Being Part of the Solution

 



Let us consider where we put our money when we shop. In our post-modern world, most of us don't make our own soaps and cleaning products. Those of us who are vegan and trying to live the principle of ahimsa do our best to avoid any association with people or companies who cause suffering. So, do look at the colorful chart above and consider who you patronize and look for other options when cruelty is an issue. An email, call or letter to a manufacturer or corporation might be a good idea, too. Most business make many decisions based on financial considerations.

Recipe: Eggless "Egg" Salad

One of the challenges this vegan struggles with is learning to let go of animal-food analogs such as faux lunch meats and ersatz whatevers. I found these foods really helpful in the early going. Now I sense that the salt, fat and other chemicals that help recreate those almost-familiar flavors may not be good for my constant consumption. For one thing, I never lost the weight I was told about by others knowing I was going vegan. Didn't happen to me. In fact, having transitioned from low-carb/high-protein eating to vegetarian to vegan, I actually gained some.

So let me share a recipe I just tried that is amazingly tasty and chemical free. The original recipe is the brainchild of vegan superstar Lindsay Nixon, aka the Happy Herbivore. I made it pretty much as listed below except for the black salt which I forgot to buy. I changed some of the ingredients and amounts (put in more garlic powder than planned by having the wrong mesauring spoon in my hand; had the wrong mustard) from the original recipe, and I used regular vegan mayo instead of the fat-free version she recommends. Click the link for her complete recipe. The photo I am using here is from her website, too. Here you go:

Happy Herbivore Eggless "Egg" Salad

Ingredients (makes about 4 1/2-cup servings)


14 oz. extra-firm tofu (this is the size block mine came in)
1 tbsp. low-sodium soy sauce
1 celery stalk, minced
1-1/4 tbsp. nutritional yeast
1-1/2 tbsp. mustard (recipe calls for Dijon; I used spicy brown)
2 tbsp. dill pickle relish
2 tbsp. vegan mayo
1/2 tsp. turmeric
1/4 tsp. curry powder
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/4 tsp. onion powder
1/4 tsp. black salt (to impart a sulfur-ish, eggy flavor)
Fresh ground black pepper to taste

Directions

1. Press tofu to remove excess liquid or hold over sink and squeeze gently for a while. Crumble the tofu into a good-sized mixing bowl.
2. Measure and add in the remaining ingredients.
3. Fold ingredients together well, but do it gently so you don't break up the tofu too much.
4. Refrigerate finished salad for a few hours or overnight so all flavors can blend well.
5. Serve in a sandwich, as a filling in celery sticks or on a bed of lettuce as a salad. Enjoy!

Very tasty and easy to prepare. Lindsay puts her fat-free recipe at 63 calories per serving. Because I used regular Vegenaise, my favorite vegan mayo, I'm guessing that a 1/2 cup portion is about 150 calories. That might be a bit high, but that's what the Whole Foods Vegan Egg Salad clocks in at on SparkPeople.

I measured out a half cup and put 2/3 of it in a sandwich of light whole wheat bread with sliced homegrown tomato, and put the rest in a celery stick. Both were wonderful! All I had to do was add a little salt, probably because I hadn't put in the black kind the recipe called for.

Most people changing their diets buy cookbooks so they can make the foods the new lifestyle requires. I am no different. I've donated more cookbooks than anyone I know. I now have an impressive library of vegan cookbooks. One of the days I will post about my cookbooks to help out my fellow vegans and vegan-wannabes. The Happy Herbivore cookbook is great. I was lured to it by a post on Twitter that made a recipe sound so tempting I had to try it, and it was only to be found in the book. It's a favorite book now.

Thanks, Happy Herbivore!

 (click here to see this cool cookbook on Amazon)



You're a vegan, right? I have a question.

People ask us vegans all the time why we eat the way we do and was it difficult, but the biggest question we seem to hear is, "Where do you get your nutritional needs met?" and most specifically, "Where do you get your protein?"

PETA offers an amazing infographic colorfully illustrating the many tasty answers to these questions and others would-be vegans and vegan skeptics ask. Follow the link to see this marvel in eye-popping detail, and please share this with those folks who ask you those pesky vegan questions.
All of them, okay?

How do I find these gems? By following the coolest vegans on Twitter and clicking on the links they post. I email the links to myself for later use, and this way I stay on top of the vegan curve.

PETA does some amazing service toward animal welfare, animal rights and providing good solid information to the public. They also get feisty at times and draw fire. Sometimes I have to steel myself to open the site for fear of being bludgeoned with a horrible photo. But horrible photos exist largely because horrible acts towards animals occur with frightening regularity. The good PETA does far outweighs any distracting controversy or traumatic triggering, to my mind, and I urge you to support PETA. My favorite way to do so is by buying stuff I like at their online store. I've got the coolest t-shirts, fun catnippy cat stuff, and best vegan chocolates through their store. Yeah, the prices are up there, but that's my way of making a donation.

