The Future of Food
28 February 2011I was thinking about the future of food the other day. I used to think (and this was heavily influenced by science fiction movies and books) that in order to feed a growing population we would have to figure out how to create nutrients inside buildings with no sunlight or dirt or any of the good things that the outdoors bring us.
Basically, everything would be made in a lab. I thought, if we could get all our vitamins and minerals in pill form, then we would just need to take in calories in order to keep our energy up. We wouldn't have to "eat" anymore. It would be more like chemical reactions. Sustenance.
But the more I read and hear and eat, the more I realize that the way forward is to eat whole foods, unprocessed, plant-based, organic, local. It turns out that most of the changes we've made in the last one hundred years have been for the worse, although they seemed great at the time. And, to deal with that population problem, plants are more efficient.
But then I heard about two new ideas for food:
First of all, a food printer. I had a hard time understanding this when I heard about it on Freakonomics. Then I saw a video at CNN. I'm not sure that's the same project. Freakonomics did say there was more than one team working on similar ideas. But it sounds like the idea is that you have three inkjet-type cartridges. One spits out food in powder form, one hydrates and one cooks. And the thing can create food pixel by pixel. Apparently that's supposed to create some masterpiece dishes. It doesn't sound that great to me. I prefer fresh from the garden.
Here's the other thing I just learned about: In vitro food. That's Latin for "in glass," like a test tube. Scientists are attempting to create cuts of meat without raising an entire animal. For example, they could grow chicken breast without any of the other parts of a bird.
Some vegans, those who have chosen a vegan lifestyle for animal equality, thing this is great. Taylor Clark would probably agree. Here's the bacon that doesn't require killing a pig. I, however, do not.
Again, I prefer fresh from the garden. And, while I started this vegan journey more as an experiment than anything else, it's the health aspect that keeps me going. Meat grown in a lab is just as unhealthy as meat grown in an animal.
Another thing I used to think about when I was younger: when they can create fake meat that tastes just like real meat, smells just like real meat, and reacts in your body just like real meat, how is that better than eating real meat? I guess that's what this is. Fake meat that's just as unhealthy as real meat.
Good job guys, but I'll stick to vegetables.
Smells
27 February 2011At Trader Joe's, we have a demo station where you can sample food. A few months ago, I would always have to check to see if the food had meat before I tried it. Now, I don't even bother checking. It's not vegan. Although it may be almost vegan, by which I mean that one ingredient could be left off.
The other day we were sampling a new frozen meal: Spicy Beef and Broccoli. I smelled it all day at work. Sometimes it smelled like food being deep fried, and that wasn't too appetizing, but other times it smelled good. That's right, I'm not ashamed to admit it. I'm pretty sure though that if it had been made with tofu instead of beef it would have smelled just as good to me. It's the sauce that I enjoyed.
This brings up an interesting question posed by Emily and Luis. (Luis has told me many times that he's going to start a meat eating blog to counter this one. Where is it, Luis? I want to read it.) The question is this: Which smells better, coffee or bacon? You're just smelling it, not eating it. I haven't seen all the data or figured out the statistical significance, but one theory is that men say bacon and women say coffee. I, of course, said coffee, and I think coffee was in the lead overall.
But I don't mind the smell of bacon. Actually, I do like the smell of meat cooking sometimes. Doesn't mean I want to eat it. I like the smell of flowers too, but I don't want to eat them. And I like the smell of gasoline (I know I'm not alone here), but the thought of drinking gasoline is just as appetizing as the thought of eating ground beef.
I came across this article in Slate, which was intriguing because of the subtitle, "I may be a vegetarian, but I still love the smell of bacon." Taylor Clark has some pretty interesting things to say, and some interesting ways of saying things that every vegetarian has wanted to say at some point.
Taylor is a vegetarian for animal equality. He says he'd eat bacon if it didn't require killing a pig. I, on the other hand, have no desire to eat bacon, even though I admit that I enjoy the smell on occasion.
Party
26 February 2011We went to Ceri and David's housewarming party last night. I don't know if we were the only vegans there, but Ceri was kind enough to make minestrone and focaccia, both of which were vegan. Although she admitted that she was encouraging nonvegans to add parmesan cheese to the minestrone.
Ceri said that she'd been sick all week, but that she had been trying to eat vegan in order to fight off the sickness. I hadn't heard that before. I was sick twice in the first two months of going vegan, and I began to questions the implications veganism had on the immune system. I had conversations with people about how I was probably missing something from my diet, whether it was an animal product or something vegan that I just wasn't getting. Interesting to me that a person would eat vegan food in order to boost her immune system.
What I added to my diet after being sick was probiotics. I can't say for sure whether or not that is the reason I haven't been sick since.
I do believe that eating a vegan diet is healthier overall. It could be that I got sick in the beginning because my body was acclimating to the new food, the new materials. My body had to learn to use plant protein to do the same job that animal protein once did, for example. It's perfectly capable of doing so, but it may take a while to realize what's going on.
Ceri has run seven marathons, and there were several marathoners there last night, so we talked about that as well. One guy there, I think his name was Chris, is running Grandma's, the marathon I'm planning to run. And Leticia is planning to run the half marathon. Sunny is signed up for the half marathon as well, but it's a lottery, so we won't know until Monday whether or not Leticia and Sunny will be running.
As for me, my knee has been causing me some real trouble. I made an appointment for next Friday to have it looked at. I'm beginning to think it's more than just the IT band. If it is the IT band, I believe I should be able to stretch, massage and ice it and continue running. If it's something else, I don't know. I don't even know what the something else would me.
This is the image I keep getting in my mind. I Googled it to post here and I saw a lot of knee injuries in the results. I had to stop looking at them. I don't want to think about those things right now.
I'm also going to have a general checkup. I'll get some advice about the vegan diet, and I'll figure out if I'm doing anything wrong, or if I'm missing anything from my diet. I know she's going to check my cholesterol. Not sure what else is already on the agenda. Perhaps I'll have the doctor refer me to a nutritionist if I need more specialized information.
Blood Orange Salad Dressing
25 February 2011I found this recipe online, here. I didn't realize until just now that I forgot the chives. I didn't have any to put in anyway.
2 T White Wine Vinegar
¼ c Blood Orange Juice
⅔ c Olive Oil
1 Clove of Garlic
1 T Shallot, chopped
2 t Parsley, driedI didn't actually measure the shallot, nor did I chop it. I used one clove. Is it called a clove? It's pretty similar to garlic in that way. I just threw this all in my Vitamix and turned it up to ten for about ten seconds. Done. And so good.
