Grandfolks
30 November 2010We went to see the grandfolks yesterday. When Gramma told me they couldn't provide a vegan meal for me, I told them I'd bring some food. We could do it potluck style. Later she wrote on the family website, "I'm making vegan buns and burger. Guess who's coming to visit!"
First of all, the buns were quite good. I need to learn how to make any sort of bread that well. But the burger was good too. Here's the recipe:
Burger Delight
2 c Bulgur Wheat
1 qt Tomatoes, canned, with juice
½ of an Onion, medium, cut in pieces
2-3 Garlic Cloves
1 c Walnuts (she used cashews instead)
2 t Salt
2 T MolassesBlend everything except the bulgur in a blender or food processor, then put it and the bulgur into a saucepan and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Then spread the mixture evenly onto a sprayed cookie sheet and bake at 250-275 for 45-60 minutes, until it's a loose burger-like consistency.
When it's all done, Grandaddy likes to mix it with BBQ sauce; Gramma likes ketchup. We did BBQ sauce.
We also ate some of the pecan pie that I'd gotten for free and left the rest there.
Today is my last day as a freegan. Tomorrow will be my first day as a vegan, one month earlier than I'd originally planned.
Thanks for the food, Grandfolks, and for the cookbooks. I'll let you know how the recipes go.
Family
29 November 2010My dad left yesterday morning, early. Whenever we see him, my brother and I always give him a hard time about what he eats. For example, he adds a handful of Equal packets to his coffee or tea. He says it’s ok because there are no carbohydrates, and he tells us how, when he was a kid, he would fill his glass half full of sugar and half full of I don’t remember what. Milk maybe. Or what do kids drink? Kool-Aid. He also tells us that we should continue to criticize him, because it will help him change his ways.
Somehow all four of us—brother, mom, dad and me—all eat quite differently:Da eats at The Old Country Buffet; he likes buffet style, all-you-can-eat restaurants. He hasn’t owned an oven in around ten years, relying on his microwave for cooking.
Ma tries to hide what she eats from me. She and my brother both went vegetarian at the same time I did, but they both fell off that wagon. Now she eats at McDonald’s occasionally, or Taco Bell. When she’s at home she’ll eat fake meat from MorningStar, or casseroles. I think she eats less meat at home.
Bro eats more Asian or Asian-inspired foods. He knows more about different sauces and spices of that nature than I do. He also frequents taco trucks. Although he believes eating vegan is better for your health and the environment (he’s a biologist), he's decided to compromise by eating a 95% vegan diet. He likes fish sauce in his Pad Thai and creamer in his coffee.
If you follow this blog, you know exactly what I eat. Lately I’ve been thinking that the high school me would go crazy trying to eat what I eat now, or even what I ate last month before I went vegan. I really think that going from a diet based highly on meat to a vegetarian, especially vegan diet can make you think you’re still hungry even if you’ve just eaten a lot. I don’t know the science behind this. Perhaps it actually takes your body a while to realize that the new substance you’re consuming is also food, and although it has all the same nutrients, it has to be broken down in a different way. Or maybe it’s more psychological than that. Maybe you feel, even if only subconsciously, that you’ve eaten the salad and now you’re ready for the main course.
I had a similar feeling when I moved to Spain. Although I ate enough, I ate Spanish food rather than the American food I was accustomed to. I remember feeling hungry for the first month or so.
What I’m getting to, is that I’m pretty sure my dad liked some of the things we ate while he was here, but I’m also pretty sure he was hungry most of the time. He probably stopped at Village Inn on his way out of town to get a hearty breakfast, and I can’t blame him. I had moments of hunger as I was making this transition when I thought, How am I ever going to eat enough? Will I always feel hungry? I don't feel that anymore.
We talked about my blog when he was here, and he read a few of the previous posts. He knows about it now and he may be reading this. Da, this is the constructive criticism you asked for. Remember what we talked about next time you go grocery shopping.
