Healthy Eating Healthy Planet

Hitting the Big Six-Oh: Is Gray the New Black?

2011-06-18T18:57:00.002-04:00

I just celebrated a milestone birthday, that dreaded big Six-Oh, and the day, and hopefully the year to come, was beautiful in every way. I took the subway an extra stop to 23rd Street so I could pick up my lunch at Terri, an amazing all-vegan cafe, take out and catering place just off 6th Avenue. I selected an amazing wrap they describe as:

Hummus & Avocado - hummus, avocado, smoked tofu, pepperoncinis, lettuce, tomato.

Avocado & Hummus Wrap, from Terri on 23rd, NYC

Here's how this delicious creation looked:

I cannot recall enjoying eating anything more than this wrap. The smoked tofu was so tasty and the tomato was gorgeously ripe and flavorful, surely a farmer's market find.

But I digress. I bought this great lunch before work, and treated myself to a baked (not fried) Apple Cider vegan donut which I ate at my mid-morning break with a fresh-brewed cup of Magie Noir coffee. I didn't eat the wrap until lunch time.

I walked to Broadway and stopped to take in the eponymous Flat Iron Building, having to bend over almost backwards to get it in the frame. I walked down Broadway savoring the interesting shops and stores along the way.

Flatiron Building, 23rd Street
between Broadway and Fifth Avenue

There are some really cool places in this stretch between 23rd and Union Square where I work. There's Design Within Reach, ABC Carpet and Home, and Fishs Eddy, to name a few. I recently had occasion to buy a new office chair and ottoman, and since I sit in a chair almost all day most of the week, how I sit and where matter. Being vegan, I choose not to replace my current leather set up with another, although if I could have gotten an Eames lounge chair and ottoman in faux leather, I might have done that, but truly, it is too large for the space. This is Manhattan, and my rent is bad enough for the modest space I have. So I let that one pass and searched for something better.

I finally decided on a Risom chair from Design Within Reach, a great store featuring mid-century modern furniture. The Risom lounge chair is birchwood with canvas webbing, and it's a replica of an original we had in the 1950s in California when I was a child living in the house my architect dad had designed, and I have vivid memories of lying on the floor underneath it playing some sort of game. So as I walked down Broadway, I passed Design Within Reach, and there was my chair (on order from the factory and not expected for a month or so) in the window. iPhone in hand, I snapped its photo.

Risom Chair at Design Within Reach
Broadway, NYC

I look forward to many hours in this chair in the months and years to come. And in a few years when I retire, and hang up my therapist's boxing gloves (or whatever therapists hang up), I'll take it to my warm weather residence, when I have one.

I continued south to Union Square where the Farmer's Market was its usual hive of activity, but having no time to stop and linger at the many vendors, I snapped a few photos for this blog as I hustled to meet my first client of the day.

Flower Vendor
Union Square Farmer's Market

Veggies in all their glory
Union Square Farmer's Market

I hurried down and saw this lovely water fountain, and with this I leave you.

Oh, and the rest of the day was as lovely as the beginning. My husband surprised me with a high-powered blender and food processor so I can make the Green Smoothies with which I start most days. Then we met a dear friend in a favorite Italian restaurant where we had great food and wonderful conversation, and I was feted with flowers and gifts. I hadn't seen this friend since letting my hair go gray, and it was gratifying that she told me how well I looked. Gray is the new black, now that we Baby Boomers are hitting our senior years. I rejected the expensive dual-process colorings, gray roots, and the knowledge that I wasn't hiding anything. And I'm letting a wonderful hairdresser make it look its best. What else would one do in New York?

Vegan Baking Bliss

2011-06-12T11:20:00.000-04:00

Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies (foreground and top rack)
Oatmeal Raisin & Oatmeal Raisin-Chocolate Chip (lower rack)

A RAINY DAY is a perfect time for baking, so I pulled out my Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar (by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero) and whipped up a batch of amazing chocolate chip cookies and a batch of oatmeal raisin that I divvied up and added vegan chocolate chips to half. They turned out hugely well.
Departures: I used hemp milk because the opened carton of soymilk had spoiled. I used it for the first time, and the hemp milk was a fine replacement. It has a nutty flavor, and I look forward to putting on my cereal tomorrow. Isa and Terry called for quick-cooking oats for the oatmeal raisin, but all I had on hand was extra-thick whole rolled oats, and they worked just fine in the cookies. The chocolate chips were my idea for enhancing the oatmeal raisin dough after making the first batch according to the recipe. I learned that they are nearly impossible to mix in. I had to grab walnut-sized gobs of dough and stuff the chips in, then push them back in on the cookie sheet when they fell out. But, once baked and cooled, they stayed put and are a great addition. For the chocolate chip cookies, I used mini vegan chocolate chips rather than the regular sized ones, mainly because I had more of them after using the bigger ones in the oatmeal raisin chocolate chip batch.
The egg replacers for these recipes are different. The oatmeal-raisin batch was held together with flaxseed meal in the dough. The chocolate chip batch was bound with the addition of a small amount of tapioca flour.
In Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar, Isa Chandra and Terry Hope (learn more and order via The Post Punk Kitchen, Isa's site)have done all the hard work of converting these classic recipes to egg-free, dairy-free deliciousness! I use the book all the time and have made some amazing treats that others marvel are vegan. I also love the earlier vegan books these amazing cooks have published.
After baking and cooling, I arranged the cookies on some of my vintage Fiesta plates and styled them for photos, and I left them thus on the counter until my husband returned from tennis so he could see, savor and enjoy them. After this I put some in a glass cookie jar, others in a plastic container, and at day's end after we'd had a few more, stuck the rest in a freezer container that already contained frozen vegan brownies (from the same cookbook). Because our weather was rainy, foggy and humid all day, they got pretty soft, but I think I could pop them in a warm oven for a few minutes to recrisp them if we want to try it.

It's Green Smoothie

2011-06-08T10:55:00.000-04:00

Hot enough for you? The national weather map shows this huge red blob of heat wave forecast for the midsection and up and down the east coast of the United States. Staying cool will be important for a whole bunch of us right now.

I love green smoothies, and they are really refreshing! A good friend who just finished her first triathlon (go Patricia!) knew about my smoothie habit and my new iPhone and sent me this link: Raw Family iPhone App

After visiting the site and scoping out the recipes and articles, I bought the iPhone app. Today I used it for the first time. You can search by ingredient, so I started with "limes."

I didn't use a particular recipe I found but mixed and matched from their suggestions. Here's what I put in:

2 cups raw spinach
1 cup papaya
3/4 fresh lime (whole fruit, minus skin)
1 Granny Smith apple
1 inch fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
1 TBS flaxseed (my idea, not theirs)
1 cup cold water
1 cup ice

It was delicious and refreshing. If you're hot, try a smoothie!

Monetizing This Blog Brings You HFCS Propaganda! Read On...

2011-05-28T11:57:00.004-04:00

Since more folks are stopping by this blog, I've added the monetizing feature Blogger offers, and often the ads are relevant and in harmony with my sentiments and values. Today, however, I am seeing the "Sweet Surprise" links about the "truth" about High Fructose Corn Syrup in a couple of places here. I've posted several very negative, detailed blogs about HFCS, so this is no accident, so I'm just warning readers, HFCS is no good for you, no matter how much they assure you otherwise. It's way too concentrated, as any refined sugar is, but it enters your bloodstream faster than cane or beet sugar because the molecular structure has been tampered with.

A Princeton University study published in 2010 challenges the "Sweet Surprise" propaganda:

A Princeton University research team has demonstrated that all sweeteners are not equal when it comes to weight gain: Rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same.

In addition to causing significant weight gain in lab animals, long-term consumption of high-fructose corn syrup also led to abnormal increases in body fat, especially in the abdomen, and a rise in circulating blood fats called triglycerides. The researchers say the work sheds light on the factors contributing to obesity trends in the United States.

"Some people have claimed that high-fructose corn syrup is no different than other sweeteners when it comes to weight gain and obesity, but our results make it clear that this just isn't true, at least under the conditions of our tests," said psychology professor Bart Hoebel, who specializes in the neuroscience of appetite, weight and sugar addiction. "When rats are drinking high-fructose corn syrup at levels well below those in soda pop, they're becoming obese -- every single one, across the board. Even when rats are fed a high-fat diet, you don't see this; they don't all gain extra weight."

I have no intention of giving the Corn Refiners Association free publicity, so I will post no links, but you'll probably still see them below and to the lower right of this blog post. Get that? The Corn Refiners Association sponsors the Sweet Surprise site, and, get this, their mailing address is in Washington DC. Last I heard, no farmers are raising corn in DC. Maybe First Lady Michelle Obama has a few rows of corn in the White House garden, but that's not what we're talking about.

Not only is HFCS downright deadly to at least some living beings, but much of the commercial corn raised in the US is genetically modified to be disease resistant, pest resistant, and weed resistant. What's wrong with that? HuffPost Green states it well:

In a study released by the International Journal of Biological Sciences, analyzing the effects of genetically modified foods on mammalian health, researchers found that agricultural giant Monsanto's GM corn is linked to organ damage in rats.

I love farmers. I love the red barn and tractor thing big-time. I love the bib overalls and wheatstraw look. Honest I do.

But I don't love monster agribusiness that pollutes, overcontrols, and buys votes in DC with lobbying. I abhor factory beef, pork and poultry and egg operations, and I hate fish farming. Sorry kids, but raising the eggs you buy in your supermarket is cruel, and there's no Auntie Em tossing grain to the hens in the front yard. Beaks are cut without anesthesia and wings and legs break all the time. You don't want to know. But if you do, head to the Mercy for Animals website (No link given because a video will play and I want you to see it willingly; but that's how Nature Maven became a vegetarian!)

I love organic farmers and folks who love the land and the people they feed more than monster profit margins. If they raise animals for food, I don't love them as much but I celebrate those who treat their animals very well and make their deaths as non-traumatic as possible (thank you, Temple Grandin!).

So, go ahead and read the CRA propaganda, click on those links as much as you want, but be sure you read the flip side. Knowledge is power. And, totally anecdotally, this vegan has found eating Oreos and other foods made with HFCS leads to that "phenomenon of craving" addictions experts refer to. I can eat three Oreos and be at serious risk of consuming a whole line of those bad boys. Three Newman's O's satisfy without starting the sugar monster going. Try it out for yourself!

Eliminating HFCS has caused me to carry my own ketchup packs (thanks, Whole Foods!) and always ask for pure maple syrup with my waffles, and read bread and salad dressing labels like a maniac. Shopping with me can be your worst nightmare! Del Monte makes HFCS-free ketchup. Wishbone regular dressings are HFCS free but not their Salad Spritzers. WTF? I have a bottle on the counter now with the receipt attached with a rubber band, ready to exchange for a Ken's no-HFCS dressing spray.

Nature Maven wishes all readers a wonderful Memorial Day. Here's a cute YouTube video on the subject of HFCS:

Vegans, Do You Know Where Your Chocolate Comes From?

2011-05-27T21:36:00.001-04:00

The Food Empowerment Project tracks the sources of the cacao beans from which chocolate is made and lists those who do not use those from Africa where child labor, slavery and other human and animal exploitation are involved. Click here to see if your vegan food products make the list: www.foodispower.org/chocolatelist.htm

The same organization also has a kickin' source of vegan Mexican recipes! Check it out here:
www.veganmexicanfood.com/

I checked out the 7-Layer Fiesta Bean Dip and it looks awesome! The Swiss "Chicken" Enchiladas use vegan sour cream, Daiya cheese and Gardein Chick'n (or other vegan alternatives). I wasn't familiar with FEP, and thanks to a fellow vegan who tweeted about it today, now I am!

My Experience with the Eat to Live 6-Week Plan

2011-05-07T10:55:00.001-04:00

A little over six weeks ago I began trying to follow the Eat to Live (ETL) plan of Dr. Joel Fuhrman. I saying "trying" because I didn't adhere to the restrictions entirely, and yet I still managed pretty well. I posted about it on SparkPeople.com where I utilize their food tracker and other helpful tools to stay honest with myself.

I learned quite a bit over the past 6 weeks.

1) Breakfast: I love green smoothies (and pink ones, and orange and red ones, too) and I have fully established the habit and preference of having them 5 or more times a week. On the days that I have a bagel breakfast, I try to have a smoothie for lunch. That works! I've learned to add protein powder to improve nutrition and medjool dates or date bits to add sweetness. When I'm out of spinach or kale, I use cole slaw mix or salad greens. They all give me delicious healthy fiber and nutrition. I found great new products called PB2 and PB2-Chocolate flavor that are powdered peanut butter less 85% of the fat, only 45 calories for 2 TBS and adding protein and fiber to smoothies and soups. Carrot juice is a must to have in the fridge, and cup of that in a smoothie is delicious!

2) Lunch: Guess what? Salads don't need dressing! I get a huge salad for lunch and never add dressing anynore. If I can, I add some avocado, or a little bean salad to get a smidge of oil to coat the greens ever so lightly. I have learned to enjoy these salads, and I have stopped buying vegan chicken burritos at Whole Foods, as yummy as they are. I have stopped buying and scarfing down a container of vegan chicken made from soy protein. It's too much concentrated food.

3) Dinner: I switched my usual Monday Mexican salad protein from Gardein 7-Grain Crispy Tenders (which are great, but for now, I'm trying to get away from faux meats) to black beans. I sometimes take a couple of tablespoons of guacamole and thin it with lime juice or vinegar and use it as dressing. I make stir fries with veggies and beans, but I must admit I don't enjoy them that much. Dinner is my meal that still needs the most transformation. I am eating Amy's vegan entrées quite often on work nights. We eat dinner out more than we eat in, truth be told. It's been this way for decades for us. We'd go to meetings and eat out afterwards with friends or just the two of us. On weekends we try to get together with friends we don't see during the week. So we meet in restaurants. Last night we went to Chili's and I got the Caribbean Salad with black beans instead of chicken or shrimp, and corn on the cob without butter. Delish!

4) Restaurant eating: I've learned that I can get vegan food in most places, with a little effort. The chains such as Red Robin, Friendlys, Chilis, and Moe's all have beans, Bocas or tofu options. LongHorn will put 3 sides on a platter if you ask, and sometimes they have margarine in the kitchen and will give me some to put on my potato (white or sweet). A favorite place has become the Japanese teahouse near our country place where the owner makes me an udon hot pot with vegetable tempura on top. Amazing!

A Challenge: We have brunch out every week or so, and that remains a problem because to my knowledge all pancakes and waffles have egg. I've learned to bring in some Earth Balance in a wax paper bag in my purse, but I can't take the egg out. I get a side of home fries with that. Yeah, too many carbs and too much fat, but tasty. I believe I must make waffles and pancakes at home more often. My husband wouldn't object!

5) Snacking: I have largely eliminated unplanned snacks. If I have a vegan protein bar, I log it into the tracker. I usually have fruit or vegan sorbet or ice cream about an hour after dinner, and that is planned and logged in. I try not to even taste a nut or a chip on the fly. It's no good, and leads only to craving more. I like EatSmart veggie crisps that give you 2 cups of crispy treats for 140 calories (look like styrofoam in green, yellow and orange from spinach, potato and carrot) but I make myself measure them and count them and only have for special occasions like baseball or football games. Same with organic popcorn. Nuts? ETL recommends no more than a handful of nuts per day, and since they are high in calories, I don't choose them daily.

