Vegan Christmas Feasts

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Tuesday December 02, 2025 · 12:05 PM PST

2025/12/02 · 12:05

no image description available — That's the idea, but bigger, with a lid and more veg and lots of seasoning and baste

The day after Thanksgiving I commented to my friends in the Good News Roundup that I should write up our family’s plant-based Thanksgiving for this Christmas etc. holiday season, along with my ginormous one-pot feast recipe. It turns out that there are more options than I previously knew about.

I figure that publishing today should give you enough time get all prepared for this, including deciding which roast to buy where you are.

Country Life Not Turkey Roast

Field Roast Celebration Roast

Field Roast Hazelnut Cranberry en Croute

Gardein Vegan Turk’y Roast

Quorn Meatless Turkey Style Roast

Smoked Vegan Turkey Pieces With Skin 1lb from JusttheVeganing

Tofurky Ham Roast or Holiday Roast

Worthington Meatless Turkey Dinner Roast

Thaw your roast starting the day before the feast.
Get out your biggest Dutch oven, and grease it with olive oil.
Set your oven to 350℉.
Unwrap the roast and place it in the center of the pan.
Drizzle with soy sauce and olive oil baste.
Surround with a layer of onion chunks liberally sprinkled with oregano.
Surround with a layer of red potato chunks liberally sprinkled with rosemary
Top with a layer of bell pepper chunks.
Top with a layer of carrot chunks or baby carrots.
Top with a layer of mushrooms.
Top with a layer of green beans.
Add more baste to all of it.
Put the lid on the pan, and put it in the oven for an hour and 20 minutes.

OK, you can’t get ALL of the fixings into one pot. Feel free to make additional dressing, mashed potatoes, yeast gravy, cranberry sauce, and more veg. Get holiday sparkling juices and buy or make dairy or vegan egg nog.

Pie, of course. What’s your favorite holiday pie? My wife wants to make pumpkin pie and lemon chess pie.

Mokurai

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday November 28, 2025 · 3:01 AM PST

2025/11/28 · 03:01

Are we at Peak Carbon? Probably. Are we at Peak Denial? Long past the worst, but still plenty bad. Did COP30 promise the end of Fossil Fuels? Sort of, without using the words. When can we talk about Net Zero? You can TALK about it all you like, any time. When can we do it? Sooner than the pundits think. Now what? The usual, but more so, as exponential growth continues to surprise everyone but the mathematicians.

COP30 declared war on climate disinformation. You can help. EVs, heat pumps, induction cookers, solar panels on roofs and balconies, and much more are all unstoppable, but lies about them all continue. We can roll back wildfires, floods, droughts, killer heat waves and other climate disasters if we set our minds on the fact that these all cost much more than saving the planet at a profit.

Too many loonburgers think they want vastly expensive, corrupt, and incompetent nuclear power, which is always over budget and far behind schedule, kills miners, and creates toxic waste. We need laws everywhere to require actual renewables to be built for every data center, and to be in operation before the computers are switched on. There are no SMRs, small nuclear reactors, that can be licensed or bought. There are no molten salt reactor products, likewise.

We need to get serious about leaving carbon in the ground, and cleaning up steel, cement, and ammonia, and planting trees, and reviving soils, and everything else we report on here.

And, as always, get your local schools to buy electric school buses and put in enough solar panels to charge them and support computers for all students. Diesel buses have caused an epidemic of asthma.

Mokurai

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday November 27, 2025 · 4:00 AM PST

2025/11/27 · 04:00

When I was helping to set up Shasta Abbey, in the time of Nixon, some lay people objected to our mealtime prayer giving thanks and offering the merit of our training to the Buddha, President Nixon, our parents, and all people. “Who needs it more?” was the response from the Abbess, Rev. Master Jiyu Kennett, and that was that.

As long as bowing continues, Buddhism will last.

Zen koan

I am grateful for the U.S. Constitution, with its known faults, some fixed with amendments, some still to be fixed. That means that I am grateful to John Locke on human rights, Adam Smith taking down bogus imperial economics, and King George III for provoking the colonists to rebellion. You can’t have just one, any more than you can take steps to walk on only your right foot. (Also a Zen koan.)