I drizzled it over this salad, which is made of romaine, cucumber, red bell pepper, sunflower seeds and a few chunks of blood orange.
The rest of dinner comprised leftover Pizza Luce and a bottle of Organic Albero Sparkling White Wine, which is Spanish. Nice that it says "vegan" on the label (the back side).
By the way, if you're ever in the market for a Vitamix, use this code— 06-006015 —to get free shipping. I get a little something out of the deal, too. Win, win.
Pizza Luce's New Cheese
24 February 2011I know it wasn't that long ago that I told you all why I don't want to eat fake cheese, but tonight did just that.
Sara and I went to Pizza Luce because I'm a creature of habit, and, again, because I'm a creature of habit, we ordered The Rustler. I asked to have it with rinotta, but the waiter told us that they have a new kind of fake cheese. He didn't call it fake cheese. I think he called it vegan cheese.
Here's the story (he sounded all proper as he explained it) a lot of people are allergic to soy, so they replaced their soy cheese with this new cheese, which is tapioca based.
Tapioca, by the way, is a starch extracted from the root vegetable known as cassava. It is not, as I discovered not all that long ago, simply a pudding. Tapioca is also nearly protein free, for whatever that's worth.
So we ate this new vegan cheese. I think the waiter told us what they were going to call it, but I don't remember. It was pretty good though. It reminded me of this other thing I've eaten before called...oh right, cheese. Well not entirely. I picked off a little bit of it to taste by itself. It didn't have a lot of flavor, and the texture was a little strange. Imagine cheese that has all the melting properties of normal cheese but sort of crumbles in your mouth.
But when you eat the pizza as a whole instead of picking it apart, it's quite good. I'd almost think I was eating cheese.
I never had the soy cheese, so I can't say how it compares. It's completely different from the rinotta, so that would be like comparing World War Z to Shawn of the Dead. It's good though, and I'll have a little trouble deciding next time whether I should get the rinotta or the tapioca fake cheese.
Vitamix
23 February 2011Sunny and I decided to spend some of our tax return on a Vitamix. If you don't know about Vitamixes, they're the best blenders ever.
For one thing, they blend things super smooth. So we can add spinach, kale, or romaine hearts to our smoothies and it won't be grainy or have any leafy bits. It blends up smooth, so we can make our own green plant smoothie just like Odwalla sells, but better.
It also works as a food processor.
And we bought the dry blade in addition to the regular blade, so we can make our own flour out of nuts and beans. That's handy because it's hard to find some flours, like quinoa for example.
So I've been drinking a lot of smoothies lately. I have a smoothie in the morning, and then I bring one to work. It feels like I've been drinking a lot of meals lately. I still eat lunch at work. And, if I have time, I eat breakfast before I leave. Today I ran out of time, so I only had a smoothie and a Larabar.
I haven't had much time to make too many things with my Vitamix yet, but I have made the Chocolate Almond Smoothie from Thrive. This was the first recipe I tried from Thrive, and I liked it, but it's so much better with a Vitamix.
First, I ground the almonds and cacao nibs in the dry container. Then I added them with the rest of the ingredients in the wet container. It came out smooth, like a chocolate-banana milk shake.
I had never used cacao nibs in the recipe before, because I couldn't find them. I used cocoa powder instead, but I recently found cacao nibs at Whole Foods.
Last night I also make Cucumber Avocado Dill Soup. To be fair, cucumbers and avocados are pretty easy for even a regular blender to turn into a smooth soup. But the Vitamix made it better. I searched my archives to find the recipe I'd used before. It looks like I peeled the cucumber before. Not this time, and I couldn't tell at all. It also looks like I forgot to add dill in the list of ingredients. Oops. Fixed.
Yep, I love my Vitamix so far, and I haven't even had it a week yet.
If you're ever in the market for a Vitamix of Vitamix part and components, use this code— 06-006015 —and you'll get free shipping.
PS, if you're on Facebook, and you haven't "liked" Vegan for a Year yet, it's never too late for now! There's a little Facebook symbol right over there —>
Frozen
22 February 2011
It seems appropriate to talk about freezing food as we get nearly two feet of snow here in Minneapolis.
Sunny and I wondered the other day if freezing food affects the nutritional value. I did some quick research and here's what I found:
Freezing has very little effect on nutrition. According to Self, you may lose 30% of the vitamin C, but you'll only lose 5% of most other vitamins and minerals. Or you may not lose any at all. I know Sunny and I get enough vitamin C, especially since we've been eating so many oranges lately. So for the convenience, I'm going to say that frozen is fine.
Unfortunately, we don't sell frozen papaya at Trader Joe's, so I've been buying fresh papaya and freezing it myself right when it's the ripest.
Ok, so all the vitamins and minerals are pretty much retained when food is frozen, but what about the things that aren't listed on the nutrition label? What about enzymes? Those things are good for you. It's the reason raw food enthusiasts are so enthused by raw food. If you cook your food, you kill the enzymes. Does freezing kill them as well?
According to the USDA, enzymes are only slowed down when they're frozen. Once you thaw the food, they speed back up.
That makes perfect sense. When you take raw chicken out of the freezer, you can't just leave it on the counter or it will turn. It's the enzymes that cause raw meat to go bad so quickly. Cooked meat can sit on the counter for a while, because the enzymes are dead. There's still bacteria and whatnot that will make its way into the cooked meat and cause it to turn. Cooking it isn't an indefinite preservative.
Obviously I'm thinking less about meat and more about fruits and vegetables, but an enzyme is an enzyme, right? As far as I know it is.
Here's one more thing to consider though: some vegetables have to be blanched before freezing. Blanching may cause some of the enzymes to die, and, since cooking could reduce the nutritional value by 25% to 70%, vegetables that are blanched before freezing do lose nutritional value. Blanching, however, isn't as intense as thoroughly cooking, so you won't lose as much.
A while back a customer asked me why she couldn't buy fresh broccoli and freeze it. Why did she have to buy our frozen broccoli? Having never frozen broccoli myself, all I could really say was that there was a process involved and that her frozen broccoli probably wouldn't turn out as well.
Flash frozen vegetables are frozen super quickly (by subjecting them to temperatures well before the freezing point of water) as soon as they are at their peak. They're picked from the plant and frozen right on the farm. Because they're frozen so quickly, the cell membranes don't expand and break, which means the texture of the food remains intact. This process has nothing to do with nutrition. It's just for texture and taste.
My conclusion is that although freezing your food may harm the nutritional value slightly, it's negligible. It really doesn't make sense to buy fresh fruits and vegetables all the time and make sure you eat them before they go bad.