Punch
28 November 2010We've been eating out a lot, which is crazy because we still have a ton of food in the house. Maybe tomorrow we'll refrain from eating out.
Anyway, we went to French Meadow Café again. This time I ordered the High Energy Breakfast. The price should have been my clue that it wouldn't be enough food: $5 versus the $8.50 for the pancakes I ate yesterday. It was three slices of toast (really good seedy toast), a sliced banana and some peanut butter. Luckily my brother ordered two of the Blueberry Corn Pancakes, and it was too much for him.
After that we got coffee at Dunn Bros again. I may have mentioned this place quickly yesterday. Sunny's worked there for over a year now, so it's commonplace for us, but it has really good coffee. They roast it on site. This time I got drip with soy milk and it was better than the latte I had yesterday.
From there we went to Penzey's Spices and I bought some Smoked Spanish Paprika. I'm excited to try making roasted corn chowder with that.
If you haven't noticed already, I really like cooking. So it should be no surprise that we went into The Kitchen Window for some window shopping. I'd like to get an ice cream maker attachment for my KitchenAid and make some coconut milk ice cream.
We went to the Minnesota History Center Museum and learned about chocolate. I'd like to make vegan chocolate confections.
A lot happened yesterday. We ate out at Punch Neapolitan Pizza. It's a crazy good pizza place that bakes it's pizza at 800 degrees. It only takes 90 seconds to cook and it's delicious. This was the first time we'd gone out to eat at a place that doesn't cater to vegans. We ordered the Margherita and the Napoli and asked them to leave the cheese off. The girl at the counter, McKenzie, was very helpful. She suggested we get the focaccia instead, but it didn't have tomato sauce. When she told the cook to leave the cheese off, he made a "that's crazy, but ok" expression. The Napoli didn't look good, but it was. The Margherita looked good and was even better. Next time we'll probably order one of the more expensive pizzas, with olives, eggplant, and other veggies. We did get a large salad that we split between us.
We also went to Whole Foods. I haven't been there in a while, because I prefer to support local co-ops (if I'm going to support a large chain, it may as well be the one I work at, which is cheaper even before my discount). I was a little overwhelmed by all the vegan options. We just got some cookies from the bakery: chocolate chip, lemon something and snicker doodle.
Like I said, it was a busy day. I'd say the highlight was finding out that we can still eat Punch Pizza. It's really...I'm going to say it's just as good without the cheese. I've done a pretty good job of convincing myself that I don't like cheese—just like I did with meat when I went vegetarian—otherwise I'd say it's still good even without cheese. It's a subtle difference.
French Meadow Café
27 November 2010My second experience eating out as a vegan was for breakfast. My dad woke my brother and me up, saying "We have to go get pancakes." My dad is a fan of consistency, so he probably had IHOP in mind or some other chain that was less likely to have vegan options. I realized if this was going to work I'd have to find a different restaurant.
I found French Meadow Café. I'd actually eaten there once before. I think it was for lunch.
The menu, which is written with chalk on big black boards that reach to the high ceilings, is set up with Vs next to all the vegan options. I think they also had Gs next to gluten free options.
Anyway, they had three different vegan breakfast options. I ordered the Blueberry Corn Pancakes with maple syrup. Pretty good, but I wished I'd had margarine to put on it. It was just a tad on the dry side. They didn't have margarine at all, let alone vegan margarine.
Maybe that's me though. Maybe I shouldn't depend so much on substitutions. I should be content to eat pancakes without having to substitute my butter with some vegan version of butter. Although, maybe I'd've used less maple syrup if I'd had margarine. Yeah, right.
My brother got the Classic Vegan Breakfast. It included scrambled tofu, hemp toast and some sausage thing that I'm pretty sure had oats in it. I wasn't too keen on the sausage.