6) Weight: I did lose about 5 pounds, as of today. I feel good about this, even though I know others have lost so much more in the first 6 weeks of Eat to Live. Identify, Don't Compare, right? I know why I have not because I still eat vegan foods that are sweet and starchy, and I'd need to lower my calorie limit to take more off. This is as much as I was willing to actually do, but I have seen a growing change in the right direction. Progress not Perfection, One Day at a Time!

Celebrating a Vegan Passover

2011-04-18T22:18:00.002-04:00

Our Vegan Seder Plate

Whew! Today was a huge challenge but it all turned out fine. We drove back to the city from the country as we do every week, and my husband dropped me off in Lower Manhattan for me to catch the subway to my office. I was crossing a street when I got totally distracted by a guy holding a boat-sized plastic bag filled with enormous helium balloons in primary colors. I lost my footing and went down like the proverbial ton of bricks, landing on my left hip, wrist and shoulder. Oy! Very painful, but nothing was broken and the little bit of blood from scraping the heel of my hand against the pavement washed away and didn't return. I went to work and met with all my clients as planned, then headed home.

After I got home I prepared a Passover Seder my husband's bubbe would have been proud of! The Seder plate you see above is a vegan one: the turnip stands in for the shankbone (the Talmud says a roasted beet can substitute for the shankbone, but I wasn't willing to buy 3 humongous beets when one was all I needed, so I bought a turnip). In place of the roasted egg, it is permitted to use an egg-shaped veggie or fruit, hence the avocado. Cool, huh? The other things there are charoset, horseradish and parsley. Each item on the plate features in the ritual of the Passover Seder.

I led our Seder by default, even though my husband is the one who had a bar mitzvah eons ago and I'm a convert. I followed a Haggadah (handbook) called Our Haggadah written by Cokie and Steve Roberts, an interfaith couple. I really like it and am glad they wrote it. This can be a very wearying experience and my husband bails before I get very far as a rule, but this year I was able to say the prayers and read the scriptures and stories about why we celebrate Pesach or Passover. Picture CB DeMille's parting of the Red Sea in "The Ten Commandments," our Jewish forebears hurrying across the suddenly dry land to safety and the waters returning to drown all the legions of the Pharoah's armies trying to pursue them. No, we aren't very religious, and I hope I don't offend anyone reading this blog who is, but this tradition is important for us to remember, and as we read, and eat, and pray and eat and eat, we are one with all the other Jews around the world doing the same tonight, more or less.

Here's What We Had Tonight for Our Seder

Seitan Chimichurri from Whole Foods (my husband had WF tarragon salmon, so did our cat Daisy!)
Garlicky Greens (WF)
Carrot-Cherry Kugel (WF)
Charoset (chopped apple, silvered almonds, cinnamon and grape juice) (I made this tonight)
Matzoh
Tsimmes (sweet potatoes, carrots, dates, raisins & apricots with a little sugar) (I made this tonight)
Horseradish
Earth Balance whipped buttery spread
And chocolate covered matzoh for dessert!

Despite my sticking pretty closely for the past 30 days to Dr. Joel Fuhrman's Eat to Live way of eating, this was not a day to diet or restrict calories. This is the day we ask, among other questions, "Why is this night unlike all other nights?" The short answer is because we remember what our forebears experienced thousands of years ago.

Healthy Living, One Day at a Time

2011-04-14T16:24:00.000-04:00

Magnolia Blossom

Gandhi-ji

Today began beautifully, with a vegan "Sunset Proposal" smoothie from Terri on 23rd Street in Manhattan. It was fruity with banana, mango, pineapple, coconut, oj, and soymilk, plus soy protein powder and flaxseeds. I picked up a nice beet salad while I was there and had it for lunch, along with an Organic Food Bar - Vegan.

I work in the Village, so I walked down Broadway and into Union Square Park where the magnolias are in bloom. There's a lifesized bronze statue of Mahatma Gandhi there, so I stopped to pay my respects to Gandhi-ji and then walked the shady path to the right of the statue to its end, and then back out from whence I entered the little fenced in area. Although I was just steps from bustling 14th Street, I felt peaceful and serene in that little garden with its gorgeous magnolias and spring flowers allong the path, periwinkels, daffodills and hyacinths. By the time I arrived at work, I felt uplifted and joyous and proceeded to have a very good day.

Checking In After 2 Years Vegan

2011-04-09T13:24:00.004-04:00

My life has been transformed by the Green Smoothie and the amazing and sensible eating plan of Dr. Joel Fuhrman, Eat to Live. In the 6-week weight-loss plan, you eat lots of greens and fruits, some whole grains, and plenty of beans. Mushrooms are encouraged at every possible opportunity, and a daily handful of nuts is fine.

I start each day (except when I have a long car ride ahead of me--don't ask!) with a huge green smoothie, made with spinach, collards or kale and several servings of fresh or frozen fruit, flaxseed meal, a couple of dates and nut butter or (to save calories) Bell Plantation's wonderful PB2 (regular and chocolate), a low-fat byproduct of making peanut oil that has lots of flavor, fiber and protein.

Lunch is a huge salad with beans, vegan chicken salad or other tofu dish, mushrooms, beans, roasted veggies like eggplant, etc. as the spirit moves me at the salad bar. I have a Whole Foods very nearby. I get great ideas from others living the Eat to Live lifestyle and posting on SparkPeople.

Dinner is a tofu stirfry, homemade soup, or even Amy's vegan entrees on a work night. We eat out a great deal (I work in New York City and live there part-time so we eat there several times a week) so I have salads, pasta with beans instead of meat, and Middle Eastern food (Turkish, Egyptian, etc) and do pretty well. My fave Italian restaurant serves Pasta e Fagioli that is awesome!

So I've been vegan 2 years since March 17, 2011 and have never felt better. I put on weight when I went vegetarian, and since going vegan lost a little, but when I found Eat to Live I began losing again. In the past 20 days I've lost 3 pounds. That's slow but progress, and I am not starving!

My latest enhancement to life has been getting active with Twitter. I started by following journalists in Egypt and Libya, and then Japan. Then I connected with vegan superstars like Isa Chandra Moskowitz, Ginny Messina, and more. I connect with Farm Sanctuary and some awesome folks who were already connected with them. Check it out!

You can follow me on twitter at @Sonnische (Sunny)

More will be revealed!

Sunny (aka Nature Maven on Dkos and occasionally PSR Maven)

Sugar (especially HFCS) Pushers Are At It Again!

2011-01-28T11:28:00.004-05:00

Oh, no!

Have you seen the commercial? A woman is heading into the checkout at a grocery store and complaining how new food taxes are unfair and evidence of government interference in our freedom of choice as Americans. She hefts a big 2-liter bottle of soda onto the conveyor as the website http://nofoodtaxes.com/ is flashed on the screen. In New York we saw these after our state proposed taxing all sugary beverages to try to reduce their consumption to combat the obesity epidemic. It was defeated but now many states are considering doing this.

Visit the website and you'll find that this is an effort by Coca Cola, grocery retailers, national retail associations, and more. Even the theater owners are getting into the mix. What's the deal?

Here's a link to Source Watch, a site that exposes who is behind it:

Here's a quote:

Americans Against Food Taxes (AAFT) is a front group funded by the beverage industry which consists of major restaurant chains, food and soft drink manufacturers and their associated lobbying groups. It was organized by the American Beverage Association to fight a proposed three to ten cent tax on soda, sugary drinks and energy drinks to help fund health care reform in the United States . . . Its Web site states that Americans Against Food Taxes is a "coalition of concerned citizens – responsible individuals, financially strapped families, small and large businesses in communities across the country" who opposed a government-proposed tax on food and beverages, including soda, juice drinks, and flavored milks. But its extensive membership consists mainly of lobbying groups for packaged food and soda companies, chain restaurant corporations and the world's large food and soft drink manufacturers and distributors, including the Coca-Cola Company, Dr. Pepper-Royal Crown Bottling Co., PepsiCo, Canada Dry Bottling Co. of New York, the Can Manufacturers Institute, 7-Eleven Convenience Stores, and Yum! Brands."

The New York State Department of Health cites research that supports taxing sugary drinks: www.health.state.ny.us/press/releases/2010/2010-03-16_sugar_beverage_and_obesity.htm

Don't let Agribusiness and the likes of the Corn Refiners Association, one of the "coalition members" of the Americans Against Food Taxes behind those ads, brainwash you. They are the very same folks who have brought you all those ads about high-fructose corn syrup being "the same as sugar" and recently getting FDA approval to call it "corn sugar" henceforth so low-information consumers will be unaware they are still consuming HFCS.

Be active and don't let these "astroturf" (fake grassroots) campaigns fool you, whether it's about the substances you take into your bodies, or the lies politicians tell you to scare you away from healthcare reform. The majority of Americans support such reform now, and that's because we need all the help we can get!

(Blog cross-posted at Sparkpeople)

Engine 2 Diet's Amazing Vegan Omelet

2010-09-06T12:14:00.007-04:00

Today I made a yummy vegan omelet from the recipe found on page 156 of Rip Esselstyn's "The Engine 2 Diet." Rip is a Texas firefighter and son of famed cardiologist Caldwell Esselstyn, MD (a colleague of T. Colin Campbell, MD author of "The China Study.") Rip challenged his fellow firefighters to undertake a vegan diet to reduce their high cholesterol levels and to lose weight. They did, and this book was born. He's been interviewed on the Today Show. After I bought the book, I was able to transition from vegetarian to vegan.

I made the vegan omelet (the recipe makes 2 omelets) and entered it into SparkRecipe recipes.sparkpeople.com/
recipe-detail.asp?recipe=1
233057 where I learned it was only 157 calories! It was really good. You can get all the details you need to make it by clicking on the link to the recipe.

First I sautéed the fresh veggies. Here's a photo of half the filling:

Below is the gorgeous finished product.

My husband came over to see what I was eating and thought my breakfast looked so good he took a taste. He's a flexatarian who avoids tofu and any faux vegan foods I eat. He ate the forkful and pronounced it "okay," saying the "egg" "didn't have any taste," to him. Believe me, that's a supreme compliment! He added that he hasn't eaten an egg in a really long time and aren't they loaded with cholesterol? The answer is yes! One egg is "67 percent fat and has over 212 milligrams of cholesterol" according to Rip's book (page 156.) That said, I sprayed some Bragg's on it myself because it was a bit bland. Next time I'll add ground black pepper and a dash of hot sauce to the base, and some Bragg's to the filling, too. Maybe some garlic. Rip suggests being creative and putting in avocado, tomatoes, pineapple or olives. I swapped out the spinach, red pepper and mushrooms for home grown Swiss chard, zucchini and tomato.

Still Think High-Fructose Corn Syrup is "Safe"?

2010-07-04T21:35:00.004-04:00

I Like my corn fresh, hot and slathered with buttery Earth Balance and doused with a little salt and pepper. I like it yellow, white, bicolor and bumpy. I like it in a husk, ready for shucking out on the deck. I liked it popped, and I like it ground into cornmeal for awesome corn sticks and corn bread. I don't like it sweetening my breakfast cereal, my catsup, my soda, my candy, my cookies, my ice tea or my bread. I don't like it in my salad dressing. And now that I understand that high-fructose corn syrup is a chemically altered corn derivative that delivers intense, shelf-stable sweetness to nearly every commercial food product available in American grocery stores, I am outraged. (Blog cross-posted at http://www.dailykos.com/ and variation at http://www.sparkpeople.com/)

Just this past week a story emerged from the Endocrine Society's San Diego conference:

Fructose Sugar Makes Maturing Human Fat Cells Fatter, Less Insulin-Sensitive

On Friday Reuters posted a story titled "Too much fructose could raise your blood pressure." They say:

The more fructose (subjects') diet included, the more likely they were to have high blood pressure. Of course, that could have been influenced by a variety of factors, such as obesity and disease, or getting too much of other sugars, salt or alcohol.

But even when adjusting for all these factors, the odds of having high blood pressure increased in those whose fructose intake was above average. For the most severe form -- stage 2 hypertension -- the odds were 77 percent higher.

"Given the new findings, people might want to think twice about what they throw into their shopping carts," said Dr. Michel Chonchol of the University of Colorado Denver, who worked on the study.

"In the grocery store, you see food without high-fructose corn syrup," he said, adding that it would make sense to reduce fructose intake by choosing those products and avoiding the ones containing added sugars.

"There is no question that fructose itself appears to have effects that other sugars don't have," said Chonchol. The exact mechanisms are unclear, although several have been proposed, he added."

I am so tired of the corn producers and their ad blitz hard-selling their chemically modified corn product and mocking those of us concerned about the effects of HFCS on our health (not posting a link here but sweetsurprise dot com is one of their propaganda sites).

Read your labels and run the other way when you see "high fructose corn syrup" as an ingredient whenever you can. As a vegan I already have limited commercially mainstream products, and some of those have HFCS, such as Oreos, so sometimes I buckle under and have some. What have I learned? That stuff ALWAYS tastes like more. It wakens that sleeping monster that recovery folks call "a phenomenon of craving" that can trigger overeating, even dangerous high-volume bingeing. I shared this with a vegan friend who asked why I don't eat Newman's O's instead of Oreos. Oh yeah! No HFCS, no animal fats. All good!

The Scientific American provides another source of important corn facts and the pervasiveness of corn in the production cycle of most meats, "That burger you're eating is mostly corn." I love corn, but I'd prefer it hadn't passed through a cow, chicken or fish first.

To show that HFCS concern has gone mainstream, I watched NBC's Today Show for a little while this morning, and Lester Holt did a segment on BBQ options, including along with the regular meaty wieners and burgers, Tofu Pups and Amy's Texas Veggie Burgers. He then pointed out that Hunt's makes a catsup now that "doesn't contain fructose." Yay! You can watch it here. By the way, Heinz Organic is HFCS-free, too.

Happy Independence Day! Today I'm striving for many forms of independence, including freedom from HFCS. All the best to you with yours.

Glad I'm a vegan! Live and Learn, friends. Let me know what you think.

Gardening 101

2010-06-30T10:54:00.013-04:00

Yesterday I planted my first garden in about 25 years. It's also my first as a vegan. Our little community has set up an amazing fenced raised bed community garden. I signed up for a 4X4 plot and yesterday planted 2 Burpee Big Boy tomato plants, 2 rainbow Swiss chard plants, two zucchini plants, 5 pole bean plants, and 2 cubanelle sweet pepper plants.

Today I plan to buy stakes, basil and marigold plants and investigate watering options because we are away 3 or 4 days a week, dividing our time between our small apartment in the city where I work and our townhouse in the country where we live more fully and get to spread out. We didn't have any space for a garden before, so this community garden is awesome! The management absolutely scored with me big-time with the raised beds, fencing, watering set up. organic topsoil, gravel paths and more. All who use it must agree to avoid non-organic herbicides and pesticides. I am totally thrilled.