Freezers are pretty awesome.
Soft Shell Tacos
21 February 2011Remember that plan I had where I bring a smoothie to work with me and sip on it throughout the day instead of eating cookies all day? It's been working. I did it yesterday, and I thought that since I had a filling smoothie I wouldn't need to eat a big lunch, but I got hungry. I ended up spending seventeen dollars on lunch, but I had a lot of leftover ingredients that I left at work, so I have lunches for the rest of the week.
I started with whole wheat tortilla shells. That also have flax in them, but it may have been just whole flaxseeds, which pass right through the system. They have to be ground in order for our bodies to get the nutrients. But anyway—
I bought the steamed lentils from the produce section (my section) and taco seasoning. The lentils were the taco meat. I put some on the tortillas, sprinkled on seasoning and microwaved.
Then I added pico de gallo guacamole, baby spring mix, and mini pearl tomatoes.
Voila! Soft shell tacos.
The whole wheat tortillas and the lentils work together to provide a complete protein. And lentils are better than some soy based fake meat concoction that probably has too much sodium and who knows what sorts of chemicals. I'd rather keep my food as simple as possible.
+
=
Taco Meat
Salad
20 February 2011Every time I eat a salad, I think of that Seinfeld episode where Jerry goes on a date, but he's not very hungry, so he just orders a salad. I found the clip, but YouTube won't let me embed it. Click here to check it out.
I couldn't remember if it was a big deal because he wasn't eating very much or because he wasn't eating meat. Now I remember that it's the latter. I didn't remember that they were at a steakhouse.
Real men eat meat!
I've been trying to eat salad before my main course at least once a day. That way I'm sure to get my leafy greens in. And if I fill up on salad and don't have room for the main course, that's fine too. I'll just save the main course for later.
I ate the best salad the other day. Organic baby spring mix, cucumber, tomato, shredded carrot, goddess dressing and sunflower seeds. Delicious. Although I now see what that guy was talking about when he said it adds up. Those bottles go quickly. I really do need to experiment and make my own salad dressings.
I realized as I was finishing it that it could have used a higher proportion of lettuce.
Raw
19 February 2011At Trader Joe's, we sell agave nectar, which is a non-stimulating sweetener that can be used as an alternative to sugar. We also sell raw agave nectar. They sit right next to one another on the shelf, and they cost the same amount. For a while, when customers asked me what the difference was, I didn't know what to say. I now know: One is raw.
Alright, the raw one is thicker and more closely resembles molasses (although not too closely) and the other is more like maple syrup in consistency. But now that I realize there's a whole raw foods movement out there, it makes sense that the appeal of the raw agave is that it's raw.
So why is raw food so great? When food is cooked, or pasteurized, enzymes and probiotics are killed. These enzymes are thought to help us digest the food that we're eating.
Joey Sticks says when he drinks raw milk it doesn't upset his digestive system the way pasteurized milk does. The problem is that it's illegal to sell raw liquid dairy in grocery stores (although raw cheese is now available with certain restrictions). You have you buy it directly from the farmer. At least here in Minnesota. I think it might be legal in California. Also, raw milk is not good for pregnant women.
Cooking food above 170 degrees is thought to kill off all sorts of good things that your body could use.
What about meat? Raw meat is gross, right? Some people eat it. They probably make sure to get the freshest, highest quality meat, but yes. They eat raw meat because they believe it's better for them.
I'm going to continue this post by talking only about the raw vegan diet.
Here's why Bryant disagrees with the raw diet: Humans have an advantage over the rest of the animal kingdom. It's what allowed us to become number one. Or anyway, one of the things. It's fire. When we started cooking, it opened up whole new possibilities. In addition to (although some of those people I mentioned above might disagree) cooking meat, thus preserving it and killing some of the diseases and bacteria that the animal may have had, we cook grains. Grains are something that cannot be digested without cooking. Our digestive systems can't unlock the hard hull to get to the nutrients. Cooking is a form of digestion that we do outside the body. It's something that no other animal does.
But now we farm, and we're all civilized and we don't have to eat the same way the cavemen did when they first discovered fire. I know: that's the same argument vegetarians use for refraining from meat-eating. Now I'm going to use it for refraining from grain-eating.
The thing is that grains don't have all that much nutritional value. Sure, they've got some. Combine a grain with a legume and you've got a complete protein. They also have minerals, but man cannot live on bread alone.
It turns out that pseudograins are better. These things include wild rice, amaranth and quinoa among others. They don't have to be cooked; just soaked. And they're alkaline forming.
Combine these pseudograins with other vegetables and it turns out that you don't need to cook grains.
I'm not saying I'm all for the raw diet. I still cook, but I also eat raw food sometimes. Here are some almost raw tacos I made last night.
This is the leftover plate. I had already used the best, widest leaves for the first helping. They looked a little more like tacos. Well, not really like tacos, but I could pick them up and eat them.
Taco Meat
1½ c Raw Walnuts
1½ t Cumin Powder
¾ t Coriander
2 T Nama Shoyu (unpasteurized soy sauce)
Pinch Cayenne
Sea SaltI used dinosaur kale for the wrap, and I added tomato, avocado and onion. I also used pasteurized soy sauce, which is why this is only almost raw. And I added Tofutti sour cream.
There are more raw taco ideas, and a lot of other good recipes, in Entertaining in the Raw. And, if you live near Minneapolis, I'd definitely suggest checking out Ecopolitan, a raw food restaurant.
Running
18 February 2011For some reason I had thought that week one of marathon training was a three-mile run. As it turns out, it three three-mile runs with a six-mile run at the end of the week. I'm using Hal Higdon's plan. To make matters worse, when I thought I ran three miles on Tuesday, I had actually only run two miles.
So today I ran six miles, and it was tough. Actually, I ended up stopping about a quarter mile before the end because my knee started to hurt and I don't want to take any chances. For those of you who don't know, this is my second time training for a marathon. Last time I injured my knee on a twelve mile run and had to call it quits. This time I intend to take better care of myself.
I learned some lessons last time about how to tell when my body is about to be injured and how to tell when it's just being a pansy and I need to push through the pain. Today, at about mile four, I thought about how my knee didn't hurt at all. Then at about mile five it started to hurt. After the run I did some immediate stretching. Then I came hope, stretched some more, rolled on my foam roller, stretched, showered, rolled on the foam roller and now I'm icing it. Yep, taking better care of my body this time.
So here's what I ate:
For breakfast I had a variation of Ceri's Super Simple Waffles. In addition to the regular ingredients, I added a quarter cup of raw pepitas, half a cup of whole teff flour and an extra cup of water. Maybe it could have done with a little less water, which would only mean they wouldn't take as long to cook. They turned out great. I added Earth Balance, apricot jam and a little raw agave syrup. Yum.
