Day 231 -- One Stop Website For Vegans

I've been talking about the VegNews survey and never really mentioned VegNews.com.  So, we'll begin with this photo from their homepage.

Yeah, a few days ago it was Rice Krispy Treats and now it's Ryan Gosling.  Did you know that he's a vegan?  I didn't until I read it in VegNews!

I also found 9 Vegan Foods For Healthy Skin -- tomatoes, flax seeds, dark chocolate, sweet potatoes, spinach, citrus fruits, safflower oil, walnuts, and carrots.  And I found tons of great recipes.  So, this site is moving up on my list of sites to visit every week.

Day 230 -- Thug Kitchen

One of the blogs listed in my recent post was Thug Kitchen.  I stumbled across this blog early on in my vegan journey and I thought it was really funny.  It's liberal use of curse words in order to persuade that reader to try recipes is strangely at odds with the "chill" vegan persona.  And that's why it's so entertaining.  Here's the photo of a recent entry for a Chickpea Pesto Sandwich that I plan to try very soon (with a slice of fresh tomato from my dad's garden).

All right, I'm definitely going to try this sandwich!  And not because I feel threatened but because it looks really, really good!

Day 228 -- Blogging About Blogs . . . Again!

See what I did there?  I lured you in with promises of Rice Krispy Treats.  As a kid, my siblings and I lived for Rice Krispy treats -- and Scotcheroos, which were made with peanut butter instead of marshmallows.  But back to the treats later.  VegNews website and newsletter does its awards survey this month and one of the categories is best vegan blog.  I thought I'd list the candidates here since I might find some new sources of inspiration for my vegan cooking.  Several of my favorite blogs are on the list.  I've gone through the list and will feature a few new favorites over the next few days, but I'm pretty fussy about what I eat, so if the blog doesn't grab me right away, then I probably won't go back.

Here's the list!
Bittersweet
Chocolate-Covered Katie
Choosing Raw
FatFree Vegan Kitchen
Happy Herbivore
Healthy. Happy. Life.
Maple Spice
Mouthwatering Vegan Recipes
Oh She Glows
This Rawsome Vegan Life
Thug Kitchen
Vegan Yack Attack
Vegansaurus

I'm a big fan of FatFree Vegan Kitchen and Oh She Glows.  And I'm going to add a new blog to my list.  Happy.Healthy.Life.  And as a reward for following along, here's the link for vegan Rice Krispy treats from the Healthy.Happy.Life.    See, it does pay to explore new blogs!

Day 162 -- A Big Old Can Of Vegan Worms

Had I ever had the chance to try poleta, I probably would have.  After all, its main ingredient is corn and I love corn!  I've never tasted grits either, which is made from the same thing -- corn -- as polenta is.  A few months ago, I bought a bag of Bob's Red Mill Polenta/Grits and the bag has been sitting unopened in my pantry since then.  Today, I decided to try new recipe that calls for baked polenta.

Of course, no new food enters my mouth without me finding some odd question to ponder and polenta is no different.  The question of the day -- Is corn a grain, a legume or a vegetable?  This becomes important because I've been trying to balance my daily consumption of all three in the hopes that I get the proper amount of protein.  In finding the answer, I had to define all three and I threw fruit in there for good measure.

.Grains are derived from the seeds of a plant, either whole or ground.  So, corn is indeed a grain.  But what about legumes?  Aren't they also seeds?  In order to qualify as a legume, you must start life inside a pod, like peas, peanuts, beans.  But what about nuts?  Are nuts legumes?  They begin life inside a pod.  But the major difference between legumes and nuts are that nuts store fat instead of sugar.  Also legumes grow from a bush and nuts grow from a tree.  Hence the reason peanuts are not really a nut but a legume.

Let's toss a little fruit into the salad, shall we?  If we eat the part that protects the seed, then we are eating a fruit.  Apples, peaches, pears -- we eat the flesh but not the seed.  Tomatoes are also technically a fruit, except that we also consume tomato seeds and most people think tomatoes are a vegetable.  However, I have learned that we call a lot of fruits vegetables such as  pumpkin, squash, cucumbers, green beans and all types of peppers.  So let me get this straight.  The green part of a green bean is a fruit and the bean inside is a legume?