Here are some of the foods in my fridge and pantry.

The vegan way is an awesome path to follow, and I'm still learning what works best for me. I utilize a lot of vegan substitutes for the foods I used to love: vegan sour cream, Vegennaise, Earth Balance Buttery Spread, Rice Vegan cheese, Gardein "chicken" and "beef" products, veggie burgers, soy or almond milk, soy or coconut yogurt (no milk-derived cultures), soy of vegan ice creams (my fave is Purely Decadent of any flavor), Daiya vegan cheese, soy-based hotdogs, deli meats and sausages, and probably many more things I'm forgetting right now.

All this being said, I think I need to cut down on these and get more into the natural fruits and veggies and get more protein from beans and whole grains. Here's where the garden comes in! Veggies galore, I hope. Until the harvesting fun begins, I'll be visiting my local garden stand and farmers market.

This blog will take a decidedly garden turn from here on. until garden season ends in the fall up here in the mountains of northeastern PA.
Namaste!

Springing Along as a Vegan in year 2

2010-04-17T18:42:00.009-04:00

Last month I passed the one-year mark as a vegan. How am I doing? Awesome! I've lost 15 pounds. My cholesterol has been lowered without medication. I'm eating well and feeling great. At the end of last summer I rejoined the gym and get there about three times a week. Here are some regular people, places and things in my life after a year:

VegNews Magazine: I love this so much I won't throw old issues away, and after reading it for a year, starting while I was still a vegetarian, I re-upped for two years, and got a cool eco-grocery tote bag as a gift. The recipes are great, but so are the product reviews and even advertisements for vegan products. Just this week I bought a bottle of vegan calcium after seeing it in VegNews.

Baking and Cooking: I have the most awesome cookbooks now (see previous posts) and regularly make cupcakes, cookies, and other treats. I've learned to make my own seitan and started with chicken fried steak and now make veggie meatballs with it.

SparkPeople: I joined SparkPeople, a social networking site focused on diet, nutrition, fitness, and related health topics, with teams for every imaginable interest from birding, to 12-Step Recovery, to Tarot cards. I use the awesome Nutrition Tracker to log in my foods every day. That's right, every day! This is how I am able to eat bread and "butter" (Earth Balance) and dessert practically every day and still lose some of the weight I gained after giving up the high-protein, low-carb and terribly unhealthy diet I'd been following until 2008. The site offers recipes that can be searched by dietary category such as vegan, and you can add your own recipes in, getting an exact calculation of calories and nutrients, and the portion of any SparkRecipe can be added into your day's entries in their Nutrition Tracker. I've "met" some really great people through the various teams I've joined and learned about foods, fitness routines, books, activities and more. I've given and received support for problems shared. Of all the social networks out there, this one seems to have just what I need.

It's better if you make it yourself: Foods I prepare are usually healthier than any convenience foods I buy, even thought they are usually organic and always vegan and I'm lucky enough to shop regularly at Whole Foods and several other excellent grocery stores who stock robust natural foods sections on shelves and freezer cases. I've made homemade Peanut Butter Cups, thanks to Alicia Silverstone's book The Kind Diet. I've made gorgeous cookies and cupcakes no one would guess weren't loaded with butter and eggs, and yet they're not. The wreath at the start of this post is one I made myself after a trip to a crafts store. We went in to buy a ready-made wreath and came out with a bare grapevine wreath and the makings for a gorgeous spring statement for our front door. It felt so amazing to hang it and feats our eyes on it every time we come home.

Live and Let Live: I have adopted a dramatically different way of eating and living and this sets me apart from the vast majority of friends and family members in my life. Rather than try to convince or convert others to seeing things my way, I just stick to my values and try not to flaunt it. Okay, being vegan is a huge attitude commitment for health, compassion for the animal world and the environment, but that commitment is totally personal. So I may say "I'm vegan" when I order in a restaurant or check out at the grocery store, but it's an explanation and not a proselytizing statement. But one day I was taking the elevator in my building and a woman got on with a great handbag that was obviously not leather. We were alone, so I scoped out her shoes (canvas) and ventured, "Great vegan bag!" She smiled and said, "I am vegan!" I said, "Me, too" and as she leaned in close with a smile, I hugged her, but it turned out she was trying to give me a high-five. Oops! But she said, "A hug is even better!" and we said goodbye when the door opened at street level. Sigh. I felt goofy and embarrassed. But, it was a cool moment anyhow.

Half-way Through

2009-10-17T14:52:00.009-04:00

Here we are about half-way through Vegetarian Awareness Month and my intention to blog daily for the month has been thwarted by work crises, weather surprises, and life. That's okay, because life happens and we adjust accordingly, right? Aside from staying vegan this week (natch) by choosing good healthy meal options, I can't say I have contributed much to the promotion of the vegan way of life.

Yesterday after working a short day (a blessing of self-employment, at least until the checks come rolling in) I went to the gym and put in 25 minutes on the recumbent bike on Level 5 (except for the last few cool-down minutes). Then I went to the nail salon to have my polish removed and the bare (for winter) nails beautified. Shocking! Under that pretty pinky-brown frosted polish lurked a horrible bruise under the big nail, the result of taking a long walk across Manhattan in enclosed (vegan) shoes after a summer of wearing sandals and putting off the needed trimming pedicure. Ouch. But this too shall pass. After that I headed home to meet my partner for a shopping and lunch expedition.

My vegan-ness emerged again at the Fairway Market in Red Hook where I was intoxicated with the selections. There's a whole annex of whole food stuff, like a wall of Bob's Red Mill products where I found the Golden Flaxseed Meal I heap on my cereal every morning. I was able to get a box of Nugo Organic Dark Chocolate Pomegranate protein bars, a staple of my busy working life and good to have in one's purse or briefcase in case of sudden hunger and nothing to eat but junk! Then from a huge selection of international olive oils, I found the Ligurian olive oil recommended for a VegNews pesto recipe in the Sept/Oct issue.

After a hot lunch of vegan peas and rice, samosas, and sauteed broccoli rabe, we set out again through the rest of the store where I found Galaxy's Vegan Cheddar slices and Gardein Chick'n Santa Fe vegan chicken cutlets stuffed with black beans and corn and in a marinara sauce, nicely heated in the oven for lunch today. Wow! It's a darn good chicken substitute, might even fool some folks. A pass through the frozen section bagged me some Morningstar Farms Meal Starter Chick'n Strips, great to have on hand to add to my weekly Tacqueria (Vegan) Caesar Salad. I went home happy and self-satisfied. then I checked the phone and found texts and voicemails alerting me to a work crisis that I handled remotely with the amazing (read "saintly") assistance of a colleague.

So that's this weeks wrap-up, and I am still living the vegan way.

Courage to Change the Things I Can

2009-10-11T09:15:00.008-04:00

These Chinese characters mean "the courage to change". This calligraphy painting is an artwork created by Beijing, China artist Xie Tian Hai and is available here.

Going vegan was a huge change for me, just as going vegetarian had been. Managing my nutritional intake as a vegan imposed a kind of discipline on my eating that meant setting limits and sticking with them, lovingly as I would keep a child from eating only candy to her peril or stop her from running into a busy street.

Now that I have established the habit of healthy eating, one meal at a time, one day at a time, I have changed and now feel freed from the obsession of compulsive overeating which has liberated intent and energy to try new things. To change.

Yesterday I went to a new hairdresser and had my already short hair cut very short, and with the cut, away went 90 percent of my artificial hair color, leaving me salt and pepper gray, lighter in front and darker in back. I had planned on waiting until I was 60 to make this change, but living a more natural life one day at a time has allowed me to do it now, and see if I am okay with it. So far so good! The overall impression isn't much different, and the short cut is cool and au courant as far as I can tell. My husband gave me the seal of approval, and that's a huge endorsement to me. Change can be awesome!

After the hair appointment, we went shopping for winter clothing and a few things for our kitchen. I stopped by Chico's for new jeans and was so gratified to find I had lost a size and fit well in the lower size. What a relief! I've only lost 11 pounds since going vegan about 8 months ago, and sometimes I get discouraged by that slow loss. But my common sense tells me that slow change is best for weight loss in general, and not focusing obsessively on numbers is best for me.

At lunchtime we tried a new place in the neighborhood, Sonic drive in. I had gone online to check out the menu and knew there wouldn't be much I as a vegan could eat. So I ordered a large order of fries, a large diet limeade, and a banana. The fries were hot, tasty and unsalted, my favorite way to have them, and I used a little ketchup. The banana was still a bit green, so I brought it home and will have it with my breakfast later. The limeade was surprisingly delicious and had two wedges of lime in it. The cup was Styrofoam, one negative point. But I was interested to see that an order of fries and a diet drink held me until dinner many hours later, and the calories were high but manageable. I had homemade seitan for dinner with 31 grams of protein, so I ended up doing fine with the nutritional breakdown.

That homemade seitan has worked out very well. I made patties of seitan coated with panko breadcrumbs two weeks ago for vegan chicken fried steak (see Vegan with a Vengeance for the recipe) and froze most of them. I've taken half of one and cut it into strips to add to a dinner salad on a work night. Yesterday I took one and placed it on a bed of linguine, topped it with a slice of Tofutti mozzarella and a half cup of marinara sauce mixed with a small can of sliced mushrooms. This was an awesome meal! I added a salad and some crusty bread and Earth Balance, and had spent my target calories for the day, so I stood pat and decided not to have sorbet or even fruit as my customary evening snack. I learned that choice is not deprivation. That's a big change!

So, change comes slowly, sometimes quickly. It's a process, and our usual tendency is to resist change until the pain of staying the same overcomes our fear of changing. I went gray because my discomfort paying big money regularly to have toxic chemicals put on my hair, not to mention my distaste for the constantly emerging roots, overcame my fear of changing and risking looking older. By the way, my husband says I don't look any older now than I did as a blonde with platinum highlights. Of course he never knew me as a very dark brunette. I've been dyeing my hair for decades. You know, I feel liberated already! For today I embrace change.

Milestones

2009-10-09T16:47:00.006-04:00

Whew! Today is Day 90 abstaining from binge-eating. Here are the recent milestones on my journey toward health and harmony with the Universe:

June 11, 2008: The day I gave up meat, fish and poultry.

March 17, 2009: The day I gave up dairy and eggs and other animal derived products (the day The Engine 2 Diet by Rip Esselstyn came!)

July 9, 2009 (approx): The first day I abstained from binge-eating, mindless snacking, frivolous tasting, and generally overdoing it with food.

I meant to post here every day in October 2009 because it's Vegetarian Awareness Month, and I've already missed Wednesday and Thursday after busy days and getting back to the computer at home pretty late, but here I am again.

The bingeing 91 days ago involved mindless candy-eating. Yesterday I got an asthmatic throat tickle and began coughing at work while in a meeting with someone. My water mug was empty, and the bigger jug was at the back in the kitchen, so I didn't want to interrupt. Using my inhaler never occurred to me, and I took a stale gumdrop that didn't help, and then took a wrapped candy from the stash I'd been rummaging in almost 90 days before, and it did help. But I could have gone crazy with that and eaten many more. Thank goodness I didn't, because today I am trying to eat only foods that are good for me and which involve ethical choices. A candy binge does not qualify!

So, I am grateful to have made it today to Day 90 and still feeling good about me. It's a process, a journey, a path of personal growth. So be it.

More HFCS Madness

2009-10-06T21:18:00.010-04:00

Welcome to Day 6 of Vegetarian Awareness Week!

Would you believe that today, just a day after posting on the wily machinations of the high fructose corn syrup producers and their promoters, a good friend sent me an email with this link: What Doctors Don't Want You to Know

Here's a taste for you:

High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is a sweetener that has revolutionized the processed food and drink industry - but a new study has found that it may be a
bigger source of mercury than fish. There's been a quiet revolution taking place in the food-manufacturing industry since the 1980s, and it's one that could be damaging our health and making us overweight. Indeed, the new evidence suggests that it may even be responsible for the learning and behavioural problems so often seen in our children nowadays. . . .

. . . Even so, there's no such thing as 'safe mercury' in any form, and high doses can cause damage to the heart, kidneys, lungs and immune system. Furthermore, this unsuspected additional mercury load from snacks and soft drinks might also be a contributory factor to the alarming rise we've seen in recent years of cases of attention-deficit/hyperactive disorder (ADHD), autism and behavioural problems among our youngsters.

Yeow! Now that's food for thought, isn't it? If you read the rest of the article, you'll learn that corn syrup is naturally high in glucose and contains absolutely no fructose. That's right, no fructose occurs in corn syrup naturally. The fructose gets there via a chemical process that in many cases involves substances we should not ingest or inhale such as chlorine or mercury. Check it out!

Natural is better.

The High Fructose Corn Syrup Pushback

2009-10-05T20:37:00.008-04:00

Your vegan blogger is dead serious today, on Day 5 of Vegetarian Awareness Month. I'm always dead serious, but usually have a twinkle in my eye, but aside from the silly corn graphic, not so much right now.

I've been reading pro-high-fructose corn syrup propaganda today on a site I use and generally respect and have no patience for it. Now, corn is vegan. That's awesome, and I love an ear of fresh picked corn steamed and slathered with Earth Balance and sprinkled with pepper as much as anyone. But when you fool around with the chemistry in a natural food to make a cheap sweetener that extends shelf-life and can be found in everything from corn flakes to tortilla chips, and practically everything else, I'm not thrilled. The Mayo Clinic gives a good explanation of the issue here.

See that commercial saying the government wants to tax your juice drinks and soda and to urge you to fight it?

How about the one showing a guy picking out the guy in an ear-of-corn suit when asked to pick which sweetener (HFCS, table sugar or honey) leads to the greatest weight gain in a line-up?

Just thought you ought to know that the Corn Refiners Association (with Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland-ADM its most well-known members) is behind this major pushback against HFCS criticism. The corn producers have really been hard at work to create the illusion of real science validating their product as healthful and "natural". The CRA weblink above features the annual report extolling their "multimedia campaign to correct the record on high fructose corn syrup and serves as a commemorative review of this extraordinary effort." They've got some of the best in the business in their defense of their lucrative product.

The line-up ad where the dufus consumer dude with apparently unjustified disdain for HFCS picks out the ear of corn and ignores the sugar cube and honey bear is brought to us by the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), a non-profit front run by Rick Berman a scandal-plagued lobbyist famous for supporting big tobacco, the booze industry, the safety of mercury in fish, and now high-fructose corn syrup. Here's a taste of his rhetoric from an article posted on the Convenience Store Decisions website:

"People have been spoon-fed misinformation about high fructose corn syrup," said Center for Consumer Freedom Executive Director Rick Berman. "We thought it was time someone explained, in no uncertain terms, that high fructose corn syrup has the exact same number of calories as table sugar and is handled the same way by the body. Any non-agenda driven nutrition expert will tell you the same."

The corn folks bring us SweetSurprise.com, where the "myths" of HFCS's obesity links are "exposed."

The CCF brings you such gems as these:

MercuryFacts.org
ObesityMyths.com
PetaKillsAnimals.com
PhysicianScam.com
SweetScam.com
Trans-FatFacts.com

Judge for yourself. This health-conscious consumer is diligently working to make sure what goes in my body is good for me. Knowledge is power.