Afterwards, we went to Dunn Bros for coffee. I had a soy latte. It was grainier than the soy creamer I've been using at home. I wasn't terribly impressed.
At work, I didn't eat anything nonvegan. There was plenty of nonvegan food being offered, but I successfully turned it down. "That's it then," I said to myself. "From here on out, I'm not freegan; I'm vegan." Then I found out that my dad bought fudge while I was at work. A lot of it apparently, and he's planning to divide it up among us all. So...I guess I'm still freegan until the fudge is gone.
Sunny didn't get to eat at French Meadow, so it sounds like my dad wants to take us all back there today. Maybe I'll try the High Energy Breakfast.
Thanksgiving (Morning After)
26 November 2010We didn't make everything we'd planned, and still we had too much food. Although I'd already pureed the pumpkin, we didn't make pumpkin pie, and no one ate the pecan pie.
I forgot about the kale until everything else was just about ready to eat, and then we were really hungry and knew we had more than enough food.
We have enough food to make a whole thanksgiving meal even after we finish the leftovers.
We didn't drink the Red Truck yet; we drank the Cambria Chardonnay. So good. I'm not really a wine connoisseur, so I don't know the words I should use to describe it, but it was complex and full of flavor. Yummy flavor.
The Tofurky turned out really well. Here's what I did:
Sautéed cut up onions, celery and carrots;
Added the gravy (from the box) and kept the heat on until it was liquid;
Poured half the gravy/vegetables into a bowl;
Sliced the Tofurky and spread it out in the pan;
Poured the rest of the gravy/vegetables on the top;
Baked at 400 for 20 minutes or so.I have a stainless steel pan that can be placed in the oven. Handy. Doing it this way kept it moist, and I liked the Tofurky, although it wasn't my favorite part of the meal.
Here's a picture of all the food:
I'm still working on how to get good lighting in our apartment, and this isn't even completely in focus. Sorry. But, between noon & 3 o'clock are the sweet potato rolls (we used Egg Replacer instead of flax); then it's the stuffing up until 6:30; and Tofurky until 9; followed by teeny tiny potatoes right up until midnight (there are tomatoes, even though you can't see them).
In the bowl (scroll up if you missed the picture) is a salad my brother made.
Pumpkin (he couldn't find a pumpkin, so he used butternut and acorn squashes)
Red onion
Red wine vinegar
Olive oil
Cilantro
Salt & pepperHe punctured the squashes and cooked them whole. Then he peeled away the skin and cut them up into cubes; sliced the onion really thin; mixed it all. He didn't really measure, so use your judgment. It was really good though.
Here's a picture of the messy kitchen/serving counter:
In addition to making this great salad, he brought me a copy of The China Study. I'm really looking forward to reading it.
My dad woke us up this morning and said we have to get ready to go eat pancakes. He means IHOP or Denny's or Village Inn. All very unlikely to have vegan options. So I quickly looked up a local cafe with vegan options. I think we're going to French Meadow Bakery.
Thanksgiving (Day Of)
25 November 2010I'm posting this just past midnight, so it's really another Thanksgiving preparation post. Check back tomorrow to learn which recipes were complete failures and which were fantastic.
Finished my thanksgiving shopping today on my lunch break. I'm ready to start cooking and eating, but I guess it's a good idea to sleep first.
Here's what I bought for wine:
Red Truck Pinot Noir and Cambria Bench Break Chardonnay. I bought the Red Truck yesterday, and when the First Mate came over to give me my employee discount, he told me I should spend a couple dollars more to get the Mark West Pinot Noir. Just like at Pizza Lucé, I didn't want to say, "But I don't know if the Mark West is vegan." I'm trying not to be a snob, but I'm also trying to be vegan, to the best of my knowledge.
Today, I planned to buy a Coppola Chardonnay. I didn't realize we only carry Coppola reds, which are not vegan, and I already had a red. I vaguely remembered seeing Cambria on the list, but I wasn't 100% sure, and it was $17, so I decided not to get it. But then I got talked into it. It's meant to be really good. And, I just checked. I was right about it being vegan.