So what's left for vegetables?  It turns out that vegetables are not a botanical term but a culinary terms.  Radishes, celery, carrots, and lettuce do not have seeds (that are part of what we eat) and so they are grouped as vegetables.  They aren't fruit, legumes or nuts, so they have to be vegetables.

So now, I'm pretty thoroughly confused.  This article should help, but when it mentioned that nuts were fruit, I realized that I opened a big old can of worms -- which I happen to know are not vegetables, or fruit, or even legumes.  I think I just need to make the damn polenta and stop thinking so much about what's in it.

Day 155 -- Interesting Factoid #1

I was recently browsing the Vegetarian Times website, one of my favorite sources for recipes, can came across this article -- Why Go Veg?    The article lists all the reasons why we might want to eat a plant-based diet.  Of course, I've known a lot of these things all along.  People who eat a plant-based diet are healthier and live a longer life.  But how much longer?

Accordnig to Michael F. Roizen, MD, if you switch from the standard American diet to a vegetarian diet, you can add about 13 healthy years to your life.  That's a lot of years!  Who wouldn't want another 13 healthy years.  According to Roizin ”People who consume saturated, four-legged fat have a shorter life span and more disability at the end of their lives. Animal products clog your arteries, zap your energy and slow down your immune system. Meat eaters also experience accelerated cognitive and sexual dysfunction at a younger age.”

Want more proof of longevity? Residents of Okinawa, Japan, have the longest life expectancy of any Japanese and likely the longest life expectancy of anyone in the world, according to a 30-year study of more than 600 Okinawan centenarians. Their secret: a low-calorie diet of unrefined complex carbohydrates, fiber-rich fruits and vegetables, and soy.

Roizin's book, The RealAge Diet: Make Yourself Younger with What You Eat, looks like it would be a good read.  And a with a visit to his website, RealAge.com, you can take the RealAge test.  I did and with my health as it is now, my real age is 57.9.  My actual age is 57 years and 10 months, which is almost spot on.  So, from this, I can see that the loss of weight and the improvement in diet has pretty much stopped the downward spiral.  There's nothing left to do but get a little younger!

Day 138 -- VB6 (Vegan Before 6)

I just seem to be finding such interesting things on the interwebz lately.  Six years ago, Mark Bittman, a New York Times food writer, was 30 pounds overweight, had high cholesterol and blood sugar, and was told by doctors that he needed to lose weight.  He struggled to decide how to do his job and listen to his doctors at the same time. Then one of his doctors suggested that he eat vegan.  When he claimed it would be impossible, the doctor said, "You're a smart guy, figure it out."  And so he came up with a plan to eat vegan before 6 p.m.  Or, VB6 as it is now called.  This article on Huffington Post talks about his diet plan.

What he discovered was that even eating vegan for 80% of the day was enough to bring on healthy benefits. This really is kind of a no-brainer.  I'm surprised that a guy who knows so much about food wouldn't realize that eating vegan, even if it was just before 6 p.m. wouldn't be of benefit to his health.

I don't have any plans to abandon my vegan diet right now, or in the near future.  But there may come a point when I decide to add dairy or eggs back into my diet and leaving them both until after six would make a lot of sense.  Or maybe I'll just eat vegan at home and add dairy and eggs in when I eat out.  I find it strange that I don't think much about adding meat back into my diet.  Right now, I don't miss meat.  I do miss cheese -- a lot.  And baked goods.

Day 137 -- A Week's Worth Of Groceries

A friend of mine posted this link on Facebook and I found it so intriguing that I had to write about it.  The story, What A Week Of Groceries Looks Like Around The World, comes out of a photo project by Peter Menzel.  He and Faith D'Aluisio collaborated on a book called Hungry Planet: What the World Eats. I'm going to post two photos from the article, but you need to see the rest.  The first is a week's worth of groceries from an American family.

And then we have a photo of a family from Guatemala.