Then I waited four hours before running. In the meantime I walked Sebastian. Not for the full four hours.
I made a smoothie to drink after the run. I made the concoction up on my own, but it's based on the knowledge I now have from reading Thrive.
Post-Run Smoothie
1 c Coconut Water
1 c Water
2 Dates
½ c Pineapple
½ c Papaya
1 Acai Packet (explained below)
1 T Coconut Oil
1 T Flax Oil
1 T Flaxseed Meal
1 T Hemp Protein
1 t Dulse Flakes
A little agave (I didn't measure but it was less than a Tablespoon)Delicious. The acai packet is a frozen packet of acai puree. I found it at Whole Foods. I bought the unsweetened variety because I knew I was going to add it to smoothies, which I would be sweetening with dates and/or agave.
Dulse is a type of seaweed. This was my first time using it.
Best thing ever to have after a run. I may play with it a little, but I'm planning to make some sort of post-marathon smoothie. For starters, this one was a little sweet. I didn't really mind the sweetness, but for a post-run on a hot day (obviously today wasn't too hot) something tart would be better.
Airline Food
17 February 2011
Bryant just bought his ticket to Taiwan through Japan Airlines, and I guess we'll have to wait to hear a report on the quality of the food, but they have a lot of options.
When I was a kid, I used to request a vegetarian meal just to make sure I didn't get pork. With Japan Airlines, you can just order that specifically. Here's a list:
Child Meal for children under twelve.
Vegetarian Vegan Meal
Vegetarian Lacto-Ovo Meal
Vegetarian Hindu Meal
Bland Meal
Diabetic Meal
Gluten Intolerant Meal
Low Calorie Meal
Low Fat Meal
Low Protein Meal
Low Salt Meal
Fruit Platter Meal
Meal without Beef/Pork
Moslem Meal
Kosher Meal
Seafood Meal
Vegetarian Oriental Meal
Vegetarian Jain Meal
Low Lactose Meal
Vegetarian Raw MealThis is an incomplete list. I have a few questions:
Seafood Meal? Are there people who can only eat seafood? The rest of these seem like meals catering to dietary restrictions due to doctor's orders, religious beliefs or ethics. When I see the seafood one, I imagine a guy sitting in an airline seat, handing the menu back to the airline attendant without looking at it and asking, "Do you have any seafood today?"
The Low Calorie Meal continues with "for passengers who need low calorie meal due to medical reason." So, if you wanted a low calorie meal for some reason other any medical, you can forget it.
Look at how many vegetarian meals there are. I don't know what the difference is between Jain, Hindu, and Oriental. It seems like they could make one meal that would combine all those. Maybe they do.
Maybe they have this fancy drop down menu when you order your tickets, but really, it's just a handful of meals. The Vegan meal is also Raw, Kosher, Jain, Hindu, Oriental, Gluten Free, Low Calorie, Low Fat, Low Protein...yadda yadda. It's just a salad, and it's been blessed by every major religion.
Or maybe they just have color coded boxes. We've got three vegans on the plane today, two low lactose...
Like I said, we'll have to wait to hear a review of the quality of the food.
Doughnuts
16 February 2011
It's not that I really even miss doughnuts, and, as I mentioned a couple days ago, I'm really trying to cut sugar out of my diet. It's just that today at work, when Drew walked by eating a doughnut, I was hungry and it looked really good. I thought I should go get one, but then I remembered that doughnuts aren't vegan.
I imagine they could be made vegan pretty easily. In fact, I've heard that there's a co-op around here (maybe it was Seward) that has vegan doughnuts.
I was curious about what ingredients are in doughnuts, so I checked Krispy Kreme's website. First off, it doesn't have a list of ingredients. Why don't they have to list them? I don't know.
What you can find on the website is nutritional information: how many calories, how much fat, all that stuff. Just not a list of ingredients.
I do know that they aren't vegan, and it's because of this statement:
The only animal by-products used in our doughnuts are eggs (whites and yolks)
Oh, just eggs, I thought. But then the sentence continues:
and dairy products (including milk, butter, yogurt, whey, nonfat milk and nonfat whey).
Wait, so just eggs and milk. Just all of the most common by-products. So they don't have honey or goat's milk, or, I don't know, what other by-products are there? The statement goes on like this:
We use vegetable shortening (palm, soybean, and/or cottonseed and canola oil) for zero gram of trans fat per one serving of doughnut.
I guess what they mean by, "we only use eggs and dairy" is "we don't use lard." That's good, but I wouldn't consider lard a by-product. I think of it as a product in and of itself. I guess if the meat is the product, then everything else—lard, leather, hooves (for gelatin)—are by-products, but they knew they were going to use those things before they even raised the animal, so I would just call all those things products.
Things you can get from the animal without killing it are by-products. That's my definition.
So, while we don't know what exactly goes into a Krispy Kreme doughnut, we do know it has egg whites, dairy and vegetable shortening.
Now what about this "zero gram of trans fat per one serving of doughnut" statement? Doesn't that sound odd? Why can't they just say zero trans fat? Here's what I think, and yes I am a skeptical person, especially when it comes to the food industry. Each doughnut contains a negligible amount of trans fat. It's a small enough amount that they don't have to list it in the nutritional information. But if you ate a dozen doughnuts, all those negligible amounts would add up to something high enough to be noteworthy. That's my guess.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe their lawyers made them word it that way for a different reason. Or maybe they just worded it funny because they didn't hire someone with an English degree to write it.
Anyway, after I ate lunch I wasn't really craving that doughnut anymore.
Hemp
15 February 2011Maybe this makes me a hippy. I've always known that hemp was pretty good stuff, but I didn't know it was this amazing.
Environmentally Friendly
Hemp needs very few pesticides and no herbicides to grow. This means that hemp can be grown organically with much more ease than some other plants.
It's also a highly renewable resource, unlike trees that have to grow for years.
It can produce 25 tons in one year on one hectare of land. Those numbers are a little hard for me to digest. In 2009, Canada had some record high productions of corn and barley. Corn was 9.1 tons per hectare for the year and barley was 3.37 per hectare for the year. Those aren't averages; those are the highest recorded outputs. Once again, hemp can produce 25 tons per hectare. That's a lot more.
Nutritional
Here's where the magic comes in. Hemp provides all ten essential amino acids.
It's also high in omega-3, fiber, calcium, iron, antioxidants, chlorophyll, phosphorus, magnesium, zinc, copper and manganese.
