VEGANS, BE VIGILANT. BE VERY VIGILANT.

VEGANS, BE VIGILANT. BE VERY VIGILANT.

Chemically treated vexations! Yesterday, Sunday, 19 March 2017, my day began like any other. Well, actually, I had a bit of a lie-in, but I got up earlier than usual on a Sunday.

I cut open a pack of sultanas, poured some into the palm of my hand and proceeded to munch on 'em. I got a bit of a shock! The taste was off! It tasted like a weird artificial sweetener! But I put it down to the phenomenon of “morning mouth”. Anyway, after emerging from the bathroom, I made a breakfast version of my “Midnight Booty Call”. I had forgotten about the weird tasting sultanas.

MOODY MONDAY

I was awakened by my phone going off; somebody wanted to know if they could build me a website. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine taking out a domain name and have a bunch of people harass you subsequently via phone and email for the purpose of designing you a website? It's freaking annoying! Talk about taking potluck! I'm also annoyed at the amount of tits 'n’ ass fake Facebook profile friend requests I've been getting lately! What's up with that huh?

When I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes I was annoyed to discover that I didn't have enough Ingredients to make another “Midnight Booty Call” derivative for breakfast. So, I had to improvise and put some breakfast together. I went for a simple combination of warm water, oat bran, and sultanas. Again, those weird tasting sultanas! I took a close look at the ingredients, “sultanas and cottonseed oil.” What the hell is “cottonseed oil”? I've never heard of it before.

I Googled “cottonseed oil” and I got a freaking shock! Cottonseed oil is not something we should be consuming - no freaking way! In a nutshell, it's full of chemicals, pesticides, and is used to preserve many foods - processed convenient foods. Usually, dried fruits such as raisins, sultanas, etc are preserved in a combination of vegetable oil and/or sulphur dioxide. It could be that Tesco (and other supermarket brands) have been using cottonseed oil all along which is very disturbing.

However, I noticed straightaway that the Tesco branded sultanas were off. Not only has the price gone up by 5p but it is apparent that Tesco has taken shortcuts to increase its profit margins. Recently, Tesco has been caught cooking the books, claiming to have made huge profits when the opposite was true. So, I can see that Tesco has resorted to the use of dangerous substances in some of its food products in order to keep the costs of production down and the profits up. It is disgusting!

If you, like me, like to use dried fruit in the place of sugar in your cereals you had better stop immediately! If you've been purchasing dried fruits from the supermarket you need to look at the ingredients. You (and I) need to source dried fruits from more reputable retail outlets.

COCONUT​TY

If you've been frying your veggies in coconut oil then you need to stop! When coconut oil burns it releases carcinogens and we ingest cancer causing agents.

If you have been following my recipes that use coconut oil, I urge you to saute your veggies with water instead. This is what I'll be doing from now on!

I've learned about this aspect of coconut oil from 2 sources; the first is from a UK television show, Channel 4, ‘Food Unwrapped’ and the other from an expert on whole food plant based nutrition who I met on Facebook. So, please, stop cooking at high temperatures using virgin coconut oil. If you must fry your food then use refined oils. All oils can produce these carcinogens and I would urge you to stop cooking with oil - refined or not. In any event, I am going to start making a breakfast based on the (in)famous “Midnight Booty Call”. Ha ha! We've got to be vigilant! I am going register my concerns regarding the use of cottonseed oil with the Tesco head office, Customer Services complaints department very soon. If I get a response I will write it up!

You can follow my recipes here: Bear Gene, Vegan Chef

Thank you for reading!

Bear XOXOXOXOXO