Vegan Tacos

Over the holidays, I went on a bit of a Netflix food documentary binge, which started with renting Fed Up. This is an excellent movie, and I totally recommend it for anyone who is interested in the way we eat, particularly if processed food is something you want to know more about. From there, I ended up watching about six more documentaries, including Vegucated, GMO OMG, and Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead. By the end of it, I was ready to declare a crusade against sugar.

But since it is a new year, and the time is ripe for resolutions, I did start thinking about our relationship with eating animals. I mean, I’m not a full vegan or anything yet, I ate ostrich carpaccio on Friday night, but I do think that we’ve certainly pushed the limits with meat. We’re talking about a society in which bacon is its own cultural touchstone here, people. The excess is now. We’ve put a whole new meaning to “worshipping the flesh”.

I’m not going to give you stats about health and meat-eating, watch one of those documentaries if you want to learn more, and I’m certainly not going to get preachy and post animal torture videos, but I do want to urge you to think about how we consume meat, and at least consider that we are eating an animal. That may or may not have had a nice life, depending on where you bought it, but it was a thing that was once alive, and now you’re eating it. So eat it, it’s cool, but let’s just give it more than a second’s pause to think about what we’re doing.

This is difficult, I get it. I still want to eat meat, and I still want to enjoy it, which after watching all the animal torture videos I did makes me think I may have an attachment disorder, but anyway. But I have decided that eating less meat, and really valuing the meat I do eat, is a step in the right direction. (I may able to separate my meat love from animal torture videos because PETA’s history with women is just so awful.) So in the spirit of less meat, more veg, I made vegan tacos! Yay! They actually turned out pretty fine, so try them and let me know what you think.

Start with some firm tofu, and crumble it. In a hot pan, sauté some onions in oil. Add some cumin, coriander, chilli powder, salt and pepper. I also had some mesquite powder, so I added that. Don’t be shy, because we are seasoning tofu. And, by the way, it will be similar to beef, and it will be nice in that sense, but it isn’t beef, so keep your expectations reasonable, mmmkay?

Great. Now add your tofu, and brown the edges in the pan with the spices and onion. Give it a taste and add more seasoning if you need to. You could just use taco seasoning here, but after watching Fed Up, I’m extremely wary of pre-packaged anything. So making your own taco seasoning is delicious and easy, and far healthier. Good for you! Think about the Insta-hashtags you can use when you post it! #Instahealthy #InstaVegan #InstaSuperior! Add a bit of water to the pan and let it simmer while you get your toppings organized. Obviously you want an avocado in there, plus tomatoes, lettuce, and maybe a jalapeno or two!

Now, the other great part of this is your vegan sour cream! Tacos need sour cream right? Well the healthy bitches over at “Oh She Glows” came up with a cashew sour cream for us to use. This is extremely easy; you just soak raw cashews over night, and then blend with lime juice, apple cider vinegar, and some water. It’s not EXACTLY sour cream, but it is creamy and it is sour, and so there you go. Close enough.

I actually ate this as a taco salad, rather than in shells, but just treat the tofu like beef or chicken, and load up or shells or soft tacos or greens! Bonus- without a shell, it’s gluten-free too!