Flexibility and Commitment

2009-10-04T13:43:00.004-04:00

Today is Day 4 of Vegetarian Awareness Month!

Today as I was reading about vegan nutritional requirements on Vegan Health, a site I recommend, I was directed via a link to Vegan Outreach here. Please read what it says about being vegan. It makes sense as I begin to be more aware of non-vegan sources of Vitamins A and D and calcium in many supplements.

Under the heading "Busting the Vegan Police" I read the following (emphasis mine):

It is imperative for us to realize that if our veganism is a statement for animal liberation, veganism cannot be an exclusive, ego-boosting club. Rather, we must become the mainstream. Fostering the impression that “it’s so hard to be vegan – animal products are in everything,” and emphasizing animal products where the connection to animal suffering is tenuous, works against this by allowing most to ignore us and causing others to give up the whole process out of frustration.
The way veganism is presented to a potential vegan is of major importance. The attractive idea behind being a “vegan” is reducing one’s contribution to animal exploitation. Buying meat, eggs, and/or dairy creates animal suffering – animals will be raised and slaughtered specifically for these products. But if the by-products are not sold, they will be thrown out or given away. As more people stop eating animals, the by-products will naturally fade, so there is no real reason to force other people to worry about them in order to call themselves “vegan" . . . We want a vegan world, not a vegan club.

We need to be clear what we hope to accomplish. I want better personal health, but being vegan isn't necessarily the best or only way to accomplish that. If I use that argument in explaining my rationale for eschewing all animal products and byproducts, others will find holes in the logic easily. I feel that I, as a vegan, am perceived as a fanatic by some who enthusiastically eat meat, cheese, eggs, and all the rest. Fair enough, given my parade of evolving food strictures over my adult life thus far, not that different from my evolving spiritual values that have gone from mainstream to nonexistent to oddball to their present state. I guess I have been a seeker for a long time.

So be it.

Having Company

2009-10-03T12:00:00.008-04:00

Day Three of Vegetarian Awareness Month!

My cousin is on her way for an overnight visit this weekend. I'm the only vegan in the family, so I've been thinking about how to handle the food. I've decided on a pasta dinner tonight, making two versions of easy sauce. I'll put turkey sausage in their sauce and veggie sausage in mine. We'll have a big salad and a crusty artisanal bread, and we ought to be fine. For dessert, I have ice cream for them and sorbet and vegan ice cream for me. I have my eye on a 3-crock crock-pot buffet server that would let me make each simultaneously and be nice and hot whenever we want it.

I have a tentative plan for the day, but we might easily do something completely different!

My plan: Lunch at Sweet Cream's Cafe in Stroudsburg where I can get a vegan PBJ that also had dark chocolate chips in it. Mmmm. The others can get yummy sandwiches with whatever they want, nicely served and freshly built to order.

If we follow my plan we'll dovetail lunch with a trip through the Old Engine Works antique mall. It's always fun to browse. The boys turn 5 in 2 weeks and are coming here for the weekend to celebrate their birthday and maybe we'll find interesting gifts. If not, there's still plenty of time for shopping at Target.

Olde Engine Works

And it's not all about food and shopping, right? The fall foliage here in the Pocono Mountains is awesome right now, thanks to the heavy rains this past summer. The colors are great, and pumpkins and mums are available at roadside stands and nurseries. The sky is a gorgeous blue and the leaves outside my window as I write are orange and golden brown, just spectacular!

Yes indeed . . .

Life is good!

Day 2 of Vegetarian Awareness Month

2009-10-02T13:11:00.010-04:00

October 2 is Day Two of Vegetarian Awareness Month.
So, here's the low-down: since going vegetarian in June 2008 and vegan in March 2009 I've become much healthier and much more eco-conscious. That means...

Method and Mrs. Meyer's intead of toxic cleaning products
CFL lightbulbs (until the LEDs are readily available), instead of incandescents
2 Toyota Prius cars in our garage
Leather-free Rocket Dogs and Madden Girls on my feet
Leather purses on the shelf awaiting donation
Suede fringe jacket from Denver donated to Salvation Army
Low-carb cookbooks given away and Vegan with a Vengeance, Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, Vegan Soul Kitchen, etc. in their place
PETA t-shirts on my body
In my fridge: MimicCreme, Earth Balance, Tofutti cream cheese, Follow Your Heart Vegenaise and vegan sour cream, Galaxy vegan grated Parmesan cheese, flaxseed meal , Bolthouse Farms Soy Vanilla Chai, vegan protein powders and soy milk.

Delicious homemade vegan Fettucine Alfredo (right) and vegan Chicken Fried Steak (from my homemade seitan) chubby cutlets on my dinner table.

In my pantry: Nutritional yeast, Bragg's Liquid Aminos, Ener-G Egg Replacer, Uncle Sam cereal, Marmite, Road's End Mac 'N Chreese, Florida Crystals (instead of bone-char-whitened sugar), lots of different Bob's Red Mill bags, and much more great stuff.

See anything here you wonder about? Post a comment!

Celebrating Vegetarian Awareness Month

2009-10-01T14:00:00.012-04:00

Today is World Vegetarian Day and I'll be posting here daily for October to participate in Vegetarian Awareness Month. What a gift to be vegan now, eating for my health, for animal welfare and for our environment. So many good things are coming from this lifestyle: I've lowered my total cholesterol by 22 points; I've learned to be satisfied with healthy vegan food choices; my cooking repertoire has grown to include wonderful new recipes such as Vegan Chicken Fried Steak made with homemade seitan, Vegan Alfredo Sauce (both soy and non-soy versions) and so many other tasty things; I feel better as a human being that I no longer contribute to the misery and death of animals in my pursuit of sustenance; and I have even lost weight since switching from a lacto-ovo vegetarian way of eating to my vegan lifestyle!

When I'm in New York, I have the abundant selections at Whole Foods and great produce and other treats from the Union Square Greenmarket just a short walk away from the office and a very good health food store and decent neighborhood grocery store near home. I can take a reasonable hike over to Stogo in the East Village for amazing vegan ice cream and sometimes combine this "road trip" with a walking meeting with a like-minded client. When I'm in the country I can try out recipes in my spacious kitchen (comparatively to New York) and enjoy my bright red KitchenAid stand mixer preparing vegan baked goods and protein-rich seitan. The local produce stand offers fresh-picked corn in the summer and pumpkins and squash in the fall and lots of other good things.

Eating out in restaurants has become possible as I've learned more about the ingredients in the foods I order. For example, I love Olive Garden because I can have whole wheat linguine with a tasty marinara there plus abundant salad and bread sticks. Eventually I found out that unless I order the breadsticks "plain" they come buttered. I get the bowl of salad minus dressing, cheese or croutons, ask for the cruets of oil and vinegar and do fine. Most other restaurants have trouble making me what I ask for. They put cheese on the veggie burger, or the veggie burger isn't really vegan as I later learn. I ask for a bruschetta minus cheese and it comes minus mozzarella but loaded with Parmesan. Or I ask for pasta with oil and garlic and fresh vegetables and they come buttered. New York has some wonderful vegan restaurants and most servers don't look at you as if you had two heads when you explain your needs, but in the country, not so much.

Resources for the New and Aspiring Vegan

2009-08-30T14:18:00.008-04:00

Now that I've been living the meatless life for well over a year and have been fully vegan (to the best of my knowledge and ability) for almost 6 months, I realize how much valuable information I've garnered along the way. Now, I'm still learning, and almost every day I learn a new fact about whole foods or learn about vegan-friendly foods and other resources, but now seems a good time to pass along some information.

First of all, check out the Vegan News items down the right side of this blog page. They change every day, so check here often, and you'll get up on a lot of the sorts of things I'm going to share here as I do.

Next, consider getting a subscription to VegNews or pick up a current issue at Borders or other comprehensive newstands. It comes out every other month, and I savor each issue for the articles and even the advertising. Here I have learned about new foods (such as Daiya vegan cheese, Sequel's Vega Smoothie Infusion, Earth Balance new soy-free buttery spread, and so much more. The magazine is a great source of vegan websites, restaurants, brick-and-mortar stores and e-stores and all sorts of other cool info. I love the recipes, and everything is vegan! That's right, everything!

Consult the Vegetarian Resource Group for their awesome information on vegan protein rquirements and so much else.
Check out the Vegan Product or Not site to check on foods you like for their "vegan-ness". There's a similar index for restaurant chains at Abolitionist Vegans that I have found helpful.
Check out The Vegan Dietitian, an awesome and informative blog on living the healthy vegan life from a vegan and registered dietitian who has helped vegans the world over better understand and address their protein requirements.
There's a fund of important information on cruelty-free products at Veg Family.
Visit VeganHealth.org for all sorts of references and resources for the conscientious vegan.
Happy Cow offers links to many handy vegan-friendly sites.

There are so many authors who have brought me to my present vegan state. Here are the ones that made the biggest impression:

The China Study, by Collin Campbell, MD
Eat to Live, by Joel Fuhrman, MD
The Engine 2 Diet, by Rip Esselstyn

And then there are the cookbooks that are helping me eat incredibly deliciously as a vegan:

Vegan with a Vengeance, by Isa Chandra Moskowitz
Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Romero
Vegan Soul Kitchen, by chef Bryant Terry

And a few of the blogs I've enjoyed for great vegan recipes:

That's about it for today. Happy clicking! and Happy and Healthy Eating, Healthy Planet!

Vegan and Careful, Even on Vacation

2009-08-16T10:24:00.007-04:00

Good Morning from Maine!

I'm here visiting with family, enjoying the coast during wonderful weather, and enjoying a major change of pace. It was over 500 miles and almost 11 hours of driving through portions of 7 states, in one day! All by my lonesome! I brought my little netbook with me and have wi-fi in my hotel, so I am able to stay connected. I may be on vacation, but I am trying to lose weight sensibly, and I'm committed to my vegan lifestyle. I'm not saying I've been squeaky clean in sticking to my food plan, because measuring has been replaced with eyeballing, and I had to wait until 10pm to enter in yesterday's meals into my food diary. But I was only off by 100 calories, as I figured it, and that's okay.

Here's what I'm doing:

Planned ahead: called the hotel (which offers free breakfast) and learned they have vegan granola. I dragged a cooler out of the closet and filled it with soy milk, Bolthouse Farms Soy Vanilla Chai, cut up fruit, raisins, flaxseed meal, Nugo Dark Chocolate Pomegranate bars, juice and Vega Smoothie Infusion. The freezy packs had thawed by the time I got here, but nothing spoiled.
Made the smartest choices I could: I knew Burger King offers a BK Veggie Burger that is vegan, so at lunchtime I swung through the drive-through and got one without mayo or cheese, and removed the half of the bun that was loaded with catsup. I treated myself to a small order of fries. I had a bottle of water. I ate a Nugo bar for a snack. Dinner with family was easy. They had a spinach salad with cranberries and walnuts and a raspberry vinaigrette, corn on the cob with margarine, sourdough bread, and blueberry pie. They also made a pork tenderloin but as a vegan I didn't even feel tempted. Because I'd had my protein bar, I wasn't worried about getting enough protein. I was just in range when I finally logged my food into my online nutrition tracker.

What I've Learned:

When unable to log in, do my best by estimating.
Don't beat myself up if my estimating misses the mark.
Next time pack a healthy lunch for the road, save that protein bar for later, and skip the pie if I feel I might be over the top with calories (plus I was unsure about the crust being vegan and chose not to ask).
Fries are yummy but not needed. They may be vegan, but they're not very healthy.
Every interaction can be a teaching moment. I spoke to the hotel desk clerk about being vegan which allowed me to explain what that is and why I'm doing it. I stopped and saw my son and the grandkids along the way and we had an interesting discussion about the perils of factory farming. He buys his eggs from a friend who has a little farm and lets the chickens run around outside. He wanted my approval, I think, and I told him this was a definite improvement and very good for the animals, but I said that I don't choose to have that either. Then over dinner I explained being vegan to my cousins. The 15 year-old was full of questions and opinions about PETA and people who go overboard, etc. It's all good.
I'm trying to remember that 12-Step suggestion to"resign from the debating society." I just reiterated how it's better for the animals, the environment, and my health. Everyone can relate to at least one of those things.

I'm so glad to be on vacation in the most beautiful place on earth. I've been coming here since I was 8 years old. My mother was born and died here, and I'm visiting her grave today, going to the beach to look for rocks and shells, walking around this picturesque town, and enjoying feeling good. Tomorrow we're taking a boat trip to Monhegan Island where Winslow Homer, Rockwell Kent and the Wyeths, among other great artists, sought inspiration. Today is mine!

"Clear Morning," by Winslow Homer, painted on Monhegan Island, Maine

A Real Independence Day!

2009-07-04T10:56:00.015-04:00

Happy Fourth of July!

This year the holiday feels really good. I celebrate our American Democracy, our Constitution, and the Power of the People that emerged so strongly last November. During these difficult economic times, I am very grateful for those trying to address complex issues with courage and strength. I thank those serving in our Armed Forces for their tremendous sacrifice and selfless service to our nation. When I enjoy the fireworks tonight, I'll be very grateful to be an American.

Going Vegetarian:

I completed a full year as a vegetarian on June 11, 2009. I made the move for health, humanitarian and environmental reasons. It was challenging to make the big switch from a low carbohydrate, high animal meat/fat food plan to one eliminating meats, fish and poultry. I took advantage of all foods that were free of these, so I ate tons of cheese, baked goods, rich cream-based sauces, and eggs. No surprise that I packed on many of the pounds I'd once lost low-carbing. In making the conversion to a vegetarian lifestyle, I excused myself from counting calories. This view was inspired by the "no other major changes the first year" admonition from the recovery movement. I was letting go of an addiction to animal meat, and that was the primary focus. I kept weighing in and was dismayed to see the gain. I struggled. I lost a few, gained a few, lost a few more, but the net was a pretty big gain.

Going Vegan:

Then in March 2009 I discovered Rip Esselstyn's "Engine 2 Diet" and found I finally was able to let go of the eggs and dairy. This was easier than I could have expected, and aside from a few moments of weakness, I've done very well. Eating in restaurants has been difficult, but eating at home has been increasingly simple. During the work week, our routine is eating in or taking in from vegan-friendly places and sometimes eating in restaurants. We tend to eat out more on weekends, and I've learned where I can get something on my plan and how to ask for it, something that is not always obvious. Most restaurant chains have nutritional info online or downloadable as a pdf. Websites such as The Daily Plate and SparkPeople (my personal favorite) have many brand-name and chain items in their databases, complete with full nutritional breakdowns.

Our Friends have been really accommodating. If they're cooking, they always ask what I can eat, and I usually bring one or two vegan dishes to share. We were invited to a barbecue and our amazing hosts prepared divine tofu-veggie kabobs and bought veggie burgers for me. I was really touched. If we dine out with friends, they always make sure wherever we go is okay for me. We went to a benefit at the Stroudsmoor Inn recently where the entree choices were beef, salmon and "vegetarian". The friends who invited us called it in, and thanks to their looking out for me, I was served the only vegan entree in the entire huge banquet hall! It was a portabello mushroom cap topped with fresh spinach draped with a whole peeled red pepper and some marinara sauce, over mixed white and wild rice. Absolutely delicious! And it looked better to some who vowed to ask for a vegan plate next year. I sent my thanks and compliments back to the chef.

