Disease Prevention Benefits of Going Vegan

Eating a healthy vegan diet has shown to prevent a number of diseases. Find out from the list below what you could potentially avoid just by switching to a healthy, balanced vegan way of eating.

1. Cardiovascular disease. Eating nuts and whole grains, while eliminating dairy products and meat, will improve your cardiovascular health. A British study indicates that a vegan diet reduces the risk for heart disease and Type 2 diabetes. Vegan diets go far in preventing heart attack and stroke.
2. Cholesterol. Eliminating any food that comes from an animal and you will eliminate all dietary cholesterol from your diet. Your heart will thank you for that.
3. Blood pressure. A diet rich in whole grains is beneficial to your health in many ways, including lowering high blood pressure.
4. Type 2 diabetes. Not only is a vegan diet a weapon against Type 2 diabetes, it is also "easier to follow than the standard diet recommended by the American Diabetic Association." Read more about it here.
5. Prostate cancer. A major study showed that men in the early stages of prostate cancer who switched to a vegan diet either stopped the progress of the cancer or may have even reversed the illness.
6. Colon cancer. Eating a diet consisting of whole grains, along with fresh fruits and vegetables, can greatly reduce your chances of colon cancer.
7. Breast cancer. Countries where women eat very little meat and animal products have a much lower rate of breast cancer than do the women in countries that consume more animal products.
8. Macular degeneration. Diets with lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, especially leafy greens, carrots, pumpkin, and sweet potatoes, can help prevent the onset of age-related macular degeneration.
9. Cataracts. Much the same way macular degeneration is headed off by a vegan diet, cataracts are also thought to be prevented through the intake of the same fruits and vegetables. Produce high in antioxidants are also believed to help prevent cataracts.
10. Arthritis. Eliminating dairy consumption has long been connected with alleviating arthritis symptoms, but a new study indicates that a combination of gluten-free and vegan diet is very promising for improving the health of those suffering from rheumatoid arthritis.
11. Osteoporosis. Bone health depends on a balance of neither too much or too little protein, adequate calcium intake, high potassium, and low sodium. With a healthy vegan diet, all four of these points set a perfect scenario for preventing osteoporosis.

Nutrition Benefits of Going Vegan

All of the following nutritional benefits come from a vegan diet full of foods such as fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, nuts, beans, and soy products.

1. Reduced saturated fats. Dairy products and meats contain a large amount of saturated fats. By reducing the amount of saturated fats from your diet, you’ll improve your health tremendously, especially when it comes to cardiovascular health.

2. Carbohydrates. Carbohydrates provide energy for your body. When you don’t have enough carbohydrates, your body will burn muscle tissue.

3. Fiber. A diet high in fiber (as vegan eating usually is) leads to healthier bowel movements. High fiber diets help fight against colon cancer.

4. Magnesium. Aiding in the absorption of calcium, magnesium is an often overlooked vitamin in importance to a healthy diet. Nuts, seeds, and dark leafy greens are an excellent source of magnesium.

5. Potassium. Potassium balances water and acidity in your body and stimulates the kidneys to eliminate toxins. Diets high in potassium have shown to reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases and cancer.

6. Folate. This B vitamin is an important part of a healthy diet. Folate helps with cell repair, generating red and white blood cells, and metabolizing amino acids.

7. Antioxidants. For protection against cell damage, antioxidants are one of the best ways to help your body. Many researchers also believe that antioxidants help protect your body against forming some types of cancer.

8. Vitamin C. Besides boosting your immune system, Vitamin C also helps keep your gums healthy and helps your bruises heal faster. Vitamin C is also an antioxidant.

9. Vitamin E. This powerful vitamin has benefits for your heart, skin, eyes, brain, and may even help prevent Alzheimer’s Disease. A diet high in grains, nuts, and dark leafy greens is full of Vitamin E.

10. Phytochemicals. Plant-based foods provide phytochemicals, which help to prevent and heal the body from cancer, boost protective enzymes, and work with antioxidants in the body.

11. Protein. That protein is good for your body is no surprise. It may be a surprise to learn that most Americans eat too much protein and in forms such as red meat that are not healthy ways of getting protein. Beans, nuts, peas, lentils, and soy products are all great ways to get the right amount of protein in a vegan diet.

What’s Wrong With Milk And Eggs?