Other Uses
Hemp can be used to make rope, biodegradable plastic, concrete, fuel, soap, and it can be used to filter water.
We can build houses with hemp. Did I mention it grows way faster than trees?
Even though hemp is the plant that could solve all of the world's problems, it's only recently becomes legal to grow it in the US. In the last ten years, seventeen states have legalized growing hemp. That means it's still illegal in almost three quarters of the country. And why is that? Oh right, because you can get high from it.
But can you really get high from it? The cannabis plant that is grown for hemp production only contains 0.3% THC (the stuff that gets you high). The cannabis plant that is grown for marijuana production contains 6-20% THC.
I've been adding powdered hemp protein to my smoothies. I also have hemp oil and hemp seeds. All good stuff, although not the cheapest stuff in the world.
Packing My Lunch
14 February 2011It's probably a combination of getting a good night's rest, riding my bike in warm weather and eating really well today that makes me feel great. I just feel super healthy today.
I did a really good job of making food before I went to work today. I made pancakes with buckwheat flour and a few ingredients that seem to be common in my cooking now days (hemp protein, coconut oil, flaxseed meal and flax oil).
I added flax oil in addition to the flaxseed meal, because I recently found out that flaxseed meal is the leftover stuff. Once they've used all the good stuff, they package the leftovers and sell it as flaxseed meal. So it's better to buy whole flaxseeds and grind them yourself. I, however, still have a whole bag of flaxseed meal that I need to use, so I'm simply adding a little flax oil to it.
So I ate those pancakes for breakfast. I also made a smoothie, again with all those things in parenthesis up there, and acai berry, pineapple, and papaya. It probably didn't look too appealing. It's a little grainy due to the flaxseed meal and hemp protein, and it's a pretty dark color due to the acai.
The smoothie was a great idea though. I brought it to work and sipped it throughout the day. So much better for me than eating cookies throughout the day, like I used to do. This is what I'm going to have to do if I want to eat less sugar, and based on the way I feel right now, after eating almost no sugar today, I think cutting it out of my diet is a grand idea.
For lunch I made some burgers out of walnuts and hemp seed. It also had some apple cider vinegar. I don't recall all the ingredients at the moment, but that was the main stuff. Very good and filling. I bought some lettuce and Goddess dressing on my lunch break and made a salad to go with it.
That Goddess dressing is good stuff. You can buy it at Trader Joe's for $1.99 or at Whole Foods for $3.99. Your choice. And I'm pretty sure they're both made by Annie's Naturals.
I searched the internet for an image of the dressing, and I found this. Coincidentally, it's exactly the salad I ate.
Someone came through my line today buying three bottle of Goddess dressing. He said it adds up, because they eat a lot of it. They want to try making their own. Well, guy who came through my line, here's a website, The Captious Vegetarian, with a few different attempts. I might try that too at some point. More likely though, I'll buy a bottle once in a while when I forget to pack a lunch, and then I'll bring the leftovers home.
There you go. The three main things I ate today were recipes, or variations of recipes, from Thrive.
Work Parties
13 February 2011Not really parties. Not exactly.
Here's what I'm talking about: Today was Melissa's last day at our store. She's one of my vegan coworkers. Actually, she describes herself as a vegan wannabe, because she has a hard time resisting nonvegan desserts.
Anyway, she's transferring to a different store, so we had a going away party of sorts. That just means there was food brought in and left in the breakroom. What kind of food, though? Tacos. Meat, cheese, lettuce and tomatoes.
Should I just say, Oh that's nice, or should I questions why they would cater meat for a vegan? Isn't that like having cake at a birthday party for a diabetic, or ice cream for someone who's lactose intolerant, or pasta for someone who's gluten intolerant?
Since the food obviously wasn't brought in for Melissa, does that mean the food was brought in for everyone else to celebrate the fact that she's leaving? Like throwing a party and not inviting her, but having the party while she's there to see it.
This isn't a big deal. Vegans have to deal with turning down free food all the time. When you work at Trader Joe's, it's more often. This is just my observation of the day.
Thrive
12 February 2011And now, the much anticipated official review of Thrive: The Vegan Nutrition Guide to Optimal Performance in Sports and Life.
Click on the cover to buy it at Powell's
That's a long title, so we'll just call it Thrive.
Brendan Brazier (I know, it sounds like Brendan Fraser) is a triathlete who, after years of experimenting with different diets to support his athletic endeavors, came to the conclusion that veganism is the best for his body. Not just veganism, though. More like veganism done right, and then a little more.
Not only does Brendan cut out all the same stuff that a regular vegan does—and I'm talking hard core vegans: no honey, no sugar—he goes even further. He doesn't eat any refined foods or anything stimulating—no sugar, no caffeine—and he seeks out the most nutrient dense foods available. I didn't realize that soy, wheat, peanuts, and active yeast are not really good for you. Sure, they have some nutritional value, but there's much better food out there.
Brendan has cut the most common food allergies out from his diet, and the book includes one hundred recipes that use only nutrient dense ingredients. This means if you're allergic to gluten, soy, peanuts, yeast, and/or corn, this is a great book for you. And the recipes are really good. I don't like all of the ones I've tried, but I like most of them.
It's a little strange the way he make the things resemble—what should I call it—normal food, but this made me think more about food substitutions. We're accustomed to eating milk, pizza, burgers, etc. So when we switch to a vegan diet, are we supposed to invent completely new meals? That's like creating a completely new language. Why can't we just alter our current language by changing a few words?
Brendan's pizza recipes look like pizza, but they certainly aren't traditional. The crusts are made from legumes, pseudograins, yams... Don't get me wrong, I really like every pizza recipe we've tried, and every burger recipe (which use nuts as a base).
So here's the deal, half of the book explains why Brendan chooses the ingredients he chooses and how his research and experiences have brought him to it. This half is good. It's not great, but here's why: there are a few typos, which gives a false sense that maybe he's not the most intelligent. Also, he doesn't cite sources. There is a list of sources in the back, but he doesn't cite the information as he gives it. Since I started reading The China Study first, this seems like a bigger deal to me. The China Study is full of facts, and it cites its sources, so Brendan's typos and lack of source citing was a little disconcerting, but here's why it doesn't matter:
He doesn't say much that we haven't already heard. Eat whole foods. Don't eat processed foods. Exercise regularly. Maybe hardcore meat eaters wouldn't be convinced, but if you read The China Study and this together, you can't really argue with Brendan.
