Recipe for Vegan Spinach Pizza

My husband, who is vegetarian, but not vegan, loves the Spinach Pizza that Pizza Star in Menton, Southern France makes. Here is a recipe that I've been working on for a Vegan equivalent:

Vegan Spinach Pizza
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Crust:
1 pizza crust recipe (about 12 inches) (your choice) I'm lazy, so I let the bread machine mix the dough.)

Pizza mixture (enough for two pizza crusts):
Combine in a food processor and mix until well blended (smooth):
1 cup cashews (soaked for at least a couple of hours in hot water, changed twice. It's easiest to just start this in the morning.) Drain and rinse before using.
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp. ground black pepper
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg (opt.)
Add and process (pulse):
1 lb. medium to firm tofu
2 TBSP lemon juice
Add and process (pulse briefly to mix -- not too long or the mixture gets very green!):
2 tsp. each, chopped fresh tarragon, basil, parsley
1 tsp. chopped fresh dill
Place mixture in bowl and mix with:
1/4 lb chopped fresh spinach (hard stems removed) or baby spinach

After rolling/spreading crust dough out and placing in pan, brush with olive oil and let it rise, covered, in a warm place, for about 15 min. Spread mixture onto pizza crust to within 3/4 inch of the edge of the crust.

(You can also top it with some artichoke heart halves, rehydrated sun-dried tomatoes, or any other topping you may choose. Don't worry if you have no toppings -- it's great just plain.)

If you want, spray the pizza with oil before placing it in the oven.
Bake at 400 degrees F. for around 10 - 15 minutes. Remove from the oven when the edges of the crust are slightly browned.

(I'm also thinking about adding 1/4 cup nutritional yeast flakes to the mixture. I haven't done this yet.)

Why Not Chicken?

When people ask why I am a vegan, they usually want the short version of the answer. But the answer to that question is too broad, and impossible to answer in 1,000 words or less. So, let’s narrow the subject down a little as to the health reasons why I don’t eat birds or bird embryos. Many people who are trying to eliminate beef and pork from their diet, frequently turn to eating the carcasses of chickens, turkeys, and other birds, thinking that they are substituting a “healthy” protein alternative for red meat. One of the reasons that red meat is usually avoided is because it is replete with saturated fat. But people are misled if they think they are avoiding dangerous fat by eating the body of a bird. A three-ounce serving of chicken with skin has almost three teaspoons of chicken fat . (That’s saturated fat!) Without skin, the chicken still has 1.2 teaspoons of artery-clogging fat to create havoc in your bloodstream. And people who eat large amounts of animal flesh tend towards thin, easily-fractured bones, known as osteoporosis. The equation is simple: the higher the amount of excess protein, the greater the amount of calcium loss from the body’s bones, which exits through the kidneys. The countries of the world who tend toward higher consumption of poultry and other meats are plagued with higher rates of osteoporosis.

If you are not yet convinced to eliminate poultry from your diet – how about a nice plate of salmonella? Poultry is the principal carrier of this vicious bacterium. But, you say, the poultry that you buy is packed in a pristine Styrofoam and plastic-wrapped container. Salmonella is endemic in the poultry industry, with at least one in three of those pristinely packaged supermarket chickens infected with this bacterium that can kill or mame you. Not that bad, you say? Salmonella can cause severe dehydrating diarrhea, lung infection, infection of the nervous system, as well as a lingering arthritis, -- or, it can kill you. This is how salmonella insidiously creeps into your kitchen – chicken feed is laced with antibiotics, its volume is often extended with chicken manure infected with salmonella, thus producing infected chicken. (Yes, chickens are made to eat their own poopie!) (Beef feed is also extended with chicken manure, thus contributing to salmonella-infected beef.) (You may want to do an internet search for words such as “chicken manure as volume extender in poultry feed/ cattle feed”.) Kitchen knives, cutting boards, surfaces, and kitchen sponges easily spread the contamination to other foods in the kitchen. Salmonella is not the only potential danger. Poultry farmers have an unusually high rate of lymphoma, cancer of the lymph nodes, which is, interestingly enough, the most common cancer of chickens. It has not been conclusively proven that chicken lymphoma is directly linked to human lymphoma, but medical researchers who work with chicken lymphoma have contracted cancers of their own lymphatic system. Ignoring these facts will not protect you from being infected.

How about chicken eggs? An egg yolk has one of the highest concentrations of animal fat because Nature has designed it to be able to sustain the growth of a baby chick before it hatches. Egg whites are very high in protein, (too high for humans!), thus contributing to leaching out of calcium from our bones. Eggs have salmonella. Because chickens carry salmonella, they contaminate the INSIDE of their eggs with salmonella, before the shell is ever formed, so you can’t wash the salmonella off of an egg.

But, you may argue that chicken and eggs “taste so good.” I would disagree. Most of what you are tasting is the sauce and herbs and spices that have been added to the dishes. (Try boiling a piece of chicken flesh in water with no salt or flavorings of any kind, and tasting it.) And, anyway, are you sure that you want to eat something, solely because it tastes good? I’ve been told that antifreeze tastes good, but I also understand that consuming it can kill you. There are numerous alternatives to chicken and egg dishes, similarly flavored with sauces and herbs and spices, that are not harmful.

So, in a nutshell, the health reason why I don’t eat birds or eggs is: I want to stay as healthy as possible, so my later years will not be plagued with diseases such as osteoporosis, cancer (breast, prostate, pancreas, colon), arthritis, obesity, diabetes, kidney stones, macular degeneration, multiple sclerosis, auto-immune diseases like lupus, hypertension, high cholesterol and arteriosclerosis, diseases that many mistakenly look at as inevitable burdens of middle and later ages. (See, The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-Term Health, by T.C. Campbell, and T.M. Campbell )

To avoid posting a blog of inordinate length, I will cite only two books. (They will cite all the other references.) If you turn off the hypnotic drivel that has been played over and over in Western society’s mind, and truly absorb the contents and meaning of these two books, you need never ask why a person might or should be a vegan. The two books are:
1) Vegan Freak by Bob and Jenna Torres (This is a short and easy read.)
2) World Peace Diet, by Dr. Will Tuttle (This explains EVERYTHING.)

I wish you long life, good health, and happiness.