For starters, animal products that lacto-ovo vegetarians eat (cow’s milk and eggs) have a strong relationship to DEATH because cow’s milk and chicken eggs are only produced by females. The male has no value in the production system, thus he is often killed. Baby chicks who are unlucky enough to be born male are often gassed, suffocated, or crushed. Male calves are often confined in small crates and slaughtered at a young age to become “veal.”

Next, most milk and eggs come from factory environments, which means that the females who are kept alive to produce milk or eggs suffer tremendously. The cows are often pumped full of hormones and antibiotics, confined to small spaces and fed corn or soy unnaturally, overused and abused, and lastly, they are slaughtered at a fraction of of their lifespan (around 4 years of age when they can live into their teens). The chickens are often crammed into cages or barns, and like cows they’re given hormones and antibiotics, overused and abused.

Granted, the relationship to animal suffering through lacto-ovo vegetarianism is not as direct as is the relationship between animal suffering and meat consumption, but the relationship still exists, in almost all cases. Granted, the lacto-ovo vegetarian is eating a diet that is less cruel than the meat-eater’s diet, but the diet is still unnecessarily cruel.

But more than suffering, there is a separate issue. There is the problem of treating another living being as a commodity, specifically, treating another living, sentient being who not only has a will to live, but also a will to love. There is the problem of treating animals as commodities, the problem of the property status of animals. That’s a HUGE ethical problem.

If you care about animals, you want what’s best for them. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could simply ask and they could simply tell? Well, in some ways we can tell what’s best for them. We can understand the basics: cow’s milk is for baby cows, not us. Swathes of unfertilized chicken’s eggs are not common, nor are they natural. Only an UNNATURAL environment, an environment without a rooster, would produce unfertilized chicken’s eggs.

And just to quell the standard farmer’s response that “cows need to be milked”: Cows don’t need to be milked any more than humans need to be milked. Mammals create milk for their babies, yes. And if their babies die or are removed/killed by a farmer, they continue to produce milk for a while, yes. And that excess milk can be painful, yes. But does that mean humans should take it and drink it? No. Cow’s milk does not belong to humans.

And just to quell the response that “eggs are nature’s bounty”: chicken’s eggs are no more a natural human food than are fingernail clippings, placentas, or cloned meat. Chickens, hens specifically, produce unfertilized eggs, yes. And if the rooster dies or is removed/ killed, the hens continue to produce eggs, yes. And those eggs remain unfertilized, yes. But does that mean humans should take them and eat them? No. Neither chickens nor their eggs belong to humans.

Source: Vegan Soupbox

The Disturbing Conveyor Belt of Death Where Male Chicks Are Picked Off and Killed So You Can Have Fresh Eggs

This is the reality for millions of chicks in Britain every year.

Fluffy yellow youngsters travel on conveyor belts at hatcheries dotted across the country – half to their death, the other half to egg farms.

The males are immediately discarded – and either gassed or thrown into macerating machines, which kill instantly.

Undercover filming by the campaigning welfare group Viva has captured the reality of the early days of factory farm chickens.

Once hatched, the chicks are placed onto a conveyor belt system to be sexed and sorted.

Bleak existence: Once hatched the chicks are placed onto a conveyor belt system to be sexed and sorted

Immediately killed: These male chicks have been gassed and are falling out of the machine

While the females will survive this initial process, their heads are placed into machines that will automatically clip away the ends of their beaks and inoculate them against disease.

In some hatcheries the tips of the beaks are removed using a hot wire.

This is done to ensure the birds do not peck and injure each other out of the frustration of spending their lives in cramped wire battery cages.

The same machine will inoculate them against various diseases common in the cage systems used on farms in Britain and around the world.

Even chicks going into other systems, such as free range, will have the end of their beaks cut off.

There was nothing illegal in the activities witnessed by Viva's undercover team, however the images demonstrate the reality behind the idyllic farmyard pictures plastered over supermarket egg boxes.

Viva is a pro-vegetarian organisation and would prefer people to turn their back on eating eggs. The filming took place at two hatcheries in this country in August.

At one, the male chicks are gassed in a machine before the bodies are then packaged to be fed to reptiles.

Life and death: This woman is sorting males from females to catch any that were missed in
the gassing room and is pictured flinging a male chick from the conveyor belt into a crate

Coming up for air: This little chick's head was poking out of a crate

At the second the male chicks are picked up in handfuls and dropped alive into a mincing machine in a process known as IMD - Instantaneous Mechanical Destruction.

