fruit and vegetable blends are Non-GMO (says on new label) and vegan (although not vegan verified) and after getting a response it seems as though they are strict with production. I stopped consuming them while waiting for a response and I will probably drink these again after another response because I am reading this, “Citric acid occurs naturally in many fruits and vegetables such as oranges, lemons, limes, and tomatoes. We add it for tartness and to control the acidity of our products to ensure product safety. The citric acid we use is derived from either sugar or corn crops that may be grown from genetically modified seeds.” So if you need one of these juices and see citric acid (like in Strawberry Banana Fusion), I wouldn’t buy it until further updates.

Dave’s Killer Bagels (Cinnamon Raisin Remix, Plain Awesome & Epic Everything) – Non-GMO, Facility only shares with soy & labeled ‘no animal products’.

There are more on the way and when I finish my research and communications, I’ll post updates. This is subject to change and if you find any different info out please email asap. As you may know, these two are important survival foods for when you have little funds left and need to last another day or two before payday. With a portable stove, some Morena sugar (or Florida Crystals) and salt or salt substitute, you can make bread and cookies. My most adaptable recipe for bread is 2:1 ration of flour and water and for sugar cookies 5:4:1 (sugar, flour, water or water/coconut oil mixture).

Eat the cold refried beans out of the can for a filling, healthy snack. I have even tried using the can to fire stuff up in, but it is a little dangerous because the flame is typically bigger than the can, so make sure you have some metal tongs and gloves that are flame resistant.

Why are GMOs bad? I have read that all GMOs regardless of whether they come from plants or animals require animal testing, but this has yet to be confirmed. My strict veganism avoids products made on shared equipment and many times facilities if it is listed because that means they aren’t aware of the changes. With spiritual concerns like in the previous post, one thing we are avoiding are these bad moods or karma or fear/murder getting into the food and contaminating our generations with mental illnesses or phenomenon now fed by drugs to alter genetics or our brains, when the origin may be unknown. Just like hormones from animal products, genetic modification may alter your being. So it is a wildcard in food products, just like animal products and byproducts. Even if it was for a super-human strength, how would scientists know if it was safe when the end result may not be until two generations down the line and we have no way of tracing the source of these positive traits? A lot of this may be philosophical, but something I would rather avoid. So this for example, took Skittles out of my diet for some time now and why I became a vegan in the first place. I was going to GNC which has so many ground-breaking technologies and cutting-edge modifications for your body. I was noticing changes however that were undesirable in my equilibrium and decided to do a detox. This led me to veganism and Christianity and now Non-GMO concerns as well as the other labels you may have noticed connected with beliefs too, like Pareve and Kosher. Have you ever wondered about the reasons for Halal?

New and updated ‘Avoid List’
Quaker Cereals – also rejects responses for further communication after spieling.
Twizzlers – seemed like I was getting honest responses from one representative and then a new responder changed the tone and information.
Pop Chips – uses bone char in sugars.

Note: Bone char usage to filter sugar is something that if the company doesn’t know the source, cannot guarantee that it is vegetarian or vegan. Possibly some vegetarians or vegans don’t care about this, but it is disgusting. Especially thinking you would give a child candy or cereal with the main ingredient using cow’s bones. Also McDonald’s fries as we talked about before uses beef products. To me this is concealing information. Sure some laws might say certain things are okay, but week one or two in my vegan attempt I was drinking Coke and eating fries thinking it was okay. I didn’t know most caramel color is made with animal products and some sodas like life water are using insect extract. I’ve had to sacrifice quite a bit to rid my life of so many products that are wrong by principle. I shouldn’t have to work this hard to rid myself of being covered in animal fat or carrying some animal product around with me or not knowing a harmless animal suffered to make sure it was safe to use. Even if you don’t care about killing animals, it is deception. It is greedy, nasty, gross and wrong. If the only reason is cheapness, answer the question, “What would happen to the product if that part of it was removed?” When you go to a foreign country you see pictures of black lungs and horrible diseases on the cigarettes and it says in giant lettering, without a doubt SMOKING CAUSES CANCER. Now we have companies using models on music to advertise. Are we that desperate for space on the planet to support the hurt that causes suicide and to kill each other and innocent creatures? Look for beet, unrefined, raw, turbinado (pure-cane) or USDA Organic.