You may notice that I've chosen wines that go well with turkey. I figure they go well with all thanksgiving food though. We're using the same herbs and spices.
At the demo station today, we were giving out samples of our pumpkin pie. I tried a piece, and Anh-Hoa, who was serving, said, "That's not vegan!" I've been getting that a lot. I think I'm going to switch from freegan to vegan in December rather than January.
At the end of the night, everyone was given a free pie. I took a pecan pie, which has egg in it. I'm debating whether or not to eat it. I could just let my brother and dad eat it and I could eat the pumpkin pie and apple crisp. I love apple crisp.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Hope your meals are delicious. I'll let you know how mine went.
Thanksgiving (Day 2)
24 November 2010More about the pumpkin pie. I got some advice from a customer today. First of all, she said to bake the pumpkin instead of steaming it. The recipe I followed didn't tell me the benefits of baking, just that it was faster to steam, and I was short on time.
After baking, puree the pumpkin and put it in a colander with a bowl underneath and leave it over night. Take the watery pumpkin stuff from the bowl and boil it down to a syrup. Then add it back to the puree. Now follow the recipe, or whatever recipe you would normally use canned pumpkin for.
I'm also planning to make apple crisp for Thanksgiving. Here's how I made it other day:
Filling (from Sunny's mom, Judy)
8 c sliced apples (I used Macouns)
½ can apple juice concentrate
2 T lemon juice
½ c sugar
2 t cinnamon
¼ c white flourFor the crisp
1 c margarine
1 c brown sugar
1¾ c almond meal
1½ c oats
½ t baking soda
½ t saltJust mix the filling and crisp separately and put them into a 9x13 pan: filling on bottom; crisp on top. Bake at 400 for 25-30 minutes.
You could easily make it gluten free by using rice flour and making sure you have gluten free oats. Bob's Red Mill sells some.
I love me some apple crisp. Sunny and I could eat the whole thing in one sitting if we don't restrain ourselves.
Stuffed Eggplant or Acorn Squash
Here's a savory dish we're planning to make. I started adapting this from a recipe I found online, but in the end, the only thing I kept was the cook time. I'm not putting amounts on here, because it's more of an add-what-feels-right sort of recipe.
You can either make this stuffing and put it into an acorn squash, or you can scoop out a halved eggplant and put it in there.
If you do the eggplant, you have to bake it for a little while, after halving it, so it gets soft and easily scoopable. Sunny's usually in charge of that part, so I'm not sure about time or temp, but I'd guess 400 for 10-15 minutes. Scoop out the middle and then cube it.
If you do the squash, you still need to bake it at 400, face down for 20 minutes or so before adding the filling and baking for another 15 minutes or so.
First make some wild rice and brown rice in separate pots. I read that wild rice is a 3:1 water to rice ratio, but I ended up straining the water in the end. I'll do 2:1 next time. Simmer for 45 minutes. Brown rice is 2:1 and takes maybe 30 minutes.
Sauté some onion in olive oil. Add pressed garlic, then cremini mushrooms (sliced or quartered) once the onion starts to turn translucent. Now add the cubed eggplant if you're using eggplant. Next is corn. I use frozen roasted corn. Just sauté until it's thawed, then add the rice, some sage (I used dried, but this time I'll try fresh) salt and stir it all up.
Now put this mixture into the eggplant or acorn squash and bake at 400 for 15 minutes or until the squash/eggplant is tender.
I'm thinking about making this more of a stuffing by using cornbread cubes. Also, I don't think I'll even stuff the eggplant; I'll just bake the "filling" in a pan.
Another savory dish. I made this with oregano. But I'm thinking about using thyme and sage to make it more Thanksgivingesque.