About those recipes: they're mostly pretty good. My one complaint is that some of the ingredients are hard to find, and some are really expensive. I'm searching for cheaper places to buy hemp oil and coconut oil. Some things I can only find at Whole Foods, and they're not known for being super cheap.
But can you really put a price on feeling great, and being in great shape? I don't think you can.
This book has really made me think a lot about what I eat. I'm planning to eat mostly food from The Thrive Diet as I begin training for the marathon.
Cheese
11 February 2011I used to write the cheese order at work. I enjoyed it because I liked making displays with cheese, making it look like a quaint cheese shop. I also liked trying all the different types of cheese.
Now I write the produce order, which is really the best order for a vegan to write. All the order writers at work talk about how they buy more food from their section once they start writing the order. I bought more cheese when I wrote the cheese order, and when I started writing the produce order, I stopped buying so much cheese and started buying more produce. It wasn't intentional. I didn't even notice it for a while.
When I first told people at work that I was going vegan, a lot of them asked, "You're going to give up cheese?"
The deal is that I do really like cheese. Or I really liked it. Honestly I don't miss it too terribly much. Tonight I ate a lot of pizza (a very filling recipe from Thrive), so the thought of eating anything else isn't appealing.
My love for cheese is what has prevented be from eating a bastardized vegan version of it. I'd prefer to just leave it off than eat cheese made from almonds or cashews.
Sunny brought home some almond cheese the other day. It was packaged like Kraft singles. I didn't try it, but Sunny said it was disgusting.
So, instead of substituting my real cheese with fake cheese, I add something else. I have to add something or else I'll feel like my meal is missing something. Here's my example:
Kidney Bean Stuff is something we used to eat a lot. Toast (preferably whole grain), kidney beans, onion, tomato, cheddar cheese, and sour cream. Here's how I made it this morning:
Vegan Kidney Bean Stuff
Whole Wheat Naan, toasted
Kidney Beans
Green Onion
Tomato
Pickled Red Cabbage
I didn't have any Tofutti sour cream, or I'd have put that on. The cabbage is a substitute for the cheese, but it's less like having a different math teacher substitute your class and more like having the gym teacher substitute. Something completely different.
Sour Cream
10 February 2011Just a little product review action here. I've now tried two different brands of vegan sour cream: Tofutti and WayFare.
Tofutti was good. No, it doesn't taste exactly the same as real sour cream, but, yes, it is good. And sour cream is a condiment anyway. If you were eating it with a spoon, you'd really notice the difference, and you'd probably be unsatisfied. If you're like me, though, you just add it, in small amounts, to things like tacos. For that, this is great.
The Tofutti brand is so good that I had no intention of trying any other, but when I went to Whole Foods, it was out of stock. I bought the WayFare one instead. Not good. Not good at all. It's a solid chunk that has to be cut up and stirred. Even once you do all that, the consistency is terrible (like bad yogurt) and the flavor isn't any better. I threw the whole thing away.
So to recap:
Yum
Yuck
I would like to try making my own at some point. I think I remember finding recipes that use pine nuts, but pine nuts are so expensive.
Trader Joe's Tasting
9 February 2011The hardest thing about being vegan is when I'm hungry and I'm being offered free food that isn't vegan. This is a problem at work when we have huddles and sample the food we sell. Free food, while working, is hard to turn down.
Last night we had a tasting. We have a flyer coming out, and whenever we send out a flyer, we taste the food. This is the first one I've been to since going vegan, and I wasn't even sure that I should grab a plate at first because I didn't want to look like an idiot going through the whole line and ending up with an empty plate.
But there were about three vegan things for me to try. Actually, Aaron made a good salad with avocado, butter lettuce and radicchio, grapefruit, and a grapefruit dressing that he made. He told me what all was in it, but I forgot.
There was also a potato, green bean and mushroom dish. It comes frozen and just has to be heated up. I've had it before. It's pretty good.
And the coconut mochi is in the flyer. It didn't go over real well with the rest of the crew. I understand why. It's very different from the regular, ice cream mochi. The outer dough part is completely separate from the inner ice cream (made with coconut milk) part, so the texture is weird. I still think it's delicious though.
Something else I noticed: As a vegetarian, it's really easy to tell, instantly, what's vegetarian and what's not. Either there's meat or there isn't. But as a vegan, you often have to look at the ingredients. Sure, that cookie could easily be made with vegan ingredients, but is it? And do I want to hold up the line as I scrutinize every item?
I thought for a second that it could just be because I've been vegetarian for ten years that I can spot a vegetarian food item right away. But then, I disagreed with myself. After being vegan for just over two months, I can already spot a potential vegan item right away. The question is, did they add some unnecessary nonvegan ingredient?
Which is funny, because Stefan asked tonight (about the coconut milk mochi) why do they have to ruin it by making it vegan?
On another note: I briefly dated a girl, when I first moved to Washington, who was vegan, and one of the things we did was go to Trader Joe's and get some green tea mochi. Not vegan. Did I mention she wasn't a strict vegan? Occasionally she would splurge and go to McDonald's for a chicken sandwich.
I don't remember now if I became a vegetarian while we were dating or shortly after. I do remember that after we broke up, my aunt asked me if the first thing I did was eat a hamburger. So she thought I went vegetarian while I was dating her, but she may just have heard the information out of order. I didn't eat hamburger. Aside from eating fish a handful of times and when I first moved to Spain and had a hard time finding vegetarian food, once I went vegetarian, I never went back.
Simpsons Videos
8 February 2011I keep thinking about this quote from The Simpons: I'm a level five vegan.
I started before it was cool.
Then I found this too:
There were some other great videos from the Simpsons that had to do with veganism, but the quality was even worse.
Seaweed
7 February 2011I've always loved seaweed. I loved it in high school when my Korean friend, Grace, would make wraps out of them. It was just seaweed with rice inside. Like a burrito. Delicious.
And I liked them when I started eating sushi. The sushi I ate was homemade, by my brother. It had avocado, carrot, and I don't remember what else, but no fish. I've only had sushi with fish once, and it was good, but not the best thing I've ever eaten.
We have a fairly new seaweed product at Trader Joe's. Roasted Seaweed Snacks. They're just strips of seaweed. I'm one of the few employees in the store who likes them, but there are plenty of customers who like them.
Recently, I discovered just how good seaweed is for you. It's higher in calcium than milk, higher in iron than red meat, and it causes the blood to be more alkaline, which is good for lots of things, one of which is retaining calcium.
Carrageenan is an alternative to gelatin that can be extracted from red seaweed. It's used to make vegan gelatin desserts. It's also in almond milk; it makes it thicker, and I think it keeps it from separating.