The rest of the photos are so enlightening.  The reliance on packaged and processed foods in some countries is stunning.  It's not just the U.S., but Australia and Canada, too, along with some European countries.  Though the photos may not represent an entire culture (maybe they just show a family who doesn't eat that well), it's still difficult to find the fruits and veggies and whole grains in many of these photos.  And then look at the family from Guatemala.  Virtually no processed food. A diet full of whole foods.

Starting today, I'm going to keep track of everything I eat in a week and then imagine what my photo would look like.  Or maybe I'll try to take a photo.  I'm interested to know what my groceries would look like displayed against the rest of the world's.    

Day 130 -- I Ate It -- But Can I Say It?

In my quest to try the Holy Trinity of meat substitutes -- tofu, tempeh and seitan -- I ticked off tofu early and now I can tick off seitan.  But before I started blogging about it, I had to learn how to say it.  Was it see-tan?  Or say-tahn?  Or say-tin?  And where to place the accent.

According to this online dictionary with a handy "man in a can" announcer, the pronounciation is SAY-tan.  Kind of like the devil, Satan.  So, now that I figured out how to say it, I can talk about it.

I've tried many new foods over the course of the past four months, but my rate has sort of slowed over the past month.  But now I can add seitan to the list.  Seitan is wheat gluten flavored with soy sauce.  It's kind of rubbery and chewy, a bit like chunks of cooked steak.  I think it comes in a block but the only seitan I could find in the store came in bite size chunks.

I decided to try it in one of my favorite dishes, my Cremini Mushroom Stroganoff.   I stir-fried a sliced sweet onion and about a pound of sliced Cremini mushrooms, then added the drained seitan and 4 cloves of minced garlic.  My sauce was:

2.5 cups vegetable broth
1.5 T. cornstarch
4 T. nutritional yeast
3 T. tamari sauce

Add this at the end, bring to a boil to thicken and then serve over pasta or quinoa with a dollop of vegan sour cream.  Yum!

And just an interesting bit of info.  Did you know that white button, cremini and portobello mushrooms are all the exact same mushroom, Agaricus bisporus, just different stages of maturity?  Cremini and "Baby Bella" mushrooms are the same thing!  So white (button) mushrooms are the youngest, portobello are the oldest and cremini are in between.  I did not know this!

Day 123 -- Eat Your GOMBBS!

Dr. Joel Fuhrmann is a leading advocate for healthy eating, particularly vegan eating.  In a recent article on his website, DiseaseProof (Eat Smart, Live Happy), he suggested that people try to eat more "superfoods."  Superfoods are the most nutrient-dense, health promoting foods on the planet.  And GOMBBS is a handy acronym for remembering what the "superest" of these superfoods are -- greens, onions, mushrooms, berries, beans and seeds.

Just as a check, let's see which of these things I ate yesterday.  Greens-- I had a bowl of sauteed spinach with garlic. Onions- I added a half a red onion to my tofu stir-fry.  Mushrooms- I added a package of shitake mushrooms to my stir-fry.  Berries - I ate some Craisins.  Do they count?  Beans- Hmm.  I guess tofu would count as beans?  Seeds - I hit these twice yesterday.  Chia seeds in my pumpkin smoothie and sesame seeds in my stir fry.

In his article, GOMBBS: Greens, Onions, Mushrooms, Berries, Beans and Seeds, Fuhrmann explains the benefits of all these foods and this is definitely worth a read.  I was directed to this article by one of my favorite websites, FatFree Vegan and using a recipe for Susan Voisin's Superfoods Soup, I decided to develop my own Superfoods Soup, using the ingredients that I love.  It should be noted that along with onions, other members of the allium family are just as super:  garlic, leeks, scallions, and shallots.

My Very Own Superfoods Soup

1 sweet onion, halved and sliced
5 to 8 oz. of Shitake or Crimini mushrooms, sliced
3 large cloves garlic, sliced thin
1 cup frozen shelled edamame (or frozen peas)
2 t. Korean red pepper flakes or 1 t. crushed red pepper
4 c. organic mushroom broth
2 c. water
1 small bunch of kale, washed and stripped from stems and torn into pieces (4-6 leaves)
1 1/2 T. yellow miso
Garnish with sliced scallion and  toasted sunflower seeds

Saute onions and mushrooms until slightly wilted.  Add garlic and saute until fragrant.  Then add edamame, red pepper, broth and water.  Let broth come to a boil, then add kale and reduce heat.  Simmer until kale is tender.  Remove soup from heat and mix a small bit of broth with the miso.  Stir to make a smooth paste and  then add back into soup.  Ladle into bowl or mug and garnish.

