Content related to Cooking, Brewing, and Recipes
White men have long dominated the brewing industry, making women, people of color, and LGBTQ individuals feel unseen at best and unsafe at worst. The recent reckonings around sexism and racism in our society have impacted many aspects of our lives, including what we drink. This post sheds a light on efforts to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in the industry.
Learn from history or be doomed to repeat it, we are warned. The battle between small, independent brewers and large, consolidated production is only in its latest incarnation. There are meaningful arguments about the pros and cons of each side, but the full picture – with all the impacts of our decisions – isn’t always visible. Equity is continuously at stake when we vote with our dollars.
Brewing is a long-beloved hobby of mine, and as a female medievalist, I know there is a rich history of women in brewing across the centuries and throughout the world. How did an activity that was so fundamentally tied to women’s role in the house become dominated by men? And what factors are at play to shift the industry back to something more equitable?
I arrived at vegetarianism 20 years ago to support animal welfare; I upped the stakes to vegan this month to decrease my carbon footprint. Cutting animal products out of your diet is one of the best things you can do for the environment, and more people are taking steps in that direction for just one meal a day or one day a week, rather than going cold-turkey.
A vegan diet can be healthier than one high in animal products, but it isn’t inherently healthier. There are a lot of nutrition factors to consider when removing animal products from your diet, which is why this second installment on vegan health was an unexpected overflow from the previous week and still only represents the tip of the iceberg of nutrition information for vegans.
The first question any vegan or vegetarian is likely to hear is “where do you get your protein?” During almost 20 years of being a vegetarian, I got sick of that question, but when going vegan for the month of January, I had to ask it of myself in earnest. Turns out there are more protein sources in the plant world than I ever knew.
Compassion for animals is often cited as the most important reason to go vegan. It is why I originally went vegetarian, but the extra step toward veganism seems unnecessary if the animals are treated well as they produce milk, lay eggs, or make honey. In fact, there are some foods that are vegan by definition but that can have some unpleasant effects on animals.
I usually head into January with a commitment to eat fewer animal products. While I am full vegetarian, I love dairy products, particularly cheese. In my carbon footprint research a year ago, I discovered that cheese is the third-worst food you can eat, after beef and lamb. With a heavy heart I recommitted to cutting back on dairy, starting with a full-vegan January.
Some of my most controversial, infamous, and still-talked-about Facebook posts of all time involve something that seems to draw opinions from even the most reserved people I know: expiration dates. Many people believe that the “sell by” or “best by” dates stamped on food are the end-all, be-all, definitive line between “safe” and “not safe” for food, and in almost every case that is not accurate.
After a long, cold, lonely winter, I was more than ready to get back out in the garden and enjoy the warmth and the flowers. With some inspiration from my friends, I made and canned syrups made from my violets and honeysuckle, and I have been drinking them in cocktails as I sit and watch the world come back to life.