Kelp can be used to flavor broths. Kombu is a type of kelp, or rather a group of different types of kelp, that are used to make the broth. The broth is called dashi. When I made dashi a few days ago, I didn't realize there were different types of kelp, so I may not have had the right kind, but whatever. I used my dashi to make miso soup. Here's the recipe (I got it from about.com, and the directions are verbatim):
Miso Soup
3 c Dashi
1 block Tofu
4 T Miso Paste
¼ c Green Onion, choppedPut dashi soup stock in a pan and bring to a boil. Cut tofu into small cubes and add them to the soup. Simmer the tofu for a few minutes on low heat. Scoop out some soup stock from the pan and dissolve miso in it. Gradually return the miso mixture in the soup. Stir the soup gently. Stop the heat and add chopped green onion. Remember not to boil the soup after you put miso in.
To make the dashi, you basically just heat some kelp in water. Then you can take out the kelp and do something else with it. I put half the kelp I used in the blender and poured it back into the soup.
I'm also eating some guacamole that has kelp and miso paste in it. Pretty good.
Dulse has the magical power to help keep you hydrated. I don't know much else about it right now, but I have some and I plan to make something with it soon, so I'll let you know how it goes.
Product Knowledge
6 February 2011Maybe you heard last week about the recent Taco Bell lawsuit. Their "seasoned ground beef" is actually "taco meat filling," and that filling doesn't have enough beef in it.
In retaliation, Taco Bell made a public announcement stating that their seasoned ground beef was actually 88% beef. The other 12% is made of seasonings that you would use at home, like isolated oat product. I know I keep my isolated oat product in the spice drawer, between the paprika and Silicon Dioxide.
Alright, so the amount of meat in the "meat" filling is questionable. Obviously, I'm not too worried about eating more oats and less beef, but I guess the point is that they can put whatever they want to in there.
Why don't fast food places have to label their food the same way grocery stores do, with ingredients and nutritional information? I believe those things are available if you ask for them, but why aren't they on every wrapper?
I believe people should know what they're eating. I don't think they should have to ask. I think it should be right in their faces, a label they see before they take their first bite, because most people don't realize they need to ask if there's gluten in their meat. Why would there be gluten in meat? Gluten comes from grain. Who knew there were grains in your meat?
Most people don't have any idea how much advanced chemistry goes into their food. I say advanced because cooking in itself is chemistry. But that's the kind of chemistry you can do in your own kitchen. Most processed food requires chemistry more closely resembling Dexter's Laboratory.
At Trader Joe's, we have a labeling system that looks like this:
No Gluten
Vegan
Vegetarian
Fat Free
Quick Meal
Kosher
Low Sodium
Safeway has something similar, although it's only found on their Eating Right line of products:
This is great. However, since going vegan, I've noticed a problem with food labeling. There are no labels that say high sodium, or high fat, or not kosher. I know those aren't good selling points, but let me explain.
The vegan symbol is only on products that you wouldn't expect to be vegan. So if Trader Joe's sold vegan cookies, there might be a V on it because you would expect it to have egg or milk in it. But it doesn't.
On the other hand, if it's something you would expect to be vegan, there won't be a V. So a bag of spinach won't have a V.
But what about products that you would expect to be vegan but aren't. For example, these cereal bars:
You might think, fruit and grain. What you may not think is nonfat dry milk.
Or these Safeway cereal bars that have liquid whole eggs.
It sounds like I'm just picking on Trader Joe's, but I know it's the same everywhere. I just work at Trader Joe's, so I see those products every day.
If anything Trader Joe's is better because they at least have a symbol for vegan products. Safeway doesn't.
I know that our country is based on capitalism, making things as cheap as possible and marketing them in a positive way. Of course, if it's cheaper to make the product with nonfat dry milk, then why not do it, right? And if placing a label on the cover that says, Not Vegan, is going to hurt sales, then I don't expect them to do it. Can you imagine what would happen to the wine industry if everyone knew they used the swim bladder of a fish to filter it? Sales may not plummet, but it certainly wouldn't help. Why would any wine manufacturer or vendor want to do that?
Because consumers want to know what they're eating. That's why. Not really. I've found that most consumers don't want to know, and that's why there's no legislation saying that fast food wrappers have to have ingredients listed, or that products in the grocery store have to have warning labels reading, "This product may lead to obesity and tooth decay."
It's true that most people have no idea what they're eating. Sadly, it's also true that most of them don't care. But I think that's changing.
Because people cared to make it a law (or is it just a requirement?), manufacturers do have to say: Contains Wheat, or Contains Milk, or Contains Peanuts, etc. Someday, perhaps our food products will be as strict as tobacco products, with large warning labels on the front that say: Contains more than the recommended daily value of saturated fat. Someday.
Day of The Climb
5 February 2011Time for The Climb. A big thank you to everyone who donated money:
Tom & Connie
Tara
ChaBuku
Courtni
Ma
Bryant
GrandfolksWe raised $96. I'm glad the fundraising portion is over. Now it's time to do the easy part. I hope it's easy. Actually I've never climbed anywhere near 50 flights of stairs at once, so I'm not sure how this will go.
I was planning to ride my bike there (it's only two miles), but Sunny convinced me to drive. It didn't take much convincing.
After the climb, I'll go out for lunch with the team. Two of the people on the team are vegan (although one of them hates vegetables) so I'm sure we'll go somewhere vegan friendly. This will be the first time I've gone out to eat with seasoned vegans.
Also, this kicks off the start of my marathon training.
I climbed them stairs in nine minutes and twenty-seven seconds. Boosh!
There was a lot of free food at the top, but not much of it was vegan. I had a banana and some dark chocolate that Melissa brought. And water.
Afterwards, some of the team had to get to work, and the rest of us weren't really hungry, since it was only 9:30am, so we just got some coffee. Soy latte.
Here's what it looked like from the top:
It was a bit foggy, and I only had my phone to take pictures with.
Not From Concentrate
4 February 2011Have you ever wondered how orange juice companies can offer not-from-concentrate orange juice year round, all around the country? If you're like me, you probably never thought it would be difficult. Maybe you didn't even know there was a time when orange juice was really only available (in grocery stores) in either frozen concentrated form, or reconstituted form.
Turns out the whole problem has to do with food safety and some form of pasteurization. The reason canned food doesn't taste as good as fresh is because it has to be heated. The heat kills bacteria (and enzymes, unfortunately), and it seals the can to lock in...safety, not freshness.
In the 80s, that changed for us. That is, The US. Europe had already been doing this with milk for a couple of decades. Obviously, I'm talking about aseptic processing. I'm sure that term was on the tip of your tongue.