So there it is.  Everything but the berries.  A bowl of fresh or frozen blueberries drizzled with honey for dessert would  make this the perfect super superfoods meal.  Or maybe a blueberry smoothie made with flax or chia seeds?

ETA:  This soup was fantastic!  One of the best I've ever made.  The Korean red pepper flakes (which I bought for my Amazing Kimchi Adventure) added a nice bit of heat to the broth, but it wasn't overwhelming. Combined with a Detox Salad, I think I'm going to have a very healthy week!

Day 93 -- Another Blog About A Blog

My sister, L, has a real nose for a good blog.  I'm not sure how she does it.  Maybe it's all those late nights browsing the web or maybe she just has some sixth sense, but today she steered me to a wonderful vegan blog called "Oh She Glows."

So many of the recipes look like they're exactly what I'd want to eat so the blog writer, Angela Liddon, and I must have similar taste in flood.  I was particularly interested in her Creamy Pumpkin Smoothie.  I've always thought of smoothies as fruit-based -- or made of some unappetizing greens.  But a pumpkin smoothie sounds like a liquid version of pumpkin pie.  That's the kind of veggie smoothie I can get behind.

I also copied a recipe for Cozy Millet Bowl with Mushroom Gravy and Kale.  Of course, the word gravy was all it took to pique my interest.  I'm going to try this as well, but I'll substitute quinoa for the millet, since I have a lot of quinoa in my pantry.

Who could possibly resist this?  I'm off to the grocery store and will report back after I've enjoyed both of these new recipes!

ETA:  This recipe was fabulous -- but I didn't exactly make it the way it was intended.  First of all, I lost my kale somewhere between the produce department and home.  So this became a mushroom gravy sans kale. And I decided against millet and substituted whole wheat rotini.  I topped it off with a dollop of vegan sour cream and it became Mushroom Stroganoff and it was YUMMY!  I'll definitely try this one again.  The Crimini mushrooms were so good and this was very savory for a vegan dish.

Day 92 -- Unhappy Meals

I was reading a blog yesterday about the current state of nutrition in this country and the writer harkened back to an old Star Trek episode to make a point about our diet.  The Enterprise was called in to help get critically-needed medication to a population suffering a planet-wide plague. The medication controlled the condition -- but when doses wore off, the condition would resurge, up to the point of death.  A cartel controlled the manufacture and distribution of the medication and by the end of the episode, we learn that the plague was actually an addiction.  The drug cartel addicted everyone to their drug, then convinced the people that the drug was the only way to treat their illness.  Of course, Star Fleet saved the day.

The author, Dr. Michael Katz, went on to make the point that we in this country are like the people of that plague-ridden planet. "We have epidemics of obesity, diabetes, and other chronic diseases -- fueled by ever more calories, sugar, salt, atherogenic fats, and processed starch. But we need that sugar, salt, starch, bad fat and calories -- because we've been conditioned to crave them. So we 'treat' our condition with the very stuff that created it in the first place, and created epidemic chronic disease as a byproduct."

The blog referenced an article in the New York Times, written by Michael Pollan called "Unhappy Meals."  I'm not going to summarize the article because it is something that needs to read from beginning to end.  So, I will leave you with that.  It's long, but it will open your eyes about the role of food in our lives and the control that big business wields over our diets.

Day 89 -- Overfed, Overweight and Starving To Death

My friend, E, passed this article along to me and I thought it was so interesting that I needed to post it here.  It's from the website Hungry For Change and the article is entitled "Are We Overfed and Starving To Death?"

The moment I read the title, it hit home.  This was me just three months ago.  I added the "overweight" to my blog title because that's exactly what I was.  I was eating way too much food but none of it was good for me.  Even through I was horribly overweight, I was literally starving for nutrition.  I ate too much processed food, too much fat and too many empty calories.  I felt miserable, sick and tired most of the time, plagued with acid reflux and other minor ailments.  I rarely got a decent night's sleep so I was also sleep deprived.  In fact, I was getting so little good sleep that I didn't remember dreaming for almost a year.

