If we can make delicious dishes without eggs, why are we still using tons of them? Do people really have no clue as to the horrors that chickens go through in this industry? I choose to believe that people just don’t know, and that when they find out, they will care enough to change, despite how scary and inconvenient change can be.
I gave you a delicious eggless omelette recipe a while ago. Not only is it through-the-roof delicious, but everyone that has tried it told me that it is better than its egg counterpart. This week, I want to give you my tofu scramble recipe.
Tofu Scramble
Ingredients:
1 package firm tofu
3 tablespoons grapeseed oil
5 green onions, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 small red bell pepper, finely chopped
1 jalapeno pepper, finely chopped (optional)
Handful of baby spinach, chopped
½ teaspoon cumin
1 tablespoon turmeric
½ cup black beans, cooked and drained
¼ cup fresh cilantro, chopped
2 teaspoons sea salt, or more to taste
Freshly ground black pepper
Method:
- Cut the tofu slab into thick slices and place on a plate lined with paper towels to absorb excess liquid. Cover tofu with more paper towels. Use a plate as a compress. Let the tofu sit for about 20 minutes.
- Using your fingers or a fork, crumble tofu.
- Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onion, garlic, peppers, a dash of sea salt and sauté, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 4-5 minutes.
- Stir in tofu, more sea salt and cumin. Cook for 5 minutes.
- Add beans, spinach and turmeric. Cook, stirring often, for about 2 minutes.
- Remove from heat. Stir in chopped cilantro. Add black pepper to taste, and more sea salt if desired.
- Serve with cherry tomatoes, avocado, salsa, tortillas or toast if desired.
See … we can make everything without eggs! All the cake and other dessert recipes that I have shared with you so far have also been completely egg-free! So, seriously, I ask you: why do we still participate in this cruel industry when we can so easily do without?
I invite you, as Dr. Will Tuttle does in his brilliant book, The World Peace Diet, to consider the life of a factory farmed chicken:
“The tens of thousands of chickens crammed into one egg production shed have nowhere to move and no way to nest, establish social order, or in any way express their natural intelligence or purpose. The artificial lighting schedule that keeps them in almost continuous darkness, and the feed and drugs are all designed with only one goal: to cut costs and to maximize the number of eggs that drop from the hens’ uteruses and roll down the slanted wire cage bottoms to be whisked away on the conveyor belt. On modern chicken operations, this is over 250 eggs per year, more than two and a half times the number hens would normally lay under natural conditions.
In nature, a hen is particular about her nest and often chooses the right place to lay her precious egg in partnership with a rooster. When she actually lays the egg in her carefully prepared nest, it is obviously for the hen a moment full of pride and satisfaction. Contrast this with the following description of egg laying for a caged chicken:
The frightened battery hen starts to panic as she vainly searches for privacy and a suitable nesting place in the crowded but bare wire cage; then she appears to become oblivious to her surroundings, struggling against the cage as though she is trying to escape…
Take a moment to imagine yourself as a layer chicken; your home is a crowded cage with a wire floor that causes your feet to hurt and become deformed; there’s no room to stretch your legs or flap your wings and they become weak from lack of exercise; but at the same time you can never be still because there is always one of your miserable cell mates who needs to move about; one of the other chickens is always picking on you and you cannot get away – except by letting others sit on top of you; the air is filled with dust and flying feathers that stick to the side of the cage splattered with chicken shit from the inmates in the cage upstairs; it is hard to breathe – there is the choking stench of ammonia in the air from the piles of manure under the cages and you don’t feel well at all; the flies are unbearable despite the insecticide sprayed in the air and laced in your food – to kill the fly larvae before they mature; the food – never green and fresh – never varies and tastes always of the chemical additives and drugs needed to keep you alive; eventually, despite your wretchedness and anguish, and the tormented din of thousands of birds shrieking their pain together, you lay an egg and you watch it roll out of sight; but the joy of making a nest, of giving birth, of clucking to your chicks is absent – laying the egg is an empty, frustrating, and exhausting ritual.”
~Dr. Will Tuttle, The World Peace Diet, pp. 127-8.
Surely, this is not right, on any level. Let’s make a change, shall we? I show you how, one recipe at a time, every week.
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