Roasted Potatoes
Equal parts pearl onions, teeny tiny potatoes and grape tomatoes. It looks really nice because they're all the same size. And it's really easy, because there's no cutting. Add olive oil, salt and spices and bake at 400 for 30 minutes or until the potatoes can be easily stabbed with a fork. Stir it up a couple of times during the baking.Sweet Potato Dinner Rolls
1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
4 T white sugar
½ c canned sweet potato puree (We're planning to bake a sweet potato and then puree it.)
½ c warm water (110 degrees F)
3 T margarine, softened
1 t salt
2 eggs worth of flax mixture
3½ c flourDissolve the yeast, warm water, and 1 tablespoon of sugar in a mixing bowl. Leave it for 5 minutes.
Add the rest of the sugar, sweet potato, margarine, salt, and flax mixture. Stir it up. Stir in 3 cups of flour. Turn out on a lightly floured surface. Knead 2 to 3 minutes, adding just enough of the remaining flour to prevent sticking. Do not knead too heavily. When it's smooth, shape it into a ball. Place it in an oiled bowl, and turn to coat the surface. Cover it and let it raise about 1 hour or longer.
Punch it down, and allow it to rest for 2 minutes. Divide it into 16 to 20 balls, and place it on a greased cookie sheet or in a 9x13 inch pan. Allow it to rise until doubled.
Bake at 375 for 12 to 20 minutes. Serve warm.
Thanksgiving (Day 1)
23 November 2010We're running out of turkeys at work. The Kosher turkeys are the only ones left. It makes me happy simply because there's more room in the back for my produce.
I did my Thanksgiving grocery shopping yesterday. I bought a Tofurky. The only other time I made one, it turned out dry. I got some tips on how to keep it moist. I'll let you know.
I still need to go to the co-op to get a few things that aren't available at Trader Joe's, but when I got home, I felt like staying home. So I made a pumpkin pie, from a real pumpkin.
Pumpkin Pie
First I quartered the pumpkin, gutted it and steamed it for 20-30 minutes. Then I let it cool, scraped out the flesh with a spoon and put it in the food processor. (A blender would work fine too, I'm sure.) It made two cups of puree.2 c pumpkin puree
⅔ c sugar
3 t pumpkin spice (from TJ's)
14 oz coconut milk (nearly the whole can)
3 T ground flax
½ t salt
½ t vanilla*Mix everything together, except the flax.
Flax Egg Substitute:
Mix the 3 tablespoons of flax in a pan with 9 tablespoons of water. Simmer for 5 minutes. It will take on the consistency of eggs. Let this concoction cool before adding it to the rest of the filling.That's a 1:3 ratio, and each tablespoon of flax equals one egg.
For the crust, I used almond meal instead of flour.
2 c almond meal
⅔ c shortening or Earth Balance
1-2 T waterCut the shortening in with a pastry cutter until it's crumbly, then add the water. I spread it into the pan with a spoon. It wouldn't have worked well to roll it out like normal pie pastry.
Pour in the filling. Bake at 425 for 15 minutes, then 350 for another 45-60.
I realized as I was mixing the ingredients that we don't have pie pans anymore, so I used two personal pizza pans that I've been borrowing from Pizza Hut for the last ten years or so.
* I forgot to add the salt and vanilla, which the recipe I adapted this from said were optional. They're not optional. It turned out rather bland.
Sunny thought the crust might be too mealy, but I liked it. It was rustic. It could be more like traditional pie pastry if I used almond flour instead of almond meal.
It was difficult to tell when it was done, because it didn't get as thick as normal pumpkin pie, and I forgot to reset the timer after reducing the heat. I finally decided there was no egg in it, so it didn't matter if it was thoroughly cooked. It thickened up some as it cooled, but when I pulled the first piece out, it fell apart. Doesn't that always happen with pie though?
I'll try again for Thursday, this time with salt, vanilla and almond flour. But, I have come to the conclusion that I don't really like pumpkin pie all that much to begin with.