When I decided to take control of my diet, I never expected that I'd feel better so quickly.  Within a week, my acid reflux was gone.  I was sleeping better, I had more energy, I was happier and the veil of depression that seemed to hover over me was lifted.  I was regaining some measure of health.

It's been nearly three months now and I can testify that eating a diet filled with whole foods -- fruits and veggies, whole grains and legumes -- has changed my life.  I pay attention to nutrition now and when I make choices of what to eat, I do so with the knowledge that I need to feed my body first.  I no longer give into cravings or use food as a reward or a comfort.  Food is, first and foremost, fuel for my body.

I suspect that I will, for the most part, continue to eat vegan after my 365 day "experiment" is over.  But I'm not going to be so hard on myself that I can't enjoy a piece of fish now and then or a tempting sweet made with butter and white flour.  But those "cheats" will be few and far between.  This is what works for me and I'm pretty sure that it's the best I can do to improve my health.  I can honestly say that I am no longer overfed and starving to death.  I'm still overweight, but I'm working on that!

Day 75 -- I Am Not Alone

Since I've started eating vegan, I've been surprised at how many friends and acquaintances are eating (or trying to eat) a plant-based diet.  I just casually mention my change in diet and invariably, the person I'm talking to will tell me about their plans to eat vegetarian or vegan in the future or their current eating habits which are plant-based.  It seems that many people are coming to the conclusion that the Standard American Diet (S.A.D.) is not for them.

I decided to do a little bit of internet research about vegetarianism and veganism and see just what percentage of the population eats a plant-based diet.  It's estimated that approximately 1% of the world population is vegan.  And the population seems to be growing in the U.S.

In 1971, 1 percent of U.S. citizens described themselves as vegetarians. A 2013 Public Policy Polling survey found 13% of Americans identify as vegetarian (6%) or vegan (7%).  This is up from the previous year in which a 2012 Gallup poll found 5% of Americans identify as vegetarian and 2% as vegan.   A 2008 Harris Interactive poll found that 10% of adults "largely follow a vegetarian-inclined diet," with 3.2% following a vegetarian diet and 0.5% identifying as vegans.  A 2000 Zogby Poll found that 2.5% of respondents reported not eating meat, poultry, or fish; while 4.5 percent reported not eating meat.

Vegetarian Times has a good article called Vegetarianism In America that gives more statistics.  It's nice to know that I'm part of a growing population.  Maybe like the coffee craze that put a Starbucks on every corner, the vegetarian/vegan "craze" will put a vegetarian/vegan restaurant at least on every other corner.

Day 72 -- Blogging About Blogs

When you go from eating the Standard American Diet (SAD) to eating vegan in the course of a day, it does take a bit of research.  One of the most interesting activities is -- no, not exercise -- searching for good recipes on the internet.  I have some favorite blogs, but I just discovered a blog about vegan blogs!

The blog "Best Vegan Blogs" is a great resource for searching out information, recipes, and just general support for maintaining a vegan lifestyle.  I need some new recipes!  I'm falling into a rut, though it is a tasty rut.  So, tonight, I'll find one new recipe from a vegan blog and cook it this weekend.  But I'm still cooking my Brussels Sprout and Shitake Mushroom Soup.  And my Sweet Potato and Black Bean Chili.  I don't want to climb out of my rut too fast.

Day 55 -- Come Here, Honey!

One of the benefits of eating vegan is that I'm not making a negative impact on an animal's life.  I am an animal lover and, in the past, I managed to put the whole issue aside and happily ate meat.  But now that I've come to enjoy a plant-based diet, it will be much harder for me to go back and eat meat again.

I decided to take dairy out of my diet over concerns about casein  and all of the antibiotics and growth hormones in milk products.  Casein is thought to feed cancer cells, while the hormones and antibiotics have their own bad side effects.  And corporate dairy farms are pretty cruel places for cows to spend their lives.  If I were to start consuming milk products again, I would probably look for organic products produced by smaller independent farmers.