Using SparkPeople has been a huge help. I get lots of support when I need it, have access to some really great recipes, can log my own receipes in and get an exact nutrition breakdown. Knowledge is Power! What has helped me most to lose over 8 pounds as a vegan has been tracking my food intake online so I can see easily how many calories, and how much of my essential nutrients I've gotten for the day. This helps me at evening snack time to know whether or not to have a snack, and if so, if it needs to be heavy on protein or not. I keep vegan protein bars on hand in case of the latter.

NuGo Organic bars are a favorite, with a whole one only 180 calories and 10g protein. Sometimes half is all I need and they are yummy.

Recently I faced facts that I'd been eating things not logged into my SparkPeople daily nutrition tracker, and I began to get honest about it. I stopped eating gumdrops and hard candies kept in the office for clients and their kids. I stopped grabbing a few pieces of dried fruit, nuts or snack mix. I committed on an online forum for compulsive overeaters to stop doing this, and today is Day 8. If that's not personal progress toward freedom and independence, I don't know what is!

Vegan? Like rich, creamy ice cream? Stogo!

2009-05-23T17:31:00.011-04:00

Yum!

Vegan!

Lower Fat!

Vegan!

Yum!

When I heard about Stogo, the new vegan ice cream store in the East Village started by actor Rob Sedgwick and friends, I wanted to go there. Thursday I made it there with another pilgrim to the vegan shrine of rich, yummy ice cream. It's a hike from my usual hangout just south of Union Square, and this is a very good thing! They have less fat and calories than regular gourmet ice cream, but the 160 calories for a scoop of the mango flavor quickly climbs if you have two scoops and opt for flavors with nuts, caramel or fudge mixed in. Vegan hot fudge and caramel are available for just $1.00 if you want. I'd love nothing more but I'm also trying to shed a few pounds, so no can do.

Great News: free tastes are offered so you can choose among the colorful batches of awesome flavors displayed behind the glass. My friend and I each had two scoops. I had
Pomegranate Chocolate Chip and Salted Caramel Pecan, both amazing and delicious, although the pieces of chocolate in the Pomegranate Chocolate Chip were a bit hard and sort of waxy until they had a chance to melt, not easy if you tend to scarf down your ice cream. My friend had Peanut Butter Fudge, and Chocolate made with coconut milk, both delicious, too. The other three flavors I mentioned here were made with soy milk. They also offer a few hemp milk flavors. In addition to their excellent ice creams, Stogo also carries some Babycakes vegan cupcakes and other pastries, and vegan truffles and other chocolates, available by the gourmet piece.

Click HERE to view NBC New York's "Serious Eats" video on Stogo. And for more info on flavors, nutrition and other good stuff plus "testimonials" go HERE. I highly recommend Stogo to all ice-cream-loving vegans. Our time has come. By the way, I've learned that Lulu's Sweet Apothocary in Alphabet City in Manhattan is another wonderful shrine of vegan treats for us vegan dessert pilgrims.

I'm now going to prepare vegan potato salad using Follow Your Heart's Vegenaise, which I personally think tastes more like old-fashioned homemade mayo than Hellman's or Kraft ever did. Then I'll whip up some vegan carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. We're heading to the country home of dear friends for a Memorial Day barbecue and I'm bringing these goodies plus some Tofurkey Italian Sausages and Yves The Good Dog vegan franks. I'm gonna really enjoy this.

To prepare myself for the holiday fun, I had a healthy shake this morning made with light vanilla soy milk, Crystal Light raspberry ice tea, fresh strawberries, and Living Harvest Hemp Chocolate-Chili protein. Yummy, freed up about 250 calories over my usual bowl of cereal, fruit, nuts, flaxseed meal and raisins.

Need Help with Nutrition?

2009-05-17T10:37:00.007-04:00

I'm all psyched right now after spending about 10 days learning how to use a great free online resource for men and women trying to improve their health through better eating and fitness. It's called SparkPeople and there are "Spark Teams" for Vegans and for Vegetarians.

Here's what I really like so far: unlike The Daily Plate, another good site for tracking nutrition, I find it super easy to navigate and to migrate info. For example, yesterday I tried a "Spark Recipe" called Smoky Refried Beans Soup and was able to migrate my dinner portion right into my daily nutrition tracker with all the nutrients listed. How easy is that? Even better, the recipe was awesome and I really enjoyed it as did my omnivore husband. What is especially attractive to me is the community of people who have welcomed me in as a newcomer. I feel I have another great "place" to hang out. SparkPeople has an incentive system of SparkPoints where you accrue points and earn trophies as you participate, whether you log your food, post on forums, or exercise. In the brief time I've been active on SparkPeople I've lost already 2.2 pounds in the week I've been logging in everything I consume. Not a great deal, but progress for me and right in the suggested range for slow but steady and healthy weightloss. In fact The Partnership for Healthy Weight Management, a U.S. Government site, says:

Most overweight people should lose weight gradually. For safe and healthy weight loss, try not to exceed a rate of two pounds per week. Sometimes, people with serious health problems associated with obesity may have legitimate reasons for losing weight rapidly. If so, a physician's supervision is required.

Update on the Protein Powder: earlier this week I returned the Spiru-Tein to Vitamin Shoppe and exchanged it for Nutribiotic Vegan Rice Protein which is quite good but does need to be mixed with juice to taste okay. I have it at home to add when my daily protein intake has been below healthy range. Yes, SparkPeople's nutrition tracker gives you cool pie charts and feedback about that day's intake which is AWESOME! The better find which I'll use for most weekday lunches is Vega Smoothie Infus ion which is delicious mixed with juice (I've had Goji-Acai and Acai so far and loved both) or coconut water beverages (they're really good, too).

Mother's Day Dinner

2009-05-10T22:33:00.005-04:00

Happy Mother's Day. It was a good one for me. My husband gave me a great card from him and Daisy and then suggested we take an exercise walk to the lake near the house. We did that and saw a mother goose and her four goslings swimming behind her. We also decided on that walk to get a paddle boat for ourselves. Apparently a lot of people in our community have them but we haven't seen them in use much. The one we saw yesterday in a store had a canopy and we thought it would be just the thing. Better for us than a canoe or kayak where we might end up in a disaster, getting in, getting out, getting around.

We decided to go to Olive Garden but when we got there the wait we were told was 2 hours and 40 minutes. That's ridiculous. So we went to LongHorn Steakhouse, and I was able to have a nice vegan dinner with a large salad with pecans and mandarin orange slices over mixed greens, minus the chicken it came with which my husband will enjoy tomorrow, rice pilaf, and lovely unadorned asparagus. Okay, the pilaf may have had some butter in it, and the cornbread croutons on the salad while good probably weren't vegan, so I tasted them and gave them away to my husband. It was nice to be able to eat there and not just have a bunch of sides and call it dinner.

When we got home my son called for Mother's Day, and that capped off the day. I feel very lucky tonight.

I joined Spark People this weekend and have been learning my way around the site and learning how I can use it to help me with my vegan weight loss regimen. I'll write more here as I find out how it works for me.

Bee Pollen: Navigating the Shoals of Treachery as a Vegan

2009-05-08T16:38:00.010-04:00

I've been trying vegan meal replacement powders to keep lunch quick, easy, nutritious and low-calorie. I started with four different one-serving packs of Vega. It seems to be a great product but is expensive, hence the trial packets. Sadly, I found that the stevia gave it an unpleasant aftertaste, and the green color was a little off-putting, so I kept searching. On a trip to my local GNC, the clerk who helped me knew of no vegan products in their store. A passing customer suggested Gary Null's powder, so I thanked him and went to the Vitamin Shoppe. The very helpful guy took me to a section that was "all vegan" according to him, and the Gary Null powder was about $25, so I asked if they carried single-serving packets. No, they didn't but they did have Spiru-tein in a 7-packet assortment with a mixing shaker. I looked over the package quickly and saw that there was no dairy, so I took it.

Later I sat back and took a closer look and read this on the label:

SPIRU-TEIN®, an incredibly delicious, all-natural energy formula, is power-packed with 14 grams on high quality protein from soy, fermented soy, rice, pea and spirulina- nature's premier sources of vegetarian protein.

In addition to 100% of the daily value for all vitamins, and a broad profile of essential minerals, each nutritious and satisfying sip supplies bee pollen, bromelain papaya, lecithin, bio-flavonoids, oat bran, cellulose, apple pectin and chlorophyll.

Other Ingredients: Nature's plus SPIRU-TEIN POWDER features a unique blend of ingredients, including 100% daily value of all vitamins, Broad profile of essential minerals, Energy nutrients: high quality complete protein and bee pollen, Diet aids: lecithin, spirulina, choline and inositol, Enzymes: bromelain and papaya, Cleansing: chlorophyll, FIBER: Bran, cellulose and apple pectin.
Directions: Add contents of packet to 8 fl. oz. of skim milk, whole milk, or juice, and mix (or shake) until smooth. For best results, milk or juice should be very cold.
Warnings: Not to be used as the sole source of dietary calories.
Disclaimer: These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Oh no! Could vegans eat bee pollen? I started a search. Alas, no.

I learned that bee pollen is collected from the legs of bees as they enter the hive and come in contact with a scraper called a pollen trap, and sometimes a bee loses a leg in the process. The University of Florida IFAS Extension posts some interesting information online. In addition to containing flower pollens the bees have collected, bee pollen contains some other substances such as:

The kinds of debris and foreign matter that can be found in pollen is remarkable. A partial listing includes: (1) lost bee parts; (2) bits of plants like leaves and straw; (3) pollinia or stamens from certain plants that stick to bees and pollen; (4) hair-like threads; (5) various insects, some invisible to the human eye and (6) mummies and scales from bee diseases.

The Vegan Society has a detailed treatise on why vegans must avoid all bee products.

So I am clear now that I will be returning the Spiru-Tein to the store and exchanging it for something truly vegan. What I choose remains to be seen. By the way, as I did my search of information, I came across something on a Gary Null site touting the praises of bee pollen as a "perfect food". Apparently a number of years ago Null did an infomercial for bee pollen and was excoriated for lending credibility to claims the FDA later debunked. You can learn more about that here. So, I plan to get my money back, go to Whole Foods, and read everything over carefully before choosing my next meal replacement. The moral of the story may be that eating a healthy meal is better than trying to replace it.

New Vegan-Friendly Restaurant

2009-05-02T17:47:00.008-04:00

We were out shopping in Lowe's today looking for hanging plants, CFL replacements for the track lighting and more, and I suddenly felt out of energy. The plan to go grocery shopping and then have lunch at home was scrapped and we headed to the closest quicky lunch spot, a Moe's Southwestern Grill that just opened in an adjacent strip mall. I was already feeling sorry for myself that I'd have to get something with no cheese, no sour cream, and probably no flavor. Well, was I wrong! They offer grilled marinated tofu as one of their "meat" selections and have a Southwestern Vinaigrette dressing that is really good, and dairy free. I had a "Close Talker" salad in a fried flour tortilla bowl, yummy but more calories than I should have had. Mr. Maven had a burrito with about half the calories of my lunch, but his came with chips and guacamole, and adding those in made us about even. Nevertheless, knowing I can have any of their entrees with tasty tofu and no cheese or sour cream and really enjoy it made my day.

I've been totally vegan about 6 weeks now, and eating out here in PA has been pretty challenging. Where I can go and eat vegan without deprivation: Olive Garden, Red Robin, Subway or our local Italian takeout place (getting a veggie hero and bringing it home to add my own vegan cheese and cold cuts), Chili's (the black bean burger's okay but not great, and the portobello fajitas are pretty good); Sweet Cream ice cream shoppe where they serve a delicious peanut butter and chocolate chip sandwich.

We go to a nice restaurant not far from the house called Robert Christian's. They have a varied menu and the chef has been willing to make me a lovely Pasta Primavera. Last time, however, despite my stressing no butter or cheese, it tasted very buttery and seemed to be sprinkled with Parmesan. Mr.Maven, an omnivore eschewing red meat now, has to put up with my ever shrinking list of options at home and out, but he's patient.

Tonight I am having Road's End Mac & Chreese for the first time. I added half a tablespoon of Earth Balance margarine and a drained can of mushrooms. I'm fixing Mr. Maven turkey meatballs and marinara over Dreamfield's linguine, and we'll share a nice salad and some mixed veggies.

Summer Already??

2009-04-26T17:26:00.011-04:00

A gorgeous little violet in the still-wintry brown lawn near our country house. And moments later as I photographed its neighbor:

And yep, that's a real live honeybee, on April 26, and it was 88-degrees up here on the Plateau today in Eastern Pennsylvania, and even higher down the mountain where we were doing a little shopping and the asphalt was sizzling, maybe 95-degrees.

So it's time for shorts and tanks and oh, the distress of the post-Atkins body I now inhabit, with added weight from eating vegetarian for the past 10 months, and being vegan since March. I'm trying to get the right nutrition without overdoing fat and carbs. The worst seems to be eating in restaurants where the only thing I can get that seems like a real entree is pasta, often with garlic and oil and some veggies if I'm lucky or marinara. By the way, Olive Garden has whole wheat pasta with a tasty marinara, and the salad and bread sticks are good. Maybe too good!

I made an awesome vegan Alfredo sauce, thanks to Don't Get Mad Get Vegan's great recipe site. Check it out! I made it with Dreamfield's low-carb macaroni and added a drained can of sliced mushrooms and some baby peas. Yummy, but still pretty rich. I shared some with a vegan friend who agreed it was great, but it didn't help me lose any weight. So the adventure continues.

My First Vegan Passover

2009-04-08T22:10:00.009-04:00

Good Pesach to all who celebrate with us here and around the world. We are having our seder tomorrow night with charoset sweetened with agave nectar, matzoh balls made with Ener-G Egg Replacer in a vegetable broth, whole wheat matzohs, horseradish, and Blue Plate Specials from Whole Foods. Why the latter, you ask? Because I am vegan and my partner remains an omnivore. So he'll have chicken, a veggie side and kugel, and I'll have their Candle Cafe Tofu Balls rolled in Sesame Seeds, vegan cherry kugel, and a veggie side.

I feel a lot of gratitude for our many blessings at this special season. More secular than religious, I have chosen to mark the holiday with a few mitzvahs instead of strict adherence to ritual. Somehow it feels that Hashem would find this more worthy of blessing than my stumbling through the Haggadah trying to do all the right things in the right order and telling the story right without losing all the people around the table in my ineptitude.

This is the first year I feel in harmony with the planet and with the values I knew I ought to honor but couldn't seem to reach.

Remembering Mom

2009-03-28T15:30:00.011-04:00

Mom died 4 years ago yesterday, and I forgot to light a candle, so this is her yahrtzeit.

God bless you, Mom. You taught me so much about compassion for all living things, and your years as a vegetarian inspired me. Life is okay now without you here, especially with your cares and health issues gone. I miss you terribly nearly every day. But l feel closer to you now in many ways, just a thought, an action, a word or a prayer away. I love you and I always will.

