The Labour government were intrusive, the Tories are taking it to new creepy levels.

In my misspent youth I worked in a cinema. I would spend 8 hours a day standing near TV screens that ran a 10-20 minute loop of adverts and film trailers. That was one of the worst aspects of that job, worse than smelling of popcorn, worse than the customers, as the DVD would only be swopped out on a monthly basis. New video loop day was a good day. Thankfully I wasn’t enduring this mental needling while worrying about my health on a hospital bed…

While he tries to dismantle the cornerstone of our nations health, a national institution that the world looks upon jealously, Andrew Lansley has decided, in a move that would be more fitting in a Doctor Who episode, to have a video loop of him, every 2-5 minutes, beside every bed, telling the unwilling occupant, “that your care while you’re here in hospital really matters to me.” Creepy. If David Tennant heard that, he’d promptly pull out a sonic screwdriver and start looking for the Dalek plot. Trying to pose as someone who actually cares is a cynical move, that, while in no way beyond the tory party, is a surprising one, that seems calculated to drive the staff to new levels of impotent rage and helplessness while they battle cuts, pension reductions, and an uncertain future.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15833704

Meanwhile, Michael Gove is stamping his personal beliefs on his department, education. Our schools are all being sent a special “anniversary edition” of the King James Bible, with a forward writhed by Gove himself. It’s bad enough when bands re-issue old albums, but for a government to re-issue a bible? What you have here, is a government issue bible, being sent, unsolicited, to all schools, regardless of their wishes, the beliefs of the pupils, the beliefs of the teachers and at presumably great cost, as they are having to print their own editions of this bible. Of course this fits naturally with Cameron’s vision of a big society, because not enough charity groups try to give bibles to impressionable young children as it is, so it’s vital that the government steps in and helps here. I can’t think of a better use of that money or resource.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/nov/25/michael-gove-king-james-bible

As a rebranding exercise, it seems misguided. I’m not sure what’s worse, Nasty Party or Creepy Party. At least I could trust the Nasty Party not to be up a tree with a pack of doughnuts and a pari of binoculars (unlike Labour). As it stands I’m had expecting them to do something dodgy like force job seekers to work for multi billion companies like Tesco under threat of losing their job seekers allowance if they don’t. Oh, wait. Because we all know business’ are hurting and need our help, especially Tesco’s. And there’s nothing that is more urgent in this country than stacking those shelves that job seekers could be doing instead? No? Everything good? Lovely. I guess we’ve nothing to worry about then, as Tesco’s empty shelves are the nations most pressing issue. Good job Cameron et al. Almost makes me wish I’d voted for you. Oh wait, thanks to Nick Clegg I sort of did….

Experimenting with Vegans.

I’m going to do an experiment. I am going to try[1] and be Vegan.

I’ve thought about this for a while, one word kept going round and round in my head. Objecting loundly and effectively.

Bacon.

Dammit.

I have three reasons for doing this, health, support for my wife, and science.

Mainly science.[2]

I have no ethical problems with eating meat. As a species, we have practical issues with eating meat. The whole land air deal. But eating meat isnatural and part of the food chain. This is not to save the planet, or animals or for guilt reasons.

I have relatively unique eating habits. At home my wife is returning to veganism and has been a strict vegetarian all her life. That will make the process easier, BUT we have two small children.
They are not vegan. Or vegetarian. That’s a choice they can make later in life if they want. It’s not healthy for them to cut meat and dairy. So weneed to prepare meals that can be both vegan and normal.
At work I work long shifts. It’s normal for me to eat all three meals in a day at work. Food preparation facilities are a microwave, a kettle, a toaster and a fridge. During the weekday days, there is a canteen. I cannot leave things in the fridge as they will be “borrowed”. I have a small locker in which I can store non perishables.
I will not eat mushrooms.

The pledge
I have signed up for the “Vegan Pledge” Apparently they will give me some advice and I’ll get a mentor. Practical advice will be really useful here!

My hypothesis. I will be unable to eat a Vegan diet given my eratic and complicated earing and food preparation requirements.
Secondairy[3] hypothesis. The effort, cost and lack of variety involved will make veganism long term unacceptable to me.[4]

Day 1.

The experiment started today at midday. It’s almost a snap decision, and I’ve had a few cups of coffee with cows milk this morning. And a biscuit.

On my lunch break I went to Sainsbury’s. I thought for day one I would have toast with soup, one of those new covent garden ones. The fancy nice ones.
All contain milk.
On investigation, their special nutrition page is not helpful. It lists vegetarian. Itlists gluten free, wheat free, dairy free [5] milk free [6] and garlic free [7], but doesn’t list, or even mention vegan.

I ended up buying this.

Innocent veg pot.
Rice milk.
Soya spread
spicy houmous
Soya yoghurt
Apples
Bread.
Cost £11.95 Ouch. Admittedly there are some things in there that should last several days, it seems like a lot for a sandwich, apples and microwave vegetables. This is not sustainable and will hopefully improve over time.

Here is my first[8] vegan meal.

One hour later, I’m hungrier than before. I did however skip breakfast, have been up since 5:30am and it’s now 16:30.

Coffee with rice milk looks like gravy. It tastes strange. As giving up coffee is out, I may have to start drinking it plain black.

Old Stock
In my cupboard I have a stash of food. What out of it will I be able to eat?

Definitely not vegan.
Princes hot pots (one chicken, one beef)
Cheese and bacon pasta.
Powdered milk.
Macaroni cheese (also one year out of date)

The ones I had to check, that were ok and were not labelled as such.
Pepsi Max Apparently vegan, but full of crap. I’ll probably cut these out.
Baked beans. Labelled as vegetarian, the website also included vegans, and gluten free.

The ones I had to check and were ok and am still not sure about. (any help in the comments appreciated)
Oats so simple (original). Contains Quaker Rolled Oats[9], Stabiliser: Lecithin (soya) not labelled as anything, nothing on the website.
Peanut butter, contains peanuts, peanut oil, salt, dextrose. Labelled as vegetarian. not vegan.
Sainsbury’s Fruit and Fibre. I honestly can’t see anything wrong on the label, but labelled as vegetarian not vegan, no mention of anyting on the website, not even that it’s vegetarian.
Asda brown sauce. The website says vegetarian. I can’t see anything non vegan listed. Lets face it though, I only have this to put on bacon sandwiches.

The ones I had to check and were not vegan.
The super noodles[10] contain powdered milk.
The tomato soup, contains milk.

Day 1 thoughts
From the first day I’ve learnt that rice milk in coffee is nasty, and many products don’t label their food as vegan. This one is confusing, although I can see that some meat eaters find it offputting? Assume that vegan food is automatically weird? Either way, it’s going to make this project a lot harder.
I am also hungry, I still don’t know whether or not I can eat my cereal.

Finally, have some vegan comedy courtesy of the hilarious Myq Kaplan. here’s an iTunes link.

[1] Try is an important word here. As is fail.
[2] I’ve been playing Portal 2 all weekend.
[3] It’s a pun, not a spelling mistake.
[4] I don’t really have a secondary hypothesis, but I really wanted to use the secondairy joke.
[5] this includes chicken soup!
[6] apparently different to dairy free
[7] for vampires
[8] deliberately, I’m sure I’ve accidentally eaten vegan before. Almost certainly considering my wife’s diet.
[9] are they counting quakers as animals? is this why it doesn’t get an ok?
[10] not pictured, I can’t do everything here!

EDIT: Phew, just checked, Jack Daniels IS vegan!