http://www.creators.com/advice/annies-mailbox/child-protective-services-anonymously.html

“Dear Annie: My sister, “Suzie,” has always been a bit of a flower child, and my parents think it’s funny. Suzie dropped out of high school to pursue her “career” in something — art, music, dance, yoga, whatever. I usually gave her a place to stay when she got evicted and didn’t want our parents to know, which was pretty often.

Suzie and her husband (I’m not sure whether they’re legally married) have been better since my nephews were born. What concerns me is that she won’t take the kids to the doctor when they get sick. She just gives them some herbal remedy and sends them to bed. The boys aren’t very clean, often have the sniffles and are almost always in clothing that’s the wrong size. Suzie is homeschooling the boys, even though neither she nor her husband graduated high school. My oldest nephew is 7 and cannot read, count to 10 or say his ABCs.

Suzie insists that the children be fed only vegan and organic products. When the boys stay with us, which is fairly often lately, we feed them healthy balanced meals that they wolf down like they’re starving. The oldest boy told me they usually eat oatmeal with some peanut butter in it. I believe both boys are anemic.

The family has, on occasion, lived in their car. Suzie recently said they are going to “live on the road” for a while and the boys will adjust. I think my nephews are being neglected. She’s leaving the boys with me for two weeks this summer, and I’m tempted to have Child Protective Services evaluate them. My wife agrees. My parents don’t. I’m scared Suzie will bolt with the kids if she gets wind of my suspicions. She’s done it before.

I want the best for my nephews. How do I go about it? — W.C.

Dear W.C.: Don’t wait until summer. Call Child Protective Services anonymously, and ask them to investigate the home environment now. (You need not inform your parents.) CPS may determine that the kids are in a loving, healthy-enough environment, in which case, please stop trying to wrest control from Suzie, and concentrate instead on making your home a safe, stable place for your nephews.

And if CPS determines that the kids need to be removed from Suzie’s care, we hope you will offer to take them.”

This seems to be the popular attitude towards vegans and people who do not conform to “normal” standards.  This guy seems to think that a vegan and organic diet is unhealthy.  It just amazes me that someone can think that fruits, vegetables, and grains are unhealthy.  And just how in the world can organic be bad?  I mean, no pesticides is a bad thing?  Please . . .  The 7 year old boy tells the uncle that he usually eats oatmeal with peanut butter.  I would have to guess that he is talking about breakfast meals, but he is 7 years old.  Kids tend to exaggerate, so I wouldn’t be too concerned about that.  Anyway, the last time I checked, oatmeal and peanut butter was a healthy meal choice.  I believe that hikers and backpackers eat oatmeal regularly when they are out hiking for the nutritional value and energy that it provides.

The uncle thinks that the kids are anemic.  Why?  He doesn’t say, so I have to believe that it is because they are vegan.  I mean, aren’t all vegans anemic?  Schools should start requiring students to take a course in nutrition that includes veganism.  It would have to include the facts on vegan diets though and not the garbage that you hear from your friends and family who have been taught by their parents that you have to eat meat and dairy to have a balanced diet.  Even the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) has taken meat out of their food pyramid.  They do still show dairy, but include milk alternatives in their literature.

This guy is feeding his nephews what he considers balanced and healthy meals – he is against veganism – so I would venture to say that he is probably feeding them meat and dairy, which is against his sister’s wishes.  Who does he think he is anyway?  It is not his place to decide what type of food these children should be fed and he knows it’s not what their parents want them to eat, so he is being sneaky about it and not telling the parents.  Now he doesn’t actually say he is feeding them meat and dairy, so I could be wrong about this, but I highly doubt it from what he has written in his letter.

Then he says that the 7 year old cannot read, count to 10 or recite his ABCs.  He also says that the kids have been staying with him often.  So why hasn’t he taught him these things?  Is there a reason why the child cannot learn?  I haven’t home schooled before, but I understand that there are laws regarding home schooling, which include testing to be sure that the kids are actually being taught at home.  I have a hard time believing that we are being given all of the facts here.

The grandparents don’t seem to think that there is a problem with the way the boys are being raised.  That leads me to believe that there is no problem and that this guy has a controlling personality and want the kids to be raised according to his standards and values.  Well, guess what, they aren’t his kids.  He says his sister doesn’t take them to the doctor and they are always sick.  I would bet that this guy doesn’t have any kids himself.  He doesn’t know that kids do seem to be sick a good amount of the time with colds and sniffles and such.  They don’t need to go to the doctor every time they get the sniffles.  Parents usually learn that the hard way - wasting time and money running to the doctor’s office every time their kid sneezes.  Now, if these kids don’t get vaccinations, that is a different story.

I tried to leave my comments on the creators.com website, but they will not post.  Maybe it is because I don’t agree that a vegan diet is unhealthy.  It seems that most of the posts have been against veganism in general, which is really sad.  The majority of the population are completely ignorant of the nutritional value of a vegan diet and not open-minded enough to learn.