It's day 12 today for me as a real vegan, and I've been managing better than I thought I would. I even lost about a pound this past week. Last night we went to Red Robin and I had Red's Rice Bowl, sauteed zucchini, yellow squash, red pepper, snowpeas and mushrooms with a little teriyaki sauce atop rice with some Chinese noodles, and a side salad.

Breakfast today was my now-usual Big Bowl of high fiber cereals, with a sliced kiwi, cup of mixed fresh berries, some dried currants, sliced almonds and some pumpkin seeds, tablespoon of flax seed meal, and soy milk. For lunch out we went to our local pizza joint and my husband had a couple of plain slices while I had a veggie hero, no cheese, no mayo, and sprinkled with oil and vinegar. I added a small package of pistachios for protein, and it was a good meal.

Dinner tonight will be either a pasta with marinara and no cheese, or something else vegan from the Olive Garden that just opened near us this week. Their minestrone is vegan as far as I can tell, too. Tomorrow night I will make my first Vegan Alfredo Sauce, and I have all the stuff I need, (except vegan parmesan cheese, and not every recipe requires it): Mori-Nu silken tofu, nutritional yeast, soymilk and the appropriate herbs and spices. With some penne, that ought to be good.

And so, my vegan adventure continues, and I am finding it very do-able. More later.

Vegan Living: Today is Day Five!

2009-03-21T16:17:00.011-04:00

I finally made the transition from lacto-ovo vegetarian to vegan! Now that I've done it, I can't believe how long I resisted doing it, thinking that giving up the cheese, butter, eggs and other dairy products, not to mention all foods that contain them in any quantity whatever, would be incredibly difficult. Not so.

Why?

First, my last physical showed my cholesterol was 263. I went off Lipitor back in 2007 when I was losing a lot of weight on a low-carb diet, and I was sure that because I had been abstaining from all meat, fish and poultry my number would be low now. Wrong! My doc wrote:

Your cholesterol was 263 and your LDL 167, so being a vegetarian doesn't help your lipid profile. You are going to need medication.

Well, I thought I'd just reduce the cheese, eggs and other dairy easily to correct this, but I haven't been able to do so. Then on the Today Show I saw Rip Esselstyn, author of The Engine 2 Diet (E-2) which I mentioned a few weeks back, and I got excited about his plan. However, I'd recently placed a couple of other on-line orders and felt I should wait to send for it, and gradually the idea faded. Then I saw a reference to an interesting cookbook, Terry Bryant's Vegan Soul Food Kitchen.

So I ordered both books, and I told myself I could eat cheese, eggs and other dairy until they came. That day was Tuesday, March 17, 2009, St. Patrick's Day. I opened the box eagerly. I scanned both books briefly, being at work at the time, and brought them home. The E-2 diet seemed daunting, with no added fats or cheese substitutes and no refined carbs. I didn't think I could do it. Bryant Terry's recipes looked awesome and easy to follow. So I told myself I could simply be honestly vegan, no exceptions, and see how it went. Every day I made vegan choices.

We ate in on Tuesday and Thursday, and on Wednesday we brought in Middle Eastern takeout, and I had Koshary, a delicious mix of chopped vegetables, lentils, garbanzos, rice, and rotini pasta, with some marinara sauce and fried onions on top. Last night we went out for Indian food and I asked the waiter which items didn't have any dairy, and it was easy because there were only two (everything else called "vegetarian" had cream or butter in it), so I enjoyed a spicy lentil dish with rice. Yummy, but in the middle of the night I felt I'd overdone the salt.

Yesterday before dinner I shopped at a local health food store and stocked up on many items Rip recommends. That included a loaf of Ezekiel bread, non-dairy yogurt, nutritional yeast, Smart Fiber cereal and some other stuff. Today I went to my local Mr. Z's market and found an even better selection of some items: Mori-Nu silken tofu used in many vegan recipes, organic frozen and fresh fruits, and ingredients for tomorrow's slow-cooker chili.

Today I had an E-2 breakfast ("Rip's Big Bowl") with lots of high fiber cereal, dried fruit, nuts flax seed meal, and soy milk. It was delicious. For lunch we went to a little place my husband loves. "Sweet Creams" features lunch and ice cream. I had a green salad with balsamic vinaigrette on the side and a PBR sandwich--peanut butter, raisins, dark chocolate chips and cinnamon on a dense whole grain bread. It was all good. Later this afternoon, I made Vegan Brownies that are amazing. So, it can be done.

Gist of my experience: it's easier to abstain completely from cheese (Rip calls it addictive and explains why) than to have a little. Kind of like alcoholism. It's easier to stop our drinking altogether than to try to moderate it.

The AA Big Book (on page xxx in "The Doctor's Opinion) says,

The only relief we have to suggest is entire abstinence.

And so I am abstaining entirely, and one day at a time, it's working. I'll keep checking in. Here's a great pyramid to guide my path. Maybe yours, too.

Daisy, Daisy . . .

2009-03-07T10:46:00.003-05:00

(Cross-posted from Daily Kos)

Here in the mountains of Northeastern PA the snow is almost gone and it's supposed to be 65 today, about 20 degrees over normal for now. But we'll take it! Also, here's a Naughty Kitten update: our Daisy has mellowed to the point where we can handle her.

This is Daisy today.

You all [friends at Daily Kos] were so helpful a few weeks ago when my husband had reached the end of his rope with her. We made some suggested accommodations, but the biggest positive influence came, I believe, from our psychic friend who asked spirit guides to speak with her and explain that jumping on the mantel wasn't cool. Dasiy remained quiet and subdued for over an hour, unusual for a 7-month old kitten, and she has never jumped up there again. Made a believer out of me! When I saw our friend and told her, she said, "It was a spirit already in your home," either one of our cats who has passed on (there were 4, 2 who have been in this house) or one of our beloved parents, or...?

The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated - Mahatma Gandhi

Spring Will Soon Be Here!

2009-03-06T16:41:00.007-05:00

Springtime is a season of joy for all creatures. We await her arrival with open arms. The squirrels in the back yard scrounging around my bird feeders, the black crows on the spine of the house, and walking like men with hands clasped behind their backs on the winter-faded grass, and we humans and our cat Daisy all look toward spring at this time of winter discontent in the world.

Our young Daisy enjoys a beam of sunlight and an airborne faux-furry mouse toy.

Here in the mountains of Northern Pennsylvania, the sun is shining, the snow is almost gone, except for a few little patches here and there, and the air is 52 degrees. A far cry from the 10-below temperatures we braved a month or so ago.

Living in an eco-friendly, vegetarian way, aspiring toward the vegan, at ease in my own skin today, I welcome this season of greater light and freedom. On Sunday we'll turn the clocks ahead for Daylight Savings Time, and the mornings will be darker and the evenings brighter.

Another winter will soon end as the equinox passes in just two weeks, and hope of warmth will cheer us again. Meanwhile, it's another day today to live in harmony with the Earth.

The Engine 2 Diet

2009-02-23T08:53:00.004-05:00

This morning on the "Today Show" I saw a segment featuring Rip Esselstyn, a hunky and totally fit firefighter from Engine 2 Company in Austin, Texas whose firehouse has gone totally vegan after several guys had colossal total cholesterol scores. Rip has a book out, The Engine 2 Diet, with a website where you can learn more and order it via links to all the usual online vendors, or get it through Amazon.

My omnivore husband announced, as we watched this piece, that he's decided to swear off red meat, including pork. This is a big change and one that gives me great hope! Just last night he was telling me what an inconvenience my veggie lifestyle is for him, because he wanted to stir fry my tofu and veggies in the same pan where he'd sauteed his Kung Po shrimp without cleaning it out. I deferred, grateful for his wanting to make it for me, and telling myself that any faint vestiges of his shrimp don't change my commitment to my own vegetarian ways.

Wearing Your Ethics

2009-02-22T18:20:00.007-05:00

The longer I enjoy meatless eating, the more sensitive I'm becoming to the needs of the planet and our animal co-inhabitants. As moved as I am to tears and disgust by cruelty in factory farming, I still need to know it exists and fight it. I have watched the videos and read the articles and I tell others what I believe and why. The easiest way to get the point across is fashion without confrontation, at least that's how it seems. The Peta Store has some awesome t-shirt choices. Paul McCartney wore the "Eat No (cow)" t-shirt on an album cover. I have it in the "Eat No (fish)" version, too. Order a few. Wear your convictions!

I went to the hairdresser recently. One of the working women there comes from Eastern Europe and had raised her own meat and poultry. Because diet seems to be a constant topic among us when I'm there, my vegetarian lifestyle came up (again). I explained that as much as I had enjoyed meat as a food, at least sometimes, it was exposure to factory farming cruelty that turned me from it, never to return to eating animal flesh again. The European woman said that she and her husband slaughtered their animals themselves and assured us that chickens and lambs "have no adrenaline" and therefore can't feel fear. I think that's preposterous. I told her that anything that dies in a state of distress is suffused with the chemical influence of that disstress and this is bad for the person eating it. Maybe lions on the Savannah are innured to those influences, but we who have many healthier alternatives, and the molars to grind grains and veggies, are not.

Holding My Own

2009-02-15T10:41:00.010-05:00

Life as a vegetarian about 8 months into the process is really good. Thus far I've stopped eating all meat, fish and poultry. I've stopped buying new leather shoes (found great Chuck Taylor at the Converse outlet and Madden Girl shoes that you can get at Alternative Outfitters) and accessories. I especially like the Converse slip-style with eyelets but no laces that come in black and colors and even some funky patterns. I got black and aqua.

I cook and eat vegan as much as possible, while still eating eggs and dairy when we eat in restaurants that don't offer vegan selections. I anticipate reaching a point one day where I stop doing even that, just as I reached the point where the concept of eating meat bothered me too much. That took years, however, and I am allowing this journey to unfold. Meanwhile, Red Robin has meatless patties available on all their awesome burger selections.

One of my favorites is the Blackened Bayou Burger made with a Boca or Gardenburger. They describe it: "Blackened (meatless) burger topped with roasted red peppers, angry onions, Pepper-Jack cheese, Creole mustard sauce and cabbage-carrot mix on a jalapeño-cornmeal kaiser roll. Add a splash of Tabasco® for even more spice. It's good, we guar-an-tee!" Yup! Fer true!

I bake vegan, using soy milk, soy sour cream, egg substitute (Ener-G), and other goodies. I now subscribe to VegNews and recently baked the "Vegan Whoopie Pies" they featured. They were delicious but do enjoy them fresh if you make them. They're made with whole wheat pastry flour and are still light and yummy, with no sense of eating something grainy or rough.

The whoopie pies were great at first but after hanging out in freezer and fridge for a couple of weeks became too crumbly to really enjoy, so I threw them out by the bird feeders and expect the squirrels had a field day. In fact I saw one character holding up one piece in both paws and nibbling before scampering off into the woods.

Today I baked some Valentine's Day cupcakes to take to dinner with friends. I made the Golden Vanilla Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache and piped hot-pink icing hearts, and filled with Cookies-and-Cream frosting from the last batch of minis I made. My recipes all come from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, and I recommend it highly! No, I haven't lost weight since switching from Atkins-style carnivore to vegetarian, but after gaining about 13 pounds from June to December 2008, I've lost about 8 of that and am havng no trouble maintaining. I'll likely lose again if and when I convert to vegan fully, but that's for another day.

That's it for now, except that we now have a real cat, not only a virtual one, and her name is Daisy.

My first vegetarian Thanksgiving

2008-11-30T15:58:00.005-05:00

It was a nice holiday spent with great friends who made special effort to accomodate my veggie needs. Just to be on the safe side, I brought a few things myself: Whole Foods Portobello Mushroom Gravy and several side dishes (Vegan Green Bean Casserole, Sweet Potatoes with Apricots, and Vegan Stuffing). I was so glad I took the trouble to make my own stuffing because our host had only what she made in the bird. I learned some valuable lessons along the way:

Only use recipes from trusted sources. I selected 2 excellent ones that worked beautifully from Jill at Persistent Vegetarian State, but I still wanted and searched for the Green Bean Casserole and found many, most complicated. One recipe sounded great, substituting the Campbell's mushroom soup with Creamy Portobello mushroom soup, but the amount it called for had to be really wrong, 32 ounces. My guess is it should have been the small box, not the quart. I followed directions, and thank goodness my husband found a way for us to remove a lot of the extra liquid, which by the way became a tasty gravy. Leading to the next tip:
Be prepared to be creative and innovative. My chosen stuffing recipe called for challah bread made into cubes and toasted. I found ready-made bread cubes at Whole Foods. Problem: after I assembled everything, I found that 2 bags was one bag too many, leading to my having to add twice the vegetable broth, plus some additional water. In the end it was delightful, and having a lot more than I needed, I was able to add some Earth Balance margarine to the surplus and make it into balls, then bake them in muffin tins. Yummy!

Last night we met friends for dinner out and I learned that K has virtually given up fish and is now vegetarian, too. They're having a Tofurky tonight, and I can't wait to hear how it turns out. Lucky girl, her man will eat stuffed peppers made with soy crumbles and Tofurky. Maybe in future days mine will, too. But until then, we peacefully coexist and both love animals. To each his own time and place for change.

Still Groovin' the Veggie Way

2008-11-22T16:40:00.006-05:00

Wow, three months since my last post! Well, it's been pretty busy. First, we got very involved in the 2008 Presidential Election, working to elect Barack Obama and Joe Biden and all the good men and women down ticket. How cool that we succeeded! Yes we did!

Here's a nice YouTube from the campaign:

After enjoying that, let me tell you that we are trying to singlehandedly hold up the economy! Mr. Maven just got his very own 2009 Toyota Prius, a back sexy one. Gone is the fairly big SUV, and all that gas consumption. The Prius we already have (mine, a 2007 in beautiful blue) gets about 48 mpg and even driving between New York and PA weekly, we only use about 6.5 gals.

Now, it's Saturday and we're tired, but it's been a good week. Last Sunday Nature Maven presented a professional workshop in Chicago, and yesterday did it again in New York. Ahhhh. Rest and recuperation in the country!

And, yes, I'm still meat-free for these past 5 months. I've gained about 7 pounds overall with the return to carbs, but I'm okay with it at this point. Eventually I'll get back where I need to be, or maybe I'm already there.

Best Veggie Reading

2008-08-30T10:44:00.009-04:00

One thing any vegetarian must do is stay up on salient information, new products, and recipes and stay plugged in to the veggie community. Some of the ways I do it:
Checking out Google's vegetarian headlines delivered daily to this blog, to the right.

Reading current issues of mags such as VegNews, Vegetarian Times, and a freebie that comes to the office called Natural Solutions that features some veggie products and alternative health options and information.I make many purchases based upon what I learn. For example, in VegNews yesterday I saw an ad for J-41 "Adventure On" very cool-looking vegan shoes with recycled rubber soles (note: they also sell shoes made with leather, so be sure to click on "vegan" when investigating styles and prices). I checked and a store right around the corner from my home sells them! Awesome.

