Still Groovin' the Veggie Way

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.

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

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

Activism and Being a Vegetarian

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

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.

A Whole Week!

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

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.