I am grateful for all of you here, and all of your friends and relations who come into your posts and comments here. I am grateful for Madam Mayor and for Kos. Remember that he was once a Reaganite.

I am grateful that we have Thanksgiving Days, and we get reminded regularly to give our own thanks, and to share with others who can then have enough of their own to be thankful for.

How about you?

Mokurai

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday November 26, 2025 · 9:00 AM PST

2025/11/26 · 09:00

Three weeks ago we looked at Miracle Fruit (Synsepalum Dulcificum). Now we have a different fruit, also from China, of similar appearance, showing similar benefits in research on diabetic mice—Nitraria roborowskii Kom. The active chemical is NRK-C.

🎩 ArrrghIsle

Nov 19, 2025 at 01:30:39 PM

Something interesting I read recently…

[Science Daily]: Rare desert berry could transform diabetes treatment

How the Desert Berry Restores Metabolic Balance

The detailed analysis revealed the extract's impressive range of benefits. Over the course of seven weeks, NRK-C reduced fasting blood glucose levels by 30-40% in diabetic mice, with stronger results at higher doses. It also improved insulin sensitivity by roughly 50% compared with untreated animals. In addition to these improvements, the extract balanced cholesterol and lowered oxidative stress markers by as much as 60%, a rare feat for any single therapeutic compound.

The fruit of Nitraria roborowskii Kom, long used in traditional medicine, showed strong potential to fight insulin resistance and restore healthy metabolism in diabetic mice. The plant extract not only helped stabilize blood sugar but also corrected several related issues, including abnormal fat metabolism and oxidative stress. These results were linked to the activation of a key cellular signaling system that regulates how the body processes glucose and energy. The discovery points to the possibility of safer, naturally derived treatments for one of the world's most widespread chronic diseases.

NIH: Chemical Profiling of Nitraria roborowskii Kom. by UPLC-Q-Orbitrap-MS and Their Hypolipidemic Effects in Vivo

“Nitraria tangutorum improves pancreatic resistance in type 2 diabetic mice via the PI3K/AKT signaling pathway” by Wu Di, Xu Jiyu, Wang Luya, Wu Li, Li Jiaxin, Banma Cailang, Zhao Xiaohui, Zhang Dejun and Yue Huilan, 14 April 2025, Chinese Journal of Modern Applied Pharmacy.
DOI: 10.13748/j.cnki.issn1007-7693.20240613

Improvement Effect of Insulin Resistance of Nitraria Roborowskii Kom in Type 2 Diabetic Mice via PI3K/AKT Signaling Pathway

OBJECTIVE
To explore hypoglycemic effect of 95% ethanol fraction of Nitraria roborowskii Kom(NRK-C) and its possible mechanism evaluated in the type 2 diabetes mellitus(T2DM) mice.

METHODS
The body weight, organ indices, blood glucose levels, serum biochemical indexes, as well as HE/PAS histopathological section were all analyzed to assess the hypoglycemic effect of NRK-C in T2DM mice induced by a high-fat diet(HFD) combined with six intraperitoneal injections of 35 mg·kg^-1 of streptozotocin(STZ). The Western blotting and immunofluorescence were further applied to determine the regulatory effect of NRK-C on key signaling proteins.

RESULTS
The fasting blood glucose levels were significantly reduced after 7 weeks of administration of NRK-C. In addition, NRK-C could also significantly improve glucose tolerance, hepatic glycogen levels, and lipid levels(total cholesterol, triglyceride, low density lipoprotein and high density lipoprotein), and significantly reduced insulin resistance of diabetic mice, which played an important role in the antidiabetic effects. Further mechanism research demonstrated that phosphorylated PI3K expression was up-regulated and p-GSK3β expression was up-regulated after NRK-C intervention, indicating that NRK-C might exert a potential antidiabetic effect by modulating the PI3K/AKT signaling pathway.

CONCLUSION
All these results suggested that NRK-C might improve T2DM and had the potential to be used as an adjunctive therapy.