Even chicks going into other systems, such as free range, will have the end of their beaks cut off.

The official line of the UK egg producing industry is that this destruction method is uncommon.

However, the recent footage demonstrates IMD is routinely used by at least one major hatchery.

Both of these slaughter methods are approved by Government's food and farming department, Defra, and the Humane Slaughter Association.

Viva campaigns manager, Justin Kerswell, said: 'It is the hidden horror that the egg industry does not want you to see.

'For the first time ever in the UK, the egg industry’s number one secret has been exposed: what happens to male chicks.

'In egg production male chicks are surplus to requirements, which means that they are sorted from the females in vast warehouses and then killed in their thousands at just a day or two old.

'Identical to the chicks you see on Easter greeting cards, these uncomprehending young birds are either sent on a conveyor belt to be gassed or thrown alive into electric mincers.

'Our undercover investigator has revealed the awful truth that underpins the British egg industry.'

He said: 'The female chicks don’t get it much better. Roughly sorted from the males, they too are transported on a seemingly never ending conveyor belt.

'However, they are vaccinated and have the tip of their beaks cut off, which is potentially painful to these young animals.'

Mr Kerswell said the conveyor belt system in the egg hatcheries is not unique to the chicks that go into battery cages.

The same system is used to sort those which move to barn, free range or even most organic egg farms.

'It is an unimaginable waste of life – and all just to bring an egg to your morning table,' he said.

The actor Martin Shaw, who starred as Judge John Deed is a vegetarian and supporter of Viva. He described the footage as 'shocking'.

He said: 'This exposes the mass murder and mutilation of thousands of baby chicks – at the hands of the British egg industry.

'Supporting this cruel industry sees the continuation of the slaughter of male baby birds for no reason, other than their sex.'

The British Egg Information Service defended industry practises.

Despite the evidence of the Viva footage, the organisation claimed it was unusual to put live chicks into mascerators in this country - although not illegal.

It said: 'In the egg industry, on hatching, chicks are immediately segregated into the male and female sexes by feather colour identification. Obviously, only females lay eggs.

'In the past the male chicks were used for poultry meat but the broiler meat industry has now developed specific strains of chicken which grow quickly. The male chicks from egg-laying breeds are not suitable.

'It is therefore necessary to dispose of the male chicks using a method approved by DEFRA and monitored by the Government's Animal Health Agency.

'Disposal is normally carried out by exposure to carbon dioxide or a mixture of carbon dioxide and argon, which is quick and painless, following a Code of Practice approved by the Humane Slaughter Association.

'The male chicks then provide a valuable source of food for other species such as reptiles and birds of prey.'

It said hatcheries are required to have mascerators by law, but said these are mainly used to dispose of unhatched eggs.

'It is not in the industry's commercial interest to throw chicks alive into mascerators, although this is not illegal,' it said.

'Masceration of live chicks is common in other countries including the USA.'

Source: Mail Online

An Adventure of Raw Veganism

Those of you who know me well know that I'm a vegan. It's something that is really important for me, for multiple reasons. I was initially dared to go vegetarian, I'm ashamed to say. A friend bet me that I couldn't do it for a year as a New Year's Resolution toward the end of 2003. I took her on, and she was right. I couldn't do it. I cracked before the end of January. A few days later, I was holding my wonderful, beautiful ferret, and as I looked into her eyes I was really ashamed of myself. I loved her, I claimed to love all animals, and yet there I was eating one. So on February 1, 2004, I made the decision to be forever and permanently a vegetarian. I didn't care how difficult it was going to be, I couldn't betray my animals like that.

I went 100% cold turkey.

A few months later, I was introduced to the dairy and egg industry, and I was horrified by what I saw. I remember crying hysterically when I was shown videos of factory farms, and I told myself that I couldn't eat that, either, but it took me several months to build up the courage to cut out animal products entirely. At first I considered going the free-range or local route, but the more I thought about it the more I reasoned that it just wasn't right for me to exploit any animal, even if I was being duped into believing that it was treated fairly. The fact is that in most cases these animals are not treated fairly. My animals were like family to me, and I realized that I would never want to exploit a family member like that, so on February 1, 2005, I made the decision to cut out all animal products entirely. I was determined that I would never again be responsible for harm coming to any animal, so I decided that it was necessary for me to become vegan.