Pizza Lucé
22 November 2010We went out to eat last night at Pizza Lucé. It was our first experience eating out as vegans. I’m very conscious of the fact that vegans and vegetarians can be perceived as snooty, or holier than thou, so I was afraid to tell the waitress that we were vegan. Sunny told her though, and she was really helpful. She helped us choose our pizza.
We went with the Rustler. It has mock duck, which I’ve never had before, but I’m fairly certain I’ve had similar substitute meat that goes by a different name. Here’s the description from their menu:
Marinated mock duck, pineapple, banana peppers, red onions, cheddar and mozzarella cheeses on our BBQ/red sauce.
We had them use the Rinotta, which is a soy/cashew-based cheese substitute. It was delicious. The Rinotta, as you might be able to deduce from the name, is similar to ricotta. I think we’ll try making our own version of it for an Italian dish.
I also had a Bell’s Two Hearted Ale.
They had two vegan dessert options: Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars, and a new one that wasn’t on the menu yet, Molly Bar. We went with the Molly Bar, because Sunny doesn’t like peanuts. It was a fudge-type thing. I’m not sure what all was in it, but it tasted slightly of marshmallow. I don’t think there was any marshmallow, or if there was, it must have used vegan gelatin. Anyway, also delicious.
At the end, our waitress had been so helpful (Would it be weird for me to mention her name here? I don’t know.) that I wrote “Thanks,” on her copy of the receipt. And, without putting too much thought into it, I added, “Check out veganforayear.com.” I immediately felt weird about it.
If you’re reading this, Danielle (I said it.), thanks for the great service. The food was delicious.
Fat
21 November 2010Being vegan has caused me to pay more attention to nutritional information. This is one reason vegans are generally healthier than omnivores, carnivores or cannibals. They have to, or choose to, pay closer attention to what they're eating. So, from time to time, I'll post about general nutritional things. This one does have a hint of vegan issues.
There are three types of fatty acids that you've probably heard bandied about: saturated, unsaturated, and trans.
Saturated fat is higher in animal products than in vegetables. Vegetables still have saturated fat, just not nearly as much as animal products. Palm and coconut oils are exceptions to this rule. Palm oil is half saturated fat, which is a little higher than lard. The daily recommended value for saturated fat is 20 grams per day. That's based on a 2000 calorie diet, and that means 20 grams or less, not at least 20 grams.
Saturated fat is generally solid at room temperature: butter, cheese.
Unsaturated fat is sometimes referred to as "healthy fat" or "good fat," as in "Avocados are high in fat, but it's good fat." Our bodies do need fat in order to absorb fat soluble vitamin—D, E, K and A, known affectionately as Deka—and the unsaturated ones are the best.
Unsaturated fat is generally liquid at room temperature: olive oil, peanut oil.
If unsaturated fat is good fat, then saturated is bad fat right? Pretty much. Eating too much saturated fat could lead to things like heart disease and cancer.
Technical stuff: it's called saturated because there are so many hydrogen atoms attached to it that there literally is no room for any more. It's saturated with hydrogen. Unsaturated fats still have room for more hydrogen. They have some hydrogen, but they're not completely hydrogenated.
But wait, there's more. One day in the lab, this happened:
Food Scientist Number 1: Unsaturated fat is better for us, but what if we want a solid fat for baking or spreading on toast?
Food Scientist Number 2: What if we added some hydrogen to the unsaturated fat? That would make it solid, right?
Food Scientist Number 1: Sounds right to me. A solid, healthy fat. We'll be rich!$!This is where margarine and vegetable shortening came from, and they're examples of substitutions that are worse than what they substitute*. If you're thinking, saturating unsaturated fat only creates saturated fat, which we already know is bad, you're headed in the right direction. Apparently, they didn't see it that way back in the day, and, unfortunately it headed further in that direction. It didn't create saturated fat; it created something worse: a Frankensteinian monster known as Trans Fat.