Today: off to a local country fair we go to annually in PA. I know I can get some vegetarian lunch items and will do so. I also know that plenty will be off limits for me. There are 4-H exhibits. I have mixed feelings about them, since the animals usually head to slaughter at some point in their lives. Here's a heartwrenching poem if you have the stamina to read it, called "4-H Boy". On the brighter side, I'm hoping to catch some natural-product vendors and the local Democratic Party booth to get some Obama-Biden stuff.

By the way, Moveon.org is offering FREE (or low cost for quantity) Obama-Biden bumper stickers. Check it out here and get yours today!

Making it Day to Day

2008-08-24T10:47:00.007-04:00

Having been vegetarian for 2 months, several truths have emerged for me:

Maybe strict vegans, raw foodies and/or fruitarians lose any excess weight automatically with their diets, but (semi) lacto-ovo vegetarians (LOVs) as I am now do not. I am still eating cheese and foods containing eggs often when I eat away from home. I cook and bake strictly vegan at home.
Some restaurants accomodate LOV's with pasta dishes, veggie burgers, portabello mushrooms in place of steak, and Mexican entrees featuring beans and cheese, but many other do not. Here's what I can share: Red Robin (Boca Burgers and Gardenburgers can be substituted for beef in any burger) and Chili's (black bean burgers and portabello fajitas are both winners) are LVO-friendly; Long Horn Steakhouse is not (my letter to the parent company to complain as been met with crickets so far); most restaurants will gladly fix an entree for you if the only change they need to make is to leave out the meat (e.g., cheesesteak with everything, no meat).
Take home items are a little easier:

Chinese entrees like tofu with black bean sauce or most any tofu entree, and veggie or mushroom egg foo young are fine LOV choices, and any veggie version of lo mein, mei fun, chow mei fun, or fried rice are high-carb but vegan (unless eggs are added--ask). Our local Japanese place will make any entree with tofu in place of meat or fish. That's a help, too.
Pizza is a no-brainer, and with a few select veggies is best, like mushrooms or black olives (getting the touted veggie pizza offering on most menu boards unfortunately often inlcudes al dente broccoli (read almost raw), never a favorite of mine. PLUS most italian places offer or will make eggplant dishes (heros, parmargiana, rollatini) that are great for us LOVs. And pasta with olive oil and garlic is de rigeur.
So that's it so far. My weight has stablized at almost exactly where I started. I have to keep reminding myself I'm not eating this way to lose but to be cruelty-free in my living, as best I can be. I know dairy is cruel too, and so is leather, but this is a One-Day-at-a-Time lifestyle. If it weren't, I couldn't do it. I've added in B-12 tablets and EFAs, and I'm feeling good. More later!

Delicious Vegetarian Gourmet Cooking

2008-08-10T19:51:00.003-04:00

Yesterday I bought Madhur Jaffrey's wonderful book, World Vegetarian: More Than 650 Meatless Recipes from Around the Globe and tonight tried my first recipe. Oh my God, it was divine! I made her "Cauliflower and Potatoes with Ginger, Punjabi Style" (page 163). I had a gorgeous head of organic cauliflower and shopped today for potatoes, fresh ginger, and ground turmeric, coriander, and cayenne. I had cumin in the pantry already. It took awhile to prepare but was well worth the effort. I will serve this to company. I had some chickpeas as my protein, a big green salad, and a rice side dish with sauteed gourmet mushrooms and the bottom portion of a leek, sliced thin, all seasoned with some Bragg's and a spoonful of tahini. An amazing meal. My husband grilled a salmon fillet for himself and shared these dishes with me. He agreed the Jaffrey recipe was wonderful. The other he wasn't that thrilled with. But that was my quick little concoction. The bonus: I have leftovers to take back to the city to enjoy this week, and the wonderful book awaiting me when I come back Friday to try more delightful dishes.

2008-07-26T10:37:00.005-04:00

Six and a half weeks into my vegetarian journey merits an update. I'm enjoying eating this way now. I am nearly vegan with a few exceptions: occasional ice cream and baked goods made with eggs, and cheese on pizza or other food eaten in restaurants, such as veggie burgers. For dinners home I eat a gargantuan salad before my main course, unless it is my main course. I have become satisfied with adding balsamic or flavored vinegar or squeeze of fresh lemon juice and some Bragg's as my dressing. It really tastes fresh and appealing this way, although I'm sure I'd prefer "real" dressing.

I am eating a lot of canned beans added to a quick veggie stirfry of peppers, onions, peapods and whatever else we have handy. I toss in a half cup of brown rice, quinoa or couscous unless I'm having a whole wheat pita at that meal. Sometimes I throw in some fresh blueberries to the salad or the main course. Usually I end the meal with a big bowl of fresh fruit. Mr. Nature Maven often buys us Dancing Deer brownies and ice cream, and although I'd like to say I don't share with him, I do. A half brownie (about 160 cals) with a smaller dish of fruit is how I handle it. I have been noticing that on the rare occasion when I eat ice cream, I often complain of insomnia and/or a headache later on. Maybe this is revealing lactose intolerance. I'm also learning that a bean meal with huge quantities of raw and cooked veggies can mean bloating and discomfort. My latest reading tells me that having cruciferous veggies (e.g. broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and Brussels sprouts) along with legumes is asking for this sort of trouble, so I plan on using tempeh with those veggies instead.

My weight feels pretty stable but looking at the log I'm keeping shows I've lost 2.6 pounds over the past 3 weeks. I didn't track my weight before that, but the total loss is between 3 and 4 pounds. That's good considering I've been enjoying many delicious things off the strict Eat to Live food plan (FYI: Dr. Fuhrman has another 2-volume book out called Eat for Health reviewed on the same link) : pizza, Chinese food, eggplant parmesan, amazing spelt-agave scones from Whole Foods, a Jamba juice only-fruit shake on a hungry workday afternoon, 365-brand "Oreo"-type cookies, and my famous vegan cake.

I can imagine that had I been religiously strict in following Dr. Fuhrman's guidelines, I'd have lost significant weight. But my goal has been to make the transition to vegetarianism, not to get thinner, and I am not significantly overweight, maybe 10 or 15 pounds from my ideal. I focus on weight here only because I feared there would be a gain after I went from Atkins where I sometimes literally had pork at every meal and ate no fruit, to a carb-loaded vegetarian lifestyle with scads of yummy fruit and all sorts of whole grain stuff.

We're on vacation in the country for the next 10 days, so having more time to shop, prepare and cook healthy vegetarian foods will be a joy.

And remember, food is just a part of life, not life itself. But don't try doing without it!

Another Beautiful Vegetarian Day

2008-07-19T12:12:00.004-04:00

Another Beautiful Vegetarian Day

Eating the vegetarian way is getting downright easy! I am still having a little cheese when eating outside the house and away from my local Whole Foods where any meal can be a delicious vegan adventure. I am losing a little weight, too, despite eating some very yummy things, so I know the Eat to Live strategy is a good one for me.

I cross-posted the following on DKos this morning on the Saturday Morning Garden Blog, a great place to hang out!

"Nature Maven and partner Etienne are blessed to be city mice during the week and country mice on the weekend, and the country place is part of a little community where the outside is maintained by others, so only potted plants for us. Here's our Lantana, almost dead when we arrived back yesterday, so I guess we didn't get rain since Monday. It's gorgeous again this morning:

Went for a quick nature walk behind the place where roadside wild things grow, camera in hand, and found these:
Self-heal or Heal-all

Common St. John's Wort

Brown-eyed Susans amid the ferns & grasses

Birdsfoot Trefoil

Spiked Lobelia

and White Yarrow

The best part was putting these photos on the computer and using the edit function to blow them up huge and pore over my Audubon Field Guide to Wildflowers to figure some of them out."

A Happy and Healthy Saturday to all,

Love, Nature Maven

Dear Mom, My First Vegetarian Example

2008-07-16T15:32:00.009-04:00

Four years ago, on July 16, 2004 I took this picture of my Mom, Mary, on her 83rd birthday. She was living at Quarry Hill, in Camden, Maine, happily painting and enjoying friends and family. We didn't know it then, but she had lung cancer, and on March 27, 2005 she died, only 9 days after being diagnosed with that cancer. I am so very glad that she had those good years and months free of fear, and that her passing was quick and in the care and company of loving nurses and staff. My son and I, and my dear cousin Judy, were there that day.

This photo was taken of Nature Maven and Mary in 2003 when we went back to Los Angeles together.

I, Nature Maven, grew up in Los Angeles in the community of Pacific Palisades. Mom became a vegetarian early in my childhood in the 1950's out of compassion for the animals, and she raised me on avocados, sprouts, raw nut butters, hearty whole grain bread, and fruit. One Thanksgiving she made a lentil loaf. I felt deprived back then. Sugar was unknown in our daily life, although I managed to have too much whenever given an opportunity. Mom eventually grew anemic and went back to fish, then chicken, then the occasional beef meal. I know she'd be proud of me today to be on the vegetarian path.

Thank you, Mom. Happy Birthday!

Having Our Cake and Eating It, Too

2008-07-13T11:59:00.016-04:00

Yesterday I baked a Vegan Vanilla Cake and it was divine! I used

Ener-G Egg Replacer, Earth Balance margarine, and soy milk in place of the usual dairy components, and I reduced the amount of sugar from 1-3/4 cups to 1-1/4 cups. I used brown sugar after reading that some white sugar is whitened using bones. The frosting was made with dairy-free bittersweet chocolate, margarine, and powdered sugar. It was wonderful but a bit too sweet, so next time I'll use unsweetened chocolate. And yes, I did get the covered cake stand I mentioned in an earlier post. Found it at a flea market after scouring two huge antique malls. This one dates back to the 60's, said the vendor, and is in perfect shape. The price was right, too, $25. As I said before

in this blog, I am a firm believer in buying gently used items over new in many cases, giving something a new home by recycling it. I had been unable to find a cake stand I liked that had a dome, except for a brand new one for $40 at a major import retailer. Knowing where it originated, I wasn't ready to settle for that one.

My recent baking frenzy has been fueled by the awesome new mixer we got for my birthday last month, and it too was recycled, being factory refurbished rather than factory new, and none the worse for that plus lots cheaper.

So on it goes, learning a little more everyday and making changes in my life that really fit.

Today I sent friends an email with a link to this blog and featuring a story that appeared as a vegetarian headline on Healthy Eating Healthy Planet's right sidebar, The Only Diet for a Peacemaker is a Vegetarian Diet. I hope you'll take the time to click on the link and read it. I have been gaining so much information I can use through reading the news stories via the links my headline service puts on this blog every day.

In addition to paying attention to what I eat, I try to take time to enjoy the beauty of nature every day. Last weekend I took this photo on my nature walk. Brown-Eyed Susans.

Love,

Nature Maven

An Appetite for Health

2008-07-11T18:21:00.015-04:00

As I complete the end of my first 5 days following the vegan suggestions of Eat to Live by Joel Fuhrman, MD (see previous post for info on the book and links), I am aware that my hunger is stimulated by carbs and dairy. We had lunch at a Panera Bread Cafe and I had a half a Mediterranean Veggie Sandwich of "piquant peppers, feta cheese, cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes, onions and cilantro hummus on our Tomato Basil bread" (310 calories for half!) and half a fruit and greens salad they describe as, "crisp romaine lettuce, fresh strawberries, blueberries, pineapple tidbits, Mandarin oranges, pecans and our fat-free reduced sugar Poppyseed dressing," pictured on the left (100 calories). Tasted good, and came with an apple. But 5 hours later I was ravenous, more than usual. The bread and the feta (dairy) are the only things I haven't been eating this week. For dinner I suggested we go to our walkable southwestern restaurant where I envisioned a huge taco salad with lots of lettuce, tomato, guacamole, beans and no meat, plus the cheese it would contain and the fried tortilla shell I would partially consume, both items "off plan" but still vegetarian, if not vegan or low calorie.

But, the Universe had other plans for me. The estimated wait was 20 minutes, so we walked back home. I wracked my brain for what I could eat. My spouse had been to Fairway and had a beef and asparagus dish he planned on and a quart of gazpacho, but I hadn't brought any vegetables. I knew I could go to our local Italian place and bring back a huge green salad, but that meant more walking quite a distance or using the car, definitely not a green option. So it was going to depend on what we had on hand. At home I found a can of garbanzos, half used bag of celery, iffy bag of salad from last week, last of the shredded cabbage (red and green) and carrots, half a big tomato, and a whole onion. And there was a perfectly ripe avocado on the pass-through that I'd bought last weekend. Everything I'd need for a great meal:

* Small bowl of cold gazpacho, with tomatoes, onions, garlic, peppers, vinegar, canola oil, and herbs and spices
* Huge green salad with lettuce, carrots, cabbage, onion, avocado, tomato; plus 1/2 cup garbanzo beans, 1 TBS of ground flaxseed, and a dressing of 1 TBS tahini with juice of half a lemon and enough Bragg's to make it taste salty enough. I Love Bragg's. I recently found it at Vitamin Shoppe after my local Whole Foods had been out of stock for a month. I had bought my first bottle at a health food store in PA. It tastes like a low-salt soy sauce and is great for adding 16 amino acids and amazing flavor to your food.
* Main course: stir-fried shredded cabbage, onion, and thinly sliced celery made with a small amount of olive oil, with 1/2 cup of garbanzo beans, partially mashed for texture, and then steamed for a few minutes in water flavored with a little Bragg's, lemon juice and a few drops of tahini from the measuring spoon I used for the salad. It was so delicious my spouse had several small helpings.
*Dessert: my usual big bowl of fresh fruit salad, this time blueberries, melon, pineapple, and strawberries. I did have a small piece (1-1/2 inch square) of Whole Foods "homemade" granola bar, a healthy treat of seeds, nuts, oats, dried fruits, honey, rice syrup, and canola oil. I savored it slowly and enjoyed it a lot.

The bonus was the fact that today I was down 4 pounds from last Monday! I never felt deprived. Tomorrow I will shop and stock up on fresh, frozen, and canned things so I don't have a crisis next time. I also plan to bake a vegan cake. Keep you posted next time!

Eating to Live

2008-07-08T10:12:00.007-04:00

I'm reading an interesting new book and starting to incorporate its guidelines into my vegetarian eating, Eat to Live by Dr. Joel Fuhrman, an MD practicing in New Jersey. The plan he advocates is vegan (or if absolutely necessary, with occasional fish and egg whites) and quite matter-of-fact:

Simplify, Simplify, Simplify
Breakfast: fresh fruit
Lunch: salad, beans on top, and more fruit
Dinner: salad and two cooked vegetables (1 pound), fruit dessert

His "10 Easy Tips for Living with the 6-week Plan" (my summary)
1. Eat salad first at each meal, a pound or more of salad greens
2. Eat as much fruit as you want, but at least 4 fresh fruits a day
3. Vary your green vegetables; have a pound of cooked green vegetables, too
4. Limit starchy vegetables; limit grains and breads even more strictly
5. Eat beans or legumes daily
6. Eliminate animal and dairy products
7. Have a tablespoon of ground flaxseed daily
8. Consume no more than 1 ounce nuts or seeds daily
9. Eat lots of mushrooms all the time
10. Keep it simple (he then refers to quote above)
I have been eating this way since lunch yesterday with no problem. Example: I made a huge green salad last night, added garbanzo beans and some couscous, threw in some blueberries, and added a little balsamic vinegar. Yummy! Calories for dinner were 514, with the whole day only 1,104 (breakfast was cereal with almond milk). For dessert I made fruit salad with cantaloupe, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries and raspberries and shared it with my spouse.
This 6-week plan is geared toward weight loss, but has been very effective for inflammatory diseases, cardiovascular disease, auto-immune disorders, cancer, irritable bowel disease, and many more common illnesses, and the book contains testimonials from people he has treated. I was most impressed by the foreward from the well-known cardiologist Dr. Mehmet Oz from New York's Presbyterian Medical Center who recommends him highly.