I went 100% cold turkey. Again. I guess you can say I'm a woman of extremes.

Thankfully my family has been more than supportive. My mother told me that she was fine with whatever I chose to eat as long as I wasn't starving myself, but she said that she wasn't going to cook two meals. I became an overnight chef, but otherwise there have been no problems. She's always made the effort to find places where everybody can eat together (so no Red Lobster because they don't have anything vegan at all), and if she finds something interesting that happens to be vegan while she's shopping, she'll bring it home for me. She's become rather adept at determining what is and is not an animal ingredient (whey comes from milk, for example), and when I ask her to pick up fruit at the store she actually brings me home a better selection of fruits than I would have if I'd gone to the store and gotten it myself!

Most people do not realize it, but veganism is so much healthier for the body. It's true that I stopped taking in animal products in the middle of a growth spurt and that because of that I stopped growing (I'm only five foot four), but that's because this is actually the height that women in my family are supposed to be. Animal products tend to be full of growth hormones; when I look at the women in my family who finished growing before the introduction of such things, they're actually around my height. I've never been anemic, I've never had any sort of deficiencies, and I've actually been less sickly, more energetic, and generally healthier since I went vegan. I feel absolutely fantastic.

Lately I've been realizing that while being vegan is great, I have an even better option out there. Ever since the beginning of my journey into veganism, I've heard about those crazy raw-foodists out there. These people believe that cooking food period (not just microwave cooking, for the pretend physicists who read this) damages the nutrients it contains and that the body responds better to food as nature intended it--alive. I always thought they were extremists and tended to view them in much the same way that most of society probably views me. I just sort of smiled and told myself, "Yeah, sure, you do that. I'll sit back and enjoy my Tofurkey and Morningstar Farms."

The first two years of university I was forced into having a cafeteria meal plan; it's just policy here. I basically survived on cereal, pasta, and veggie burgers. Last year I was put into an on-campus apartment with a kitchen, so I got into cooking again and really expanded. Whereas previously I relied heavily on processed vegan foods, two years of a Boca Burger for dinner every night (in addition to having dated into a Desi family) made me want to explore other options. Over that year, I didn't even realize that I was phasing out "fake meat" products. It just happened. I was relying on nuts, beans, grains, tofu, everything I could think of. Occasionally I would use fake meats if I was really jonesing for something, but the more I meditated on it, the more I realized that I stopped eating meat for a reason. I didn't need to pretend to shovel rotting corpses into my mouth at every meal, so ever since the beginning of the current school year I have entirely cut my usage of processed "fake" meat.

I want to make it clear that I don't look down on anyone for eating these fake meats. Everyone has their own reason for leaving animal products behind, and fake meats can be a great transitioning tool for those who are still learning how to cook. But for me personally, I don't eat chickens because I can't bear animal suffering, so if I eat fake chicken, I feel like I'm betraying my commitment. These foods are also very heavily processed and often contain blinding levels of sodium, sugar, and preservatives. Top Ramen brand Oriental flavor ramen noodles are technically vegan, but as unhealthy as they are, they might as well not be. Fake meats just aren't for me.

At the end of last semester I heard two of my Facebook friends, Mimi Kirk and John Sakars, talk about something called a green smoothie. It's not that far off from a traditional smoothie. The only difference is that, obviously, it's green. The color comes from the addition of dark green vegetables and leafy plants, namely spinach, broccoli, kale, and the like. I thought I just HAD to try it because Mimi was astonishingly beautiful (despite the fact that she could have been my grandmother) and John seemed to be extremely knowledgeable about vegan food. If they both liked these things, I thought they just had to be good. My first green smoothie was tasty, but it wasn't exactly delicious. Still, I was determined that I was going to succeed in making a smoothie that I could rave about as much as they raved about theirs. Since about April I have been experimenting with various recipes, drinking a green smoothie for lunch almost every day, and I think I've finally perfected my recipe. I blend five ounces of spinach, two cups of mixed fruit (mango, peach, pineapple, and strawberry), a tablespoon of flax seed, and a cup of soy milk... OH MY GOD, it's fantastic! Thanks, guys!