Characterization of alkaloids and phenolics in Nitraria roborowskii Kom. fruit by UHPLC-triple-TOF-MS/MS and its sucrase and maltase inhibitory effects

Nitraria roborowskii Kom (NRK), with high economic and ecological value, is mainly distributed in the Qaidam Basin, China. However, research on its chemical components and bioactivities is still rare. In this study, its chemical constituents (52) including 10 β-carboline alkaloids, nine cyclic peptides, three indole alkaloids, five pyrrole alkaloids, eight phenolic acids and 17 flavonoids were identified tentatively using UPLC-triple-TOF-MS/MS. Notablely, one new β-carboline alkaloid and five new cyclic peptides were confirmed using MS/MS fragmentation pathways. In addition, experiments in vitro indicated that NRK-C had strong maltase and sucrase inhibitory activities (IC₅₀ of 0.202 and 0.103 mg/mL, respectively). Polysaccharide tolerance experiments confirmed NRK-C (400 mg/kg) was associated with decreased postprandial blood glucose (PBG) in diabetic mice. These results suggested that NRK fruit might be used as a functional ingredient in food products.

Renewable Tuesday: COP30 Big Four Issues—Finance, 1.5℃, Trade & Transparency

Mokurai

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday November 24, 2025 · 5:09 PM PST

2025/11/24 · 17:09

Commercially motivated climate disinformation is such a severe issue that the COP30 host Brazil, the United Nations and UNESCO have now launched this Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change:\

Now, finally, COP30 is coming to the point, a global joint effort on four overarching issues for combating Global Warming. They didn’t get voted on, but it is significant that the issues were raised officially. Full proposals will be ready when COP31 begins, but the world doesn’t have to wait for that.

COP30 COVER TEXT: The Brazilian presidency has published a first draft "global mutirão" text on the "big four" issues at COP30 – finance, 1.5C, trade & transparency
Options inc a "Belém roadmap to 1.5C", national FF roadmaps, tripling adaptation finance and more
NB this is only a draft!

[image or embed]
— Simon Evans (@drsimevans.carbonbrief.org) November 18, 2025 at 5:41 AM

The Guardian: Cop30: Scientists warn countries must act decisively to protect people and life or risk ‘suffering for billions’ – as it happened

Scroll down to Brazil aims to wrap some challenging negotiations by end of day.

Thus:

Finance

Last year developing countries were frustrated when their developed counterparts agreed only $300bn of the promised $1.3 trillion in climate finance annually by 2035 would come directly from rich country coffers

1.5℃

The most important of the “big four” issues is the response to the NDCs. Under the Paris agreement, parties must produce NDCs – national plans on greenhouse gas emissions, also showing measures to meet them and finance needs – on a five-year cycle. This year was delivery year for the third round of NDCs: the first, presented at Paris, would have led to warming of about 3.6C; the second, at Glasgow in 2021 to about 2.8C; and the current round, still being submitted by some countries at Cop30, would cook the planet to about 2.5C.

Cut the subsidies completely. Leave all fossil fuels in the ground, and build out renewables as fast as possible. To Hell with the disinformation. Sue the liars into the ground.

Trade

Trade is likewise contentious as China and many developing countries have been angered by the EU’s green tariff. The carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) places a charge on imports of high-carbon goods such as steel, when they come from jurisdictions with weak controls on carbon.

Then there are Trump tariffs and the counter-tariffs. Don’t get me started on them.

Transparency

Transparency refers to the question of the biennial transparency reports that countries must submit to the UN under the Paris agreement, showing how they are cutting or curbing their greenhouse gas emissions, and how they are providing or using climate finance. Many countries dislike having to disclose detailed information, regarding the “measurement, reporting and verification” as a potential infringement of national sovereignty, but without such data it is impossible to judge how the world is progressing on the Paris targets.

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Vegan Christmas Feasts

Renewable Friday: COP30 Promised Death of Billion Duck Bites for Carbon

Thursday GNR: I Give Thanks That I Can Give Thanks

Diabetes News: Another Berry that Reduces Blood Glucose

Renewable Tuesday: COP30 Big Four Issues—Finance, 1.5℃, Trade & Transparency