Shabbat Recipe: Fig and Goat Cheese Salad

Arutz Sheva brings you a creative and filling salad for the 9 days.
By Sima Herzfeld
First Publish: 8/5/2011, 3:54 PM


“Drink Milk. It’s Good For You.”
I heard it, I believed it and I drank it, every single day. Ten years ago I stopped drinking milk, I felt absolutely amazing!  All of my minor health complaints, digestive or otherwise, basically disappeared. People constantly ask me, “but what about calcium?”  Kudo’s to the dairy industry and their PR/lobbyists who have us all believing that we need to drink milk in order to get our RDA of calcium.  I’ve got news for you, all fruits and vegetables have calcium.  
Figs have double the amount of calcium than milk, while seaweed, my favorite source of nutrients, can have up to ten times more calcium than milk. Countries with the highest dairy consumption also have the highest rate of osteoporosis, a disease directly related to calcium intake.  This statistic leads me to question the idea that dairy is a good source of calcium for humans.  An even more worrying statistic is that countries with the highest dairy consumption also have the highest rate of both breast cancer and prostate cancer.
But, as my brothers like to say: “73% of all statistics are incorrect”.  So, let’s look at dairy from a purely ecological point of view.  Cows produce an enormous amount of methane, a major contributor to global warming.  They also excrete a huge amount of biological waste.  A normal sized dairy of two hundred cows produces the same amount of waste as 10,000 people.  
The aspect however that worries me the most, is the enormous water consumption involved in producing dairy in Israel.  The natural diet of a cow is grass, they are meant to live in countries with large rainfalls where grass grows in abundance.  Israel, an arid land, doesn’t naturally produce grass. Raising cows in Israel means that we have to first grow everything that the cows eat and then hand-feed it to them.  Cows eat about 40 kilo of produce a day (they produce on average 60 liters of milk a day).  
Growing 40 kilo of food a day for each and every cow uses enormous amounts of water.  We use more than 2,000 liters of water in order to produce 1 liter of milk. Shocking, isn’t it.  If the government wasn’t behind the cottage-cheese protestors than they should have been.  Yes, I think dairy products should be imported.  Israel should not and can-not sustain a large dairy industry.    
Personally, I say, eliminate the dairy industry and build more pools.  Every time you buy a bag of milk, think to yourself, I could have a pool instead.
So, why am I giving a cheese recipe?  It’s the nine days, people who generally eat meat on a daily basis are hungry and are looking for alternatives. Many might try eating more dairy to replace their usual  meat meal.  I recommend that if you are planning on eating a dairy meal, than go for the goat. Goat milk is easier to digest than cow milk, it also contains less steroids and antibiotics.
Goats are indigenous to Israel as well and are suited to the environment.  Goats are environmentally friendly as they like to eat the weeds that grow here in abundance. By munching on our abundant weeds, goats also reduce the risk of forest fires.  
True, goat milk does taste different than cow milk  Like cow milk, goat milk is also an acquired taste.  If you haven’t yet adjusted to the flavor of goat milk you can try doing what your Mother might have done when you didn’t like milk as a kid, try mixing it with Cocoa Pebbles until you get used to the flavor.
1 bag of mixed greens (about 4 cups)
6 figs, quartered
1/4 cup toasted walnuts
150 gr. mild goat cheese, crumbled
3 tbsp. olive oil
1 tbsp. balsamic vinegar
1/2 tsp. honey
1/4 tsp. Dijon mustard
Place the salad ingredients in a wide bowl.
Mix together the dressing ingredients and pour over the salad.
Serves 4-6
May we merit the coming of Mashiach speedily and in our time!