For some reason this green smoothie got me to thinking about raw foodism again. As it is, I don't currently eat anything processed. I make everything from scratch, I buy it unprocessed, or I eat it raw in the first place. Raw foodism is looking really good. Mimi, you see, is a raw foodist, and with the exception of the soy milk (which I sometimes don't even use) the green smoothie is entirely raw. I could easily make my own raw soy milk if I wanted to. I've been looking into it and the more that I do, the better raw foodism is looking. I'm guessing that you can see where I'm going with this...

I've decided that I want to venture into raw foodism. I don't think I will become entirely raw. Very rarely, I go out with friends to places that don't exactly have raw options (but still vegan), or I might be in a situation that just isn't conducive to raw foodism (I live in an area that isn't very vegan-friendly in the first place), but I want to transition into raw foodism as much as is possible. If my family wants to go out to eat, I'll go with them. Veganism is important for me from a moral and religious standpoint, and there is no backing down from that in my opinion; raw foodism is healthier than cooked veganism, but the way I see it occasionally indulging in something cooked is the equivalent of occasionally indulging in junk food. That's what cooked food is: junk. I'm selling one of my Utsav sarees that doesn't fit any more on ebay (Utsav is a designer brand from India that's the equivalent for them of having a custom-made Chanel or Versace piece in the United States) so that I can invest in a quality dehydrator and a better blender than the one I already have. I'm already salivating over some strawberry-almond breakfast bars and zucchini pasta!

The carnists in my life are definitely not going to understand this one, but I'm okay with that. As it is, my family already looks at me in total wonderment for my new-found obsession with green smoothies. They'll eat and enjoy just about anything else that I cook, even though they're carnists, but they're still afraid of a green smoothie. To those who have influenced me in this decision, I thank you very much. I sort of did veganism on my own, but to the girl who bet me that I couldn't be vegetarian, I think you know where you stand now on that bet, lol! To everyone else... You don't know what you're missing out on!

What does that mean for the recipes I've been posting to benefit my fellow vegans who must cook in a dormitory setting? I'll still do that, I promise. I don't think there are very many raw vegans of university age, so if you've been thinking of venturing into that area, then certainly you should see if my experiences and cooking interest you.

Zindagi
The Albino Desi strikes again!

Whole-Wheat Microwave Pancakes

Last year my university housed me in one of the on-campus apartments, which meant that I had a kitchen. I went through a phase where I craved pancakes and would eat them every day for breakfast, experimenting with various recipes until I found the perfect one. I was pretty devastated when I was housed in a regular dormitory, partly because lacking a kitchen would make vegan life difficult in general but also partly because I knew that my love of pancakes would have to wait for the few times when someone would be willing to make the three-hour drive to take me back home.

That is, until this morning.

I've been craving pancakes for a while, but this morning the craving was especially intense. The past few weeks have taught me how to ghetto-rig and cook just about everything with only a toaster, a microwave, and a crock pot, even burfi (a type of Indian fudge) and a chocolate-mocha pie. Pancakes, I reasoned, rose and cooked because of the heat of a skillet, not necessarily because of the skillet itself. Why should a microwave not be able to create that heat?

The following recipe is the product of many years of experimentation. These pancakes are so light and fluffy that they practically melt in your mouth, but they're still firm and they give a gentle spring when you touch their surface. I encourage you to experiment with various flavors of ingredients, as this is just a simple base recipe. I've been known to add cinnamon, cardamom, dry pudding mix, oatmeal packets, and even flavored coffee syrups into my pancake mixes. If you increase the amount of flour and create an especially thick batter, these pancakes actually come out quite like cookies. You can also substitute cake mix or Bisquick for the whole-wheat flour (I'll get in touch with you soon about making a cake in the microwave); I just happen to prefer the taste of whole-wheat. Don't be afraid to add savory ingredients and turn this into a dinner dish.

May all of my fellow college vegans enjoy!