Since trans fat doesn't exist naturally, it isn't something our bodies need.
You've probably seen labels that say, "No Trans Fat." Somehow they found a way to solidify unsaturated fat that doesn't turn it into trans fat. Smart Balance does this. But Smart Balance has milk protein in it, so it's not vegan. In fact, some Smart Balance has fish oil, so it's not even vegetarian. We use Earth Balance now.
This has been a long and technical post, and there's so much more. If you made it all the way, thanks for sticking with it. Sorry, the reward for reading this has expired.
Now they can make margarine and shortening that are trans fat free, so not necessarily worse than what they substitute.
Water
20 November 2010In my high school health class, the teacher told us that we needed to drink 8-10 cups of water each day. I remember that we'd just had a soda fountain put into our cafeteria. I asked if drinking other liquids counted, and he said no. That didn't make any sense to me. Soda is mostly carbonated water, right? Plus, although we all drank primarily soda instead of water, we were all alive, and pretty healthy.
I still don't understand that. What I do know is that water is good, it's cheaper than pop, and it doesn't have all that bad stuff in it, like Yellow #5.
When I was searching for a vegan food pyramid for the top of this page, I found a lot that listed water at the bottom (the biggest category). That seemed a little strange to me, because I don't really think of water as food, but it makes sense to make a point of it like that. Water is important.
What does water do? Just about everything, it seems. Or at least, it assists in everything. All those chemical reactions, formation of energy, transportation of nutrients; we have water to thank for that.
So drink up. If you're thirsty, you're already dehydrated.
I don't drink enough. I probably drink 8-10 cups, but I'm active. I should drink more.
I think I rejected this pyramid because it lists Fortified Dairy Substitutes as a category. You know how I feel about those things.
Pesto
19 November 2010Last night I made pesto. I used the same recipe I always use; I just left out the parmesan. A super-foodie might say that I ruined it, but it really didn't taste any different to me. This is one of those things that falls into the category of "Can't buy the premade stuff because they needlessly add animal products." That category could use a shorter name.
The good news is that I have a food processor, so it's really easy for me to make pesto:
Pesto
3 garlic cloves
2 cups loosely packed basil leaves
¼ c pine nuts (toasted)
½ c extra virgin olive oilI used walnuts instead of pine nuts, because they're cheaper, have a very similar texture, and they have way more omega-3. 10,623mg in walnuts vs. 151mg in pine nuts. Both based on a one cup serving. I got the information from self.com, where you can look up all sorts of nutritional information on foods and break it down even to the different amino acids. Also, I had walnuts at home; I didn't have any pine nuts.
So then, I boiled some pasta, sautéed onion, cremini mushrooms and haricot vert (French green beans), and I mixed in the pesto.
I used regular white spaghetti, because we have a lot of it in the house, but I think we should switch to only whole grain. It contains more nutrients.
We also had a bottle of Fetzer Chardonnay. Fezter's whites are vegan; their reds are not. I'll have to do some more testing of vegan wines. This chardonnay was too sweet.
Althetics
18 November 2010The other day at work I mentioned being tired. A coworker responded, "You're suffering from a symptom known as veganism." Funny. It was about the same time I came down with this cold you may have read about here. After posting that, I got an encouraging email about this guy:
Brendan Brazier follows a 100% plant-based diet. He also participates, and does quite well, in ironman races. That's 2.4 miles swimming, 112 miles bicycling, and then a quick marathon (26.2 mile run) at the end. No big deal.
He's got a book out, called Thrive, all about eating vegan whilst being althetic. I'll probably really check this book out once I get back into marathon training, or maybe sooner. How encouraging for the rest of us who are taking our first steps into veganism.
If you need more encouragement, this guy follows Brendan's diet, although maybe not as strictly:
Booze
17 November 2010
A week or so ago Sunny asked me, "Did you