Questions About Buying Vegan Food Without Access To A City

[Katie_Anne]

I live in a small rural community, and as I do not have a license or a reliable vehicle, I am stuck grocery shopping in my town, which has only a small local grocery store, pretty much filled with meat and dairy products. I can buy vegan margarine and soy milk, but pretty much everything else I have to choose from is a small selection of pasta and grains, a tiny selection of basic produce, that in the winter time is almost unfit for consumption,chips, frozen fries, and potato and onion perogies. I have a lot of vegan cookbooks, but I find I can't make any of the recipes, as I do not have access to most of the ingredients. So I live mainly off of homemade soup, made out of the same ingredients everytime (potatoes, onions, carrots, celery, turnips, barley, and wild rice), homemade spaghetti, or chips, frozen fries, and perogies. I am really sick of eating these things. I was just wondering if anyone else was in the same kind of situation, and had any advice on something different to prepare out of these limited ingredients.

[Gliondrach]

I know what you mean by having limited ingredients. But in my case it is just habit or laziness. I could have lots of things but I stick to the same things most of the time. I actually live mainly on toast with the occasional veggie stew made from potato, carrots and Brussels' sprouts or some other green. I put margarine and tahini on the toast, and sometimes baked beans or tinned or fresh tomatoes. I also eat nuts and raisins and apples. And I drink lots of tea with soya milk. Tea is really the elixir of the gods. It really is. But I also take a multivitamin and mineral tablet and a kelp tablet each day. The nutritional quality of food has fallen in the last hundred years and I think everyone, everyone, should take a good multivit and mineral tablet.

Could you get some seeds for sprouting - perhaps order them over the internet? They are very healthy and nutritious. How about some curry powder or paste to give your stews a different taste? Perhaps grow some herbs in pots to give extra taste.

When I have more time I will look around for someone who has a garden but who doesn't use it and ask them if I could use a part of it to grow food in. Then I'll grow good food the veganic or permaculture way and share it with them.

Do you get the soya milk from your local shop? It's a pity there aren't two or three vegetarians in your area because then you could ask the shop owner to stock a few more items for you.

[Bowwowmeow]

Are you able to do any mail ordering? What sorts of foods are you interested in that are not available to you? If you are comfortable with sharing your mailing address with me, in private of course, I would be more than happy to exchange a vegan care package with you.

I will be moving to a rural area sooner or later, as soon as I find a job in the area. My choices will become somewhat limited, though surprisingly there are things like veggie dogs and Vegenaise sold in a large market thirty miles away. It helps to be located near Yosemite I guess. But I tend to eat a lot of the same things from day to day. Prepared in the same way. I don't think it's bad for you, health wise, as long as you are eating a variety of foods, and enough calories. But I guess it can get boring.

Having access to spices and herbs that can transform simple foods into different kinds of dishes is really the key to variety I think. Rice can be made Spanish, Mexican, Italian, Chinese, Thai, etc. with the proper herbs and spices. I know how limited those can be in rural areas. That's when being able to order things online is helpful.

That, or finding the nearest large city, and making a once a month trip to stock up. Could you take a bus to such a place? You can get your own wheelie cart that will make it easy for you to tote the stuff home with. That and a large backpack.

[LetsEat]

I just sent off an order to Cosmo's Vegan Shoppe online. They are in Georgia, I am in Texas. So it will be good. It's my first perishible order. They send all over the states with great success on perishables. Not sure about Canada. I wanted to try some vegan cheeses I can't get here. As I am roughly two hours away from a Whole Foods, I paid a LOT less for shipping than I would have spent on gas. Altho, now I will have to wait since it will be Monday before it goes off. Oh, and yes, I ordered some of that fieldroast brand stuff our UK vegan friends have, the sausages and the field roast.

I can get some items here pretty well. I was quite shocked with one of the local stores that actually bought me some tempeth. So I pressed my luck and asked for some vegan tamalies.

I tried the veganaise and fell in LOVE with it! I can't tell you how liberated I feel with some of the items I did find here, and how they are willing to expand their products via my suggestions. I may have a Whole Foods Store here yet, via indirectly.

I will report on the Cosmos' Vegan Shoppe and cheeses etc, when they come in.
Ruth

[LetsEat]

Hi Katie Anne, Welcome.

My mother is elderly and does a lot of mailorder. She's even more in the boonies. Not even online as she has no computor.

I love our fearless leader's reply about spices. They help give me some versatility. I got the Supermarket Vegan cookbook by Donna Klein. It has the basic stuff and is a good beginners book as well as just a good cookbook to inspire with the basics. So I brought it up here. It doesn't go crazy with soy or tofu or anything. I was able to find everything in it in my grocery store and no weird ingredients, lol. I reccomend it to people to give them a shot in the arm that feel isolated like I did and do sometimes.

And beleive me, we are way behind the times here locally, and inbetween metropolotan areas of 2 hours either direction.

[Gliondrach]

I hope you enjoy your field roast things and cheeses, Ruth. If the roasted fields are any good I might risk buying one. Never had them. Yes, mail order and internet shopping are a boon for people who live far from shops.

[LetsEat]

Sorry just now getting back to this thread.

I did not like the field roast. Tasted too much like fowl to me. Way too much and I never liked the taste of chicken.

Now beef, yes. I did not like their meatloaf. And their tomato loaf I have not tried. I went thru all their deli slices and did not really like them. The tomato one was pretty good tho.

I liked the sausages by Field Roast ok but don't have to have again. Cept the apple sweet potatoe ones are awesome!!

That was the Field Roast brand.

I also tried Tofurkey but hated all of their sausages as well as their deli slices. Especially the one that tasted exactly like turkey. But I was dumb to try that one anyway as I had heard it was very realistic and I never liked turkey anyway.

I have since tried Stonewall's jerkey and I love it. I'm not wild about the orgional wild flavor but have tried all the other flavors cept texas bbq. I know how odd for this Texan. lol.

I love the pastrami and pepperoni flavors, and they both hit the spot!! It is soooo easy to be vegan with these products. How exciting to not kill one of my neighbors (my neighbors are cows, I live in the country) to have the craving for pastrami met.

I find the Stonewalls jerkey easy to add to foods as long as I don't over cook them with the food. Or use too much liquids or too little liquids. I find they taste a lot like steak with other foods.

So I have had them for more than just a snack as was their main intention.

I have not tried the Tofurkey jerkey as I don't like the other products by them. So I'm leery.

I hated the Primal 'slim jims'. OMG what trash!!But the Primal jerkey looks tempting tho.

Oh yes, and my post about remote vegan foods via internet would not be complete without mentioning the Daiya cheese!! OMG, the most realistic vegan cheese I have ever had.

And I loved the tree nut cheese by Dr. Cow. It's pricy. But it's the most thing like raw as it is raw. I am learning how to make raw cashew cheese so hopefully can get a similar taste.

But I HATE the Sheese. Omg what junk.

Anyhow, just my opinions. Yes, I know subjective.

Smiles
Ruth

[Gliondrach]

I don't know what half the things are that you mention. I don't like Sheese. It has a taste a bit like vomit. Cheezly, Cheddar-style, is the best vegan cheese I've had. Well, I've only had that and cheese. But it is very good.