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup whole-wheat or white whole-wheat flour
• 1 TBSP raw sugar
• 1 TBSP baking powder
• 1/2 cup vanilla soy milk
• 1/2 TBSP olive oil
• coconut oil for greasing

Method

1. Combine the dry ingredients.
2. Mix the wet ingredients in with the dry until the batter is smooth. It should have a thick, whipped consistency.
3. Grease a plate with coconut oil (you know how much I love coconuts).
4. I put about four forkfuls of batter onto a dessert plate, but whatever plate you choose, cover it with an even layer about half a centimeter in thickness. These pancakes will rise, but they will not spread like a traditional pancake on a skillet. For this reason, I recommend a ceramic plate that has an indentation in the center; you will form perfectly circular pancakes.
5. Cook in the microwave until the pancakes have fully risen and become firm. In my microwave, this took about two minutes per pancake. You will see the batter rise first on the edges until it finally pops up in the middle. A few seconds later, your pancakes will be done. These pancakes will not brown like they would on a skillet; they are done when you can touch them in the center and the batter does not stick to your fingers. The pancakes are firm enough that you can peel them right out of the plate.
6. Serve hot drizzled with maple syrup, Silk coffee creamer, Torani coffee syrups, or chocolate sauce. Serves one.

Zindagi
The Albino Desi strikes again!

Fusion Chickpea Curry

Last night I was playing around with a can of coconut milk, wondering what I could do with it in a college dormitory. A vegan of several years and a college senior, I often found it difficult to eat in the university's cafeteria. I actually love to cook, so this year I have almost entirely abandoned "the caf."

The beauty of this recipe is that I have provided methods for both the stove top and the crock pot. If you're like me and you live in a dormitory, you can't use a hot plate and your cooking options are limited. I put this in the crock pot when I went to sleep and had dinner for the week when I woke up. I live on the fourth floor, and through my open window this could be smelled in the courtyard below.

Now, I really love coconut milk. I could wax poetically with my background in biochemistry about why coconut products are so good for you, but at the risk of boring you to sleep, suffice it to say that although coconuts are heavy on saturated fats, they're good fats; coconuts are full of medium-chain fatty acids. Coconut milk has a rich, thick, creamy texture, making it the perfect base for a lot of South Indian style curries. That was what I was initially thinking of, but at the moment when I started cutting up my onion, I looked up at my Moroccan flag and reminisced about the spice markets there. One thing led to another, and what I ended up with was an improvised South Indian / Moroccan fusion curry.

Cooked entirely from scratch in a college dormitory.

As my first contribution to this blog, I gift the hungry college students out there with this delicious, easy to prepare, and startlingly fragrant dish. Enjoy!

Ingredients

• One large, yellow onion
• One celery heart
• Eight cloves of garlic
• 2 TBSP olive oil
• One can of coconut milk
• Vegetable bouillon cubes (enough to flavor eight servings)
• Four cans of chickpeas (or about eight cups prepared)
• 1 TSP cinnamon
• 1 TSP cumin
• 1 TSP paprika
• 1/8 TSP cayenne pepper

Procedure (crock pot)
stovetop method is below

1. Finely dice the onion and celery. I used the entire celery heart, and my onion weighed about a pound. You could get away with less of either, but I happen to enjoy onions.
2. Sauté the onion and celery. Sauté until the vegetables begin to weep; you will see liquid collecting in the bottom of your crock pot. This tales from about 20-40 minutes on high heat.
3. Add the garlic. Sauté for another 20 minutes or so.
4. Add the coconut milk, spices, and bouillon cubes.
5. Rinse the chickpeas clean and add them to the pot; add just enough water to level with the chickpeas. (If you want a thick sauce, mix some corn starch with a bit of cold water and add it here; I don't do this because I like to drink the sauce.)
6. Simmer on high until very fragrant and the chickpeas are very soft (canned chickpeas are usually al dente). This takes about three hours.
7. Serve hot. Makes 7-8 servings.

Procedure (stovetop)

1. Finely dice the onion and celery. I used the entire celery heart, and my onion weighed about a pound. You could get away with less of either, but I happen to enjoy onions.
2. Sauté the onion and celery. Sauté until the onion is fragrant and translucent.
3. Add the garlic. Sauté for another 5 minutes or so.
4. Add the coconut milk, spices, and bouillon cubes.
5. Rinse the chickpeas clean and add them to the pot; add just enough water to level with the chickpeas. (If you want a thick sauce, mix some corn starch with a bit of cold water and add it here; I don't do this because I like to drink the sauce.)
6. Simmer on medium-high heat until very fragrant and the chickpeas are very soft (canned chickpeas are usually al dente). This takes about 20-30 minutes.
7. Serve hot. Makes 7-8 servings.

Zindagi
The Albino Desi strikes again!