Activism and Being a Vegetarian

2008-07-04T15:06:00.009-04:00

On June 11, 2008 I stopped eating meat.

Now I also abstain from fish and most eggs and dairy. After I posted a diary on Daily Kos on June 22 to update my progress on this vegetarian journey, I was referred by another vegetarian to the PETA website where I signed up for a free vegetarian starter kit. It hasn't yet arrived, but their emails have. Today they asked me to email the Smithfield ham people because of some absolutely terrible things some of their contract farmers do to the pigs and piglets they raise. I followed their link. There was an undercover video, and I have learned enough from seeing others to become a vegetarian, but I also know I don't need to be traumatized to change for the better, so I relied on their graphic decription of this cruelty to move me toward taking the action they asked:

...to urge Smithfield Foods to demand that Murphy Family Ventures fire all the workers responsible for this cruelty and work with PETA to enact meaningful animal welfare reforms. Also, tell Smithfield that while it's good that it has promised to phase out the use of gestation crates at its own farms, the company needs to make the transition faster and require independent suppliers to phase out these cruel devices too.

I sent the requested email, and I'm very glad I did. I told my spouse a little about this action I'd just taken, and he stands where I stood for years: I know terrible things happen, but what can I do about it? I replied that I learned today from PETA that my becoming a vegetarian, just me, saves the lives of approximately 100 animals (meat and poultry) a year. That is significant!

And so here I am in my 4th week of vegetarian, nearly vegan, eating, and I am thriving. Okay, I am still trying to stick to a decent amount of calories and not over-carb, but I am doing it. This morning we had breakfast on the road, and I had 2 pecan pancakes and a half a bowl of oatmeal with banana slices and a little milk. I was aiming to enjoy the pancakes without ending up in a low-sugar crash hours later. I think the oatmeal and milk helped mitigate the crash, but eventually it came. About 3 hours later I started getting the low-sugar shakes. I ate a slice of veggie cheese and a granola bar with a little natural peanut butter on it. I'm good to go now, even 4 hours later. Next time I have pancakes out, perhaps I'll have scrambled eggs or Eggbeaters as a side. I want to avoid dairy, but I also have to make sure I get what my body needs.

Tonight we have reservations for dinner and I already spoke to the chef about my dietary needs. He offered to make a pasta special that calls for chicken and just leave out the meat. "I'll adjust the price, too," he assured me. There was a Linguine with Marinara on the menu too.

It's a process. Definitely a process, where the byword is "Progress not Perfection". I think I am actually glad there are animal activists. I am not trying to be one, but I guess perhaps I am.

UPDATE: Awful dinner, overcooked pasta and no more in the kitchen to be had, so I had steamed veggies. Okay. I crossposted this on DKos and got lots of great comments, some challenging and some not so great, but all food for thought. Check it out! One commenter had extensive restaurant experience and said that special orders and substitutions, while waitstaff hasten to agree for their tips, put burdens on the kitchen and they often don't share in the tips.

Breaking it Down

2008-06-28T09:55:00.004-04:00

This gorgeous photo is an affirmation: I can select healthy foods. Now that I've been vegetarian for 18 days, having fish only once early in the first week and no meat or fish since, I'm beginning to fine tune my food choices. I track my intake at the Daily Plate and this is what yesterday's consumption looked like:

My Calorie Breakdown (2,762)
50.18% carbohydrate
39.87% fat
9.95% protein

This is sobering information. I exceeded my suggested calories by 1,079. It was really easy to see where the problems arose. I had too much food at each meal. I believe I would have been satisfied with less. I didn't need oatmeal AND a slice of pecan french toast at breakfast. I didn't need a second and half of a third breadstick at lunch. With butter (I know, I know! Not vegan). Or the shared trail mix snack two hours before dinner (I was thirsty and bought a diet soda and on impulse bought the package of trail mix). Or the bread and butter at dinner, or the cheesecake shared with my husband. But the worst offender by far was my choice of entree at the restaurant at dinner: Linguine Alfredo (they were out of fettucine). That was the only entree that was vegetarian, and I asked for the linguine because the menu called for cheese tortellini. So I have learned I can't "just eat anywhere and adapt" as I've believed. I worried that I wasn't getting enough protein, so I ate more and yet it was still below 10% with all the food I ate.

Today for breakfast: Smart Bran cereal with almond milk and a half cup of raspberries. The China Study summarized on KidSmart speaks to the cancer risks of consuming 20% protein compared to under 10% with exposure to carcinogenic substances, so I feel okay about it today. By the way, plant proteins do not carry the same risks as animal proteins, so I still plan to go vegan, in time. Live and Learn.

Mid-morning snack: 1" square Whole Foods granola bar

Lunch: leftover vegan lasagne (still good and very tasty) and green salad with a TBS of Italian salad dressing.

Afternoon Snack: 1 slice of freshly baked whole wheat bread (my first in years) with a little Earth Balance spread and fig spread. Delicious! I can do this!

Dinner: organic field greens with quinoa, pepitas, onion and fresh raspberries and 1 TBS Newman's Own Oil and Vinegar; Fakin' Bacon and garbanzos with couscous and broccoli from our neighbor's garden.

Dessert: Soy vanilla frozen dessert with organic blueberries. Total percentages for Today (1,792 calories): 53.73% carbohydrate, 31.22% fat, 15.05% protein. And only 9 calories over the goal.

Food For Thought

2008-06-22T09:34:00.000-04:00

Good morning! Here I am at Day 12 of my vegetarian lifestyle, and I continue to gather information, Food for Thought, if you will. Today I found on the blog Green Options the following guidelines for buying produce:

Certain produce, termed the "Dirty Dozen" by the Environmental Working Group, is so highly sprayed with toxic chemicals that, many experts recommend eating them only when they’re organic. These include:
Apples
Cherries
Grapes, imported (Chile)
Nectarines
Peaches
Pears
Raspberries
Strawberries
Bell peppers
Celery
Potatoes
Spinach
The U.S. Department of Agriculture found that even after washing, some fruits and vegetables consistently carry much higher levels of pesticide residue than others. The produce you can get away with purchasing as non-organic includes:
Bananas (though I do recommend purchasing "Fair Trade" bananas)
Kiwi
Mangos
Papaya
Pineapples
Asparagus
Avocado
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Corn
Onions
Peas

Right now we're struggling in the US with the tomato salmonella scare, and I saw a news story on MSNBC suggesting buying local and organic, especially until the source of this scourge is known and understood.

UPDATE: Today the weather was ominous with rain and thunderstorms so we visited a nearby antique mall to scout out a cake stand. We only found a few with domes, and only one in clear glass that wasn't a stellar enough example of the type worth shelling out good money for. This brings me to the ecological value of recycling things found in antique malls, thrift stores and fleamarkets or at garage, yard or stoop sales rather than heading to the stores for a brand new item that usually has a lot less character and quality. Not to mention that most new housewares are made somewhere far away with questionable safety and labor practices.

Martha Stewart Living has a great story on collecting glass cake stands ("Over the Top: Food domes uncover the history of dining through the centuries") in the July 2008 issue.

After baking an organic chocolate cake for our family birthday gathering this weekend, I decided we need just such an item. Having a mission when antiquing makes it all much more fun. Maybe next week...

Life is a Bowl of Cherries

2008-06-20T09:39:00.000-04:00

I have a bowl of fresh juicy cherries in my office and people have been savoring them along with me. I picked up a bag of California-grown organic cherries this morning to take for the weekend. Looked for grated soy cheese but the best I was able to find was a small block of mozzerella flavored rice cheese I can grate myself. My vegan lasagna, getting a second life this weekend from my freezer, needed more cheesiness. Family are visiting this weekend, so I picked up some maple syrup, creamed honey spread, and fig spread to serve with the whole grain waffles and homemade bread (that I hope I find time to make).

Weight is good. This week I went up 2 pounds on Tuesday but am back to baseline this morning.

One week ago today I posted this diary, "Going Vegetarian", on Daily Kos:

I have made the dramatic decision to go vegetarian, taking in as little dairy as I can and allowing a little fish during the tranisition. It all started with hearing that Oprah is doing a 21-day Cleansing Diet that is vegan, plus caffeine-free, gluten-free, and sugar-free. She is using a plan promoted by author Kathy Freston. I read this on Compassionate Cooks:
Recently, Oprah announced - on her show, on her site, and on her blog - that she is adopting a 21-Day Cleanse outlined in Kathy Freston's new book, Quantum Wellness." Some of you may be familiar with Kathy, whose popular article "Veganism is the New Prius" made its way around the web about a year ago. She is a beautiful and eloquent ambassador for veganism, and I'm thrilled she will be guiding Oprah on her journey. This cleanse includes avoiding gluten, sugar, alcohol, and animal products, but it's not just for health reasons that Oprah is giving this a try.

I went from this site to Oprah's own blog, and then I sought more information. This led me to a vegan site promising a "Free Guide" that when I clicked on it immediately began showing a video on cruelty in the raising and slaughtering of poultry and animals that was so upsetting that I was only able to view it with the sound off. After making myself see it through, I knew I could no longer be a party to this animal cruelty by buying and eating meat. I do not recommend seeing this video because it is raw and terrible, but I will post a link in comments if anyone asks for it. Let me add here that I am aware there are humane persons raising animals for meat and slaughtering them with minimal cruelty, but these are not the norm. Most commercial operations raising poultry and beef employ unspeakable tactics to maximize their profits at the expense of any quality of life for the living creatures in whose flesh they trade.

How we eat is very much a personal choice. I do not seek to convert others to my decision. I am writing this diary to enlist support and to find out about others choosing the vegan or vegetarian way of life and how you did it. So far I have received so much wonderful help. I went to my local Whole Foods and as I was checking out with a basket of new goodies, I asked the tattooed checker if by chance he was a vegan. He hesitated and then he said, "Yes, I am!" and thus began a brief but earnest conversation. He urged me to get quinoa because of its high level of protein, and Bragg's Liquid Aminos to add essential nutrients and flavor to vegetarian recipes. The next day I went back in search of the Bragg's but the store was out of stock, and the guy helping me look for it was so sweet, taking me all over the store to show me packaged and frozen items I'd enjoy as I make the transition. Both guys congratulated me on my decision and welcomed me. I feel wonderful. In my work, I shared this with a couple of clients, one a vegan and the other following a limited plan for health reasons, and both were very encouraging. One loaned me a vegetarian cookbook and box of Vegetarian Times recipe cards.

So this is Day 3, and I have lost 2 pounds without that even being a goal for this change, but the loss is very welcome nonetheless, my having been an Atkins adherent for several years and slowly regaining some of the weight after adding carbs back in. If I can figure out how, I will start a blog.

Well, as you can see, I did start that blog!

Learning as I Go

2008-06-19T11:23:00.001-04:00

A beautiful day today, and I have been learning how to build this blog and improve it bit by bit. Today a trip to Whole Foods and I came away with agave nectar, fresh cherries, granola bar, Nature's Path cereals (on sale today at 2 for $6), quinoa, and egg replacer (for baking). I have one a short walk from my office, so I feel very fortunate. I am loving the China Study (see link in the sidebar) and learning why going vegan is the only healthy choice. This is Day 9!

2008-06-19T11:09:00.001-04:00

A Whole Week!

2008-06-18T11:08:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I reported for jury duty and was unable to post here, but all is well nevertheless. Today it has been a full week since I have been eating meat-free. I feel good, but I have been eating too many healthy baked goods, and healthy or not, they aren't good for me to overdo, especially the ones that are sweet. I wasn't selected for a jury, so I'm back to my work and life routine. I used the Vindigo program on my PDA to locate the closest vegetarian restaurant and walked there on the lunch break yesterday. I found it, a cute cafe with plants and paintings all around and funky Nina Simone on the sound system. I got a Hickory Tofurkey sandwich with soy cheese and sprouts on 7-grain bread. It was great. Now if only I hadn't stopped at the bakery tent in the Farmer's Market on Courthouse Square on the way back to buy a molasses cookie! Delicious but too sweet and that tends to awaken the craving for lots more sugar.

Someone on Daily Kos recommended I read The China Study and I just got my copy this morning. So far I can see a lot of sound support for my decision to become a vegetarian and eventually a vegan. I have been anxious that I wouldn't get enough protein, but the book helps dispel that fear. I do know that living on Atkins wasn't healthy for me over the long haul, so I am really glad to be finding my way on the meat-free side of the equation.

UPDATE: I found this chart on the Mayo Clinic website here:

Weighing In

2008-06-16T09:09:00.000-04:00

Today I weighed in and am up .2 pounds since last Monday's weigh-in, so the switch isn't making a significant difference overall. I'm not trying to lose, but ever a yo-yo dieter and hoping to shed about 10 pounds over the long haul, I don't want to see my weight balloon after switching from a quasi-Atkins food plan to vegetarian eating which by nature is fairly high carb. This past week involved Whole Foods granola bars (amazingly tasty), Whole Foods pecan oatmeal cookies, and a lot of creative eating with tofu and beans. I took good advice and got Bragg's Liquid Aminos, quinoa, and agave nectar. I found that I could stir a scoop of vanilla Body Fortress whey powder into my coffee and add 26 grams of protein. When the enormous canister is done, I'll find a vegan formula, but this will suffice for now. In addition to making a change for ethical reasons, I am going vegetarian for the planet, and wasting things I already have isn't ethical, to my thinking.

Thought for the Day: scientists estimate that 20% of greenhouse gases implicated in global warming comes from raising livestock and their feed and transporting the same. Learn more from the UN here.

Starting the Journey

2008-06-15T22:17:00.000-04:00

I began my change in eating on June 11, 2008 after hearing that Oprah was experimenting with a vegan lifestyle. I went to her website, then her blog on this subject, and off in search of more information. Then I stumbled upon a vegan website that showed a graphic and very disturbing video documenting cruelty in the raising and slaughtering of animals for food. I knew there were ugly truths inherent in eating meat, but this time I had reached a tipping point, and thus begins my life as a vegetarian heading toward veganism.

I posted this on June 13 here on the Daily Kos website. I received scores of supportive comments, and I am very grateful for the suggestions I've received thus far. Today is my birthday, a day I spent with family hiking in a boreal bog and learning about plants that have adapted to living far south of their intended range. I feel even closer to the nature that I love having made the decision to abstain from eating meat and avoiding dairy and fish as best I can. I will chronicle the experience here.