Won't you join me?



Yes, Let's Give Up Meat Burgers!

Today I posted the following comment (links added for this blog now) on Mother's Jone's Blue Marble blog in response to the post, Should You Buy Beef To Help US Ranchers Survive the Drought? —By Kiera Butler:

Any excuse is a legitimate excuse to stop eating meat! Vegan living is the most environmentally responsible, compassionate and overall healthy option. Your only health caveats are to supplement with Vitamin B-12, and Vitamin D or other supplement if blood testing shows a deficiency, and make a reasonable attempt to eat sufficient protein, easy to do with legumes, nuts, whole grains, veggies and fruit,plus soy foods such as tofu, tempeh, and a growing roster of products called meat analogs. Any would-be vegans out there can read Vegan for Life by vegan registered dietitians Virginia Messina and Jack Norris for the low-down. We must stop: causing serious, possibly irreversible, harm to our planet; contributing to inflicting terror, pain and life-long suffering on animals raised for food, eggs or dairy; and our human slide into obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and all the miseries they entail. So, yes! Drought is a great reason to stop eating meat burgers and all other animal-derived food products. Want a delicious, responsible and humane burger? Have a vegan burger such as Gardein's Beefless Burger. It's awesome! --Sunny

So, friends, readers, Tweeps, and just plain curious stumbling upon-ers, let's remember that every day we can make decisions based on ethical and responsible choices, and as we do so, we will become more the change we wish to see in the world, to paraphrase Mahatma Gandhi. Let go of wondering how much of an impact collectively your changes might have; just make them! You know animals suffer in today's agribusiness factory farms. You also know that the cute family farm with the red barn and silo and happy animals about is a dying entity. You may know someone who humanely raises and slaughters their meat animals. Chances are, however, that even such a responsible farmer takes his livestock to be slaughtered elsewhere, and that may not be as humane as he or we would hope. The so-called free range eggs you buy by law can be called such if the animals have an open window or door within so many feet but may never leave the production floor. If you don't buy them off the farm after touring the small-farm's coop, you cannot be sure cruelty was not involved. And besides, animal reproductive products such as cow's milk and chicken eggs were never intended for human consumption. We are meant to ingest human breast milk during the first year or two of life, and that's it for dairy. We are not meant to swill gallons of animal mammary fluids and make cheeses and other products out of them. You ought to hear Dr. Neal Barnard's comments on the very addictive quality of cheese (and other foods such as chocolate, meat and sugar). The eggs chickens produce are intended to bring more chickens into the world. What actually happens on factory farms is that female chicks are kept for laying more eggs and the male chicks are often ground into feed, and fed to chickens! Euthanasia? Please! No thought is given to their feelings at the time of their cruel and violent death. By the way, the typical beef steer or cow is "euthanized" by blunt trauma to the head, and the industry considers this humane. There is some pressure to change this, from the public mostly, so that mass suffocation in large chambers where oxygen is removed is considered better and a goal the industry hopes to attain. Are we nuts? As long as we pretend we are not a party to the cruelty, and to the slurry ponds filled with animal waste that contaminates nearby water supplies, and to the misappropriation of much of the planet's crops to feed those meat animals on factory farms, and to the growing obesity epidemic as we fall for the seductive temptation of the food porn thrust at us by pizza, fast food and seafood chains, we help cause it!

Want to try the vegan lifestyle on for size? I did at age 57 and haven't looked back since, over three and a half years ago. Check the word cloud somewhere on the right side of this page and click on any of the topics to read my experience, strength and hope. If I can do this, I'll bet you can too!



Cool dog tags available from Trudy Chalmers



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

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?



My Experience with the Eat to Live 6-Week Plan

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 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!

Healthy Living, One Day at a Time



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.

Gardening 101

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. 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.

Namaste!

Courage to Change the Things I Can

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. I log everything I eat into a web program for guidance.

Now that I have established the habit of healthy eating, one meal at a time, one day at a time, I have changed and feel freed me and liberated my intent and energy to try new things. To change.

Yesterday I had my already short hair cut shorter, 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. So far so good! The overall impression isn't much different, and the short cut is au courant as far as I can tell. My family 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 shopped for new jeans and was so gratified to find I fit well in a smaller size. 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 breakfast another day. 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 cutlets 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. I've been coloring my hair for decades. I feel liberated already! For today I embrace change.

Celebrating Vegetarian Awareness Month

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

• 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:

• Don't Get Mad, Get Vegan
• Post Punk Kitchen
• Fatfree Vegan Kitchen

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

Vegan and Careful, Even on Vacation

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!

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!

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.

Bee Pollen: Navigating the Shoals of Treachery as a Vegan

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.

Summer Already??

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.

Remembering Mom

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.

Eating to Live

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.