So, taking animals into account, why isn't honey considered vegan?  The basis of honey is plant-based -- nectar from flowers.  We don't eat the bees or even kill them to get honey.  They get to live their lives in the wild.  In fact, by harvesting their honey, we're keeping them employed.  And considering my hatred of bees (and wasps and hornets), I'd rather see the bees occuped elsewhere and not chasing me around my yard or ruining my picnic.

Daniel Engber wrote a thought-provoking article on the honey conundrum for Slate.  It's called "The Great Vegan Honey Debate" and is worth a read.  Most strict vegans believe that the beekeeper exploits the bees, much like a dairy farmer exploits his cows or an egg farmer exploits his chickens.  But these animals are kept prisoner to provide these food products.  No one is trapping bees and forcing them to make honey.

For me, this is going just a little too far.  Are we exploiting the bees because we eat the apples or the corn they've pollinated?  Should we avoid truffles because a pig is used to find them?  And if we go that far, what about the migrant workers who are exploited in harvesting all the veggies we eat?  I'd much rather exploit a bee than a farm worker.  The only way to avoid that is is grow and/or pick all my own veggies.  So, I've decided that honey is all right for me.  I guess I'm what Daniel Engber calls a "flexitarian."  My views on veganism are somewhat flexible.  And maybe they always will be.  But I'm eating healthier and that's the most important thing to me.

Day 36 -- Keeping Produce Fresh

Since the major portion of my vegan diet involves fresh fruit and veggies, I was surprised to discover that I didn't know all that much about how to prolong the freshness of the produce I bought.  I came across this article that provided a lot of really good information about storing fresh produce.

For instance, I didn't know that storing potatoes and onions together would cause the onions to spoil.  And that onions could be stored in pantyhose to keep them fresh for months.

 

Did you know that if you store apples with potatoes, the potatoes won't sprout?  Or if you wrap the crown of a bunch of bananas with plastic, the bananas will keep 3-5 days longer than usual?   Speaking of bananas, they should be kept isolated on the counter as they cause other fruit to ripen too quickly.  And if you wrap celery, broccoli and lettuce in tin foil before refrigerating, it will keep up to 4 weeks.  This is great to know since celery always seems to be a problem for me.  It's wilted and rubbery within a few days of buying it.

One thing I was doing right was storing my produce in glass rather than plastic.  Blueberries stored in a covered glass dish last much longer than those stored in plastic.  And finally, I learned that I can freeze ginger root rather than letting it shrivel up in the fridge.

Check out these 27 Ways To Make Your Groceries Last As Long As Possible.

Day 5 - Hope Is My New Chocolate

On the eve of a new year, I’ve decided not to look back.  I’m not going to punish myself for decisions I made in the past.  I’m not going to question why I’ve done what I’ve done to my body.  Instead, I’m going to fix my mind on the future.  On the possibility that by the next new year, I’ll be healthier and happier.  I’ll have hope and I’ll nibble on it throughout the year as if it’s the most wonderful chocolate bar. 

After just a few days of healthy eating, I already feel more hopeful.  Though I try to keep from stepping on the scale, I can’t help myself.  I have lost weight.  But I don’t want it to be about the scale or calories or portion size.  I want this time to be about my health.

 

My hope is buoyed by the book “Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease” by Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., MD.   Though I’ve already read through it once, I’m now reaching for it whenever I feel like I need a little reassurance that I can actually heal my body with nutrition.  Esselstyn’s plan is simple.  Plant-based diet.  No meat or fish, no high-fat plant food (oils, avocados, nuts), no dairy.  An emphasis on fruits, veggies, whole grains and legumes provides a diet that will make me as nutritionally healthy as I can possibly be.

According to the shout on the cover, this was the book that turned Bill Clinton into a vegan.  So, I guess, if Bill can do it, so can I.  And whether you’re searching for a new way to eat or not, I’d recommend this book.  It provides an astounding amount of information on the misconceptions we all have about healthy eating.

So when I feel a bit down, I get out Esselstyn’s book.  It has become my chocolate.  It is my hope that I can turn my life in a different direction.