So, I followed this recipe for vegan macaroni and cheese exactly.  It’s a pretty simple recipe, so I don’t think operator error would be a factor in the taste being rather bland.  I tried adding some seasoning and some bacon-flavored TVP (textured vegetable protein) bits.  It did give it a little more flavor, but still it was not very tasty.  I’ve definately had better vegan mac and cheese.

I don’t recommend this recipe, and I will not be making it again.

The recipe is fast and easy.  You do need to let the tofu cool before finishing it off and serving, but it is well worth the wait.  Does it taste like egg?  No.  It is better than egg salad.  The spices and vegan mayonnaise are what makes it so good.  I used Vegenaise from Follow Your Heart.  I did add 2 ingredients to the salad this last go around; vegan bacon flavored bits (which is actually textured vegetable protein – TVP) and sliced grape tomatoes.

I will continue to make this recipe.  I just have to pace myself so that I don’t get sick of it.

The recipe was very easy for the cake.  I did not follow the directions exactly for the chocolate sauce, because I don’t have a blender at the moment.  The cake is good.  You have to heat up the sauce and spoon it over the slice of cake just before serving.  My sauce was a little lumpy, as you can see in the photo, from the turbinado sugar.  I did cook it on the stove, but didn’t blend it.  I do find it hard to believe that this is the same cake that is served in the restaurant.

I don’t know if I’ll make this cake again.  Maybe once I get a blender.

The recipe was very easy.  Also, since I really like potato salad and all of these recipes are for 1 meal where practical, I doubled the recipe.  I like this recipe, with the possible exception of the olives, but I don’t really like olives.  I only added them, because I wanted to try the recipe as written.  When I make this again, and I will, I may leave out the olives. I really liked to yogurt dressing.

The recipe is pretty straightforward.  You do have to refrigerate the patties before frying them.  I had a hard time making the patties, because the mixture was so dry, so I added more soy yogurt to the mix.  It did seem to help form the patties.  After leaving the patties in the refrigerator for 2 or 3 hours (much longer than called for in the recipe), I attempted to fry them up.  The recipe only makes 3 patties, and I was successful in keeping 1 of the 3 patties in one piece.  The other 2 were in various states of crumbling.

However, the patties (or crumbles as the case may be) were very good.  As you can see from the photo, I added some tomato, lettuce, and vegan mayonnaise on a kaiser roll.  I will try this recipe again.

I purchased this cookbook even though I had read mixed reviews on it.  It seems that the restaurants get really good reviews, but the recipes did not transfer well to the cookbook.  You can purchase this cookbook from Soul Veg Restaurant through Amazon for $19.95.

So I chose to try the Chile Olé and the Cornbread recipes.  First was the cornbread.  I tried to follow the recipe exactly.  However, the recipe calls for 4 cups filtered warm water.  Then in the instructions, it tells you to add the water slowing until the right consistency is obtained.  It does not explain what the right consistency would be, so I assumed that it would be what I have seen in my past experience.  I ended up only adding about 2 1/2 cups of water, because it was getting too thin in my opinion.  I baked the cornbread as instructed.  The texture did not seem right when it came out of the oven.  It appeared too dense, where it should have been lighter and fluffier.  Was it because I didn’t add the full 4 cups of water?  I don’t know.  I did eat a piece of the cornbread, and the flavor was very good.

I wanted to test out the Chili Olé to go along with the cornbread.  The recipe seems pretty simple.  The steps to the preparation did not make sense to me, so I did rearrange things slightly.  For instance, the first step tells you to cook the first ingredients until done.  There is no indication of how you would know when it’s done or how long that would take.  It also lists brown sugar in the ingredients list and then turbinado sugar in the instructions.  I don’t know if these are supposed to be the same thing, but I have turbinado sugar and brown sugar in my pantry, and they are not the same.  Also, the recipes lists 8 cups of filtered water, but I added 6 cups and it seemed really thin to me, so I mixed up some potato starch and water and added that to thicken it up.  Again, I did love the flavor of the chili, but I prefer my chili thicker than this.

I would make this again, but with some modifications, like less water in the chili and probably more beans, maybe add some lentils or black beans.  I’m not sure how to fix the cornbread.  I have a cornbread recipe from another cookbook or possibly from a website.  I will have to check and find that recipe next time.

I am going to start testing and reviewing the recipes in the vegan cookbooks that I own.  I started with the Tofu and Seitan Sausage Scramble from the Candle 79 cookbook that I received recently.

This recipe has ingredients that are familiar to most vegans and non-vegans alike.  The only “vegan” ingredients would be the seitan, tofu, and nutritional yeast.  Prep time for chopping vegetables and measuring ingredients was about 15 or 20 minutes.  The cooking time was 10 minutes altogether.

This recipe was both easy to prepare and delicious.  I would not eat this only for breakfast, but also for lunch or dinner.  The flavor is also going to depend on the flavor of seitan that you use.  I used Field Roast’s Mexican Chipotle flavored sausage.

I’m not sure what recipe or cookbook I’m going to try next.  Time will tell.

In fact, the only problem that I have with this pizza is the sodium.  It is high.  However, that will not stop me from eating this pizza occasionally.

Easy to be Vegetarian