Here's the gist of it: with aseptic processing, they basically have a shallow pool of the food (orange juice, tomato paste or whatever) which they flash pasteurize, and then they store that food in a large vat. This form of pasteurization works quickly, so it requires less energy, and it retains more of the nutrients.
We can thank Dr Philip E Nelson of this. If it weren't for him, we wouldn't have not-from-concentrate orange juice, juice boxes, or boxed wine.
Using this process means that no preservatives are needed, as long as the package isn't opened, and that means better flavor.
This is still a process that ruins the flavor a little though, and that's the reason fresh from the garden tomatoes and freshly squeezed orange juice are still yummier. But we can't have those things all the time.
Blogs
3 February 2011For a while there, every day, I was watching to see how many people were reading this. I got really excited once when it got over ninety hits, and I decided that as soon as it reaches one hundred I'll mention it. But readership fell off a little. It's been a while since it dropped below fifty, but it wasn't reaching a hundred, and I stopped looking every day.
Then, a couple days ago, I checked again. There have now been two days where this blog had over one hundred readers.
Thanks for reading.
Because I clopened last night/this morning, commuting on my bike in below zero weather, I'm going to make this one short and sweet.
When I first started this blog, I was afraid that it wouldn't be unique enough. I already told you about Ingredient Critic, the website that Tiana was working on right around the same time I starting putting this project together. But there's more.
Whenever I Google "vegan for a year," a lot of websites come up. Some people have told me that they went to my blog and there were no posts. They went to veganforayear.blogspot.com. That's not me, but you already know that.
Every time I click on one of the links in the Google search, I'm relieved when it's a blog that never really materialized. A lot of them don't last more than a week, and I think I'm doing better than them. Although I did have three failed blog attempts before this one.
There are some, however, that have stuck with it. Some started a few years ago and are still going strong. I've decided I should embrace it. It's a subculture that I'm a part of. It's not as though I invented veganism or blogging. And I'm certainly happy to find advice on their sites when I need it.
Here are a few:
The Year of the Vegan. Started in 2008, and still going.
Vegan for a Year at Tumblr. This one started and ended in January of 2010. But there are three or four posts each day. I can see how that could get exhausting.
Vegan for One Year. This one was started this year, and seems to still be going, although not daily.Time to sleep now, but there's a lot more out there.
New Dietary Guidelines
2 February 2011The United States Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services have created new dietary guidelines. These are the folks who turned our food pyramid into this:
They got a lot of criticism for that. They're working on a new pyramid that will come out in the next few months. Hopefully it will be better. But for now, we have a new list of things to eat more of and things to eat less of.
At the top of the list of things to eat more of: fruits and vegetables, "especially dark green and red and orange vegetables and beans and peas."
The rest of the "eat more" category are really "if you're thinking of eating this, eat this instead." For example, more low fat milk. Really, they're saying eat less whole and 2% milk. And they say, at the end of the section, that fortified milk substitutes fit into this category.
Sidenote (aka rant): I hate, hate, hate that they list milk as a good source of Vitamin D. It's only in fortified milk. It's like fishing in a pond that has been stocked. Sure, you'll catch a lot of fish, so if you really enjoy fishing and catching a lot of fish with little effort, go ahead. Other options would be to fish in a lake where fish are naturally present, or buy fish from the market. Any pond can be stocked, and any food can be fortified. In this case, the lake where fish are naturally present represents sunlight, and the market represents a Vitamin D supplement in pill form. The stocked pond is fortified milk, so if you like drinking milk, go right ahead.
It also says to eat more seafood, and really it seems that they're saying eat it instead of eating fatty meat and poultry.
Here's what to reduce: salt, refined foods, saturated and trans fats, cholesterol.
Here's my plug, if you will. If you choose a vegan diet, you'll be reducing those four things. For one thing, saturated fat is less common in plants than meat, dairy and eggs, and cholesterol doesn't exist. Refined foods, which are often high in salt, are unlikely to be vegan. Yes, there are refined foods that are vegan, but most refined foods that you find in the frozen section, for example, will not be vegan.
Now, as for the recommendation to eat more seafood, I'm skeptical. Remember that BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? According to a recent survey, posted two days ago, seventy percent of consumers still "express some level of concern about seafood safety following the BP oil spill, and 23 percent have actually reduced their consumption."
I'm not trying to say that seafood is unsafe to eat due to the oil spill. I don't know, nor does it affect me since I don't eat seafood. All I'm saying is that a lot of people still do think that, and the seafood industry has taken a hit because of it. The poultry industry, on the other hand, has benefitted greatly from the whole debacle.
Remember that half of the team that gave us these new dietary guidelines is The Department of Agriculture. I'm not suggesting that they're telling us to eat poisoned food in order to help the seafood industry. I'm just saying that The Department of Agriculture doesn't have only our health in mind.
Poultry got a lot of business and seafood lost a lot. Now the USDA is telling us to eat more seafood and less poultry in order to even it out.
All I'm saying, as I've said once before, is that the government is trying to make the whole country a better place, overall, and maybe they don't always think of your individual dietary concerns when they do it.
If you'd like to see something better than the current food pyramid, this is what PCRM is promoting. The Power Plate:
Not to be confused with this thing:
Masala Burger
1 February 2011It's a new month! That's one twelth of the way. Not that I'm counting. No really. If I were counting down, this would be a miserable experience. And if it were miserable, well, why would I be doing it at all?
Here's some of my not-at-all-miserable experience: I made the most awesome lunch today, and I'm really looking forward to making it again tomorrow. This one's really easy, but it does require Trader Joe's items. So if there's no Trader Joe's in your neck of the woods...
Here's what you're looking at (and what you can't really see in the picture) from the top down:
Cucumber (on the side)
Salt, Lemon Juice & Olive Oil
Organic Baby Spring Mix
Fermented Red Cabbage & Ginger
Tomato
Masala Burgers, fried
Hummus
Whole Wheat Naan, toastedPretty simple. It's just an open face sandwich, but so, so delicious.
The masala burger is made of vegetables—not soy or beans—so that's nice for a change.
About the Spring Mix. I started putting some on top, then I just kept adding more and more, which is why it's hard to see the rest of the sandwich. Sunny and I are going to try really hard to each one package of lettuce between the two of us each day. If putting it on sandwiches and such doesn't use the whole thing up, we'll have to have a salad at the end of the day. We need our greens.
Four days until The Climb. Thanks to everyone who donated money! There's still time to donate if you haven't yet. I rode my bike in the snow storm today to get in shape. And tomorrow I'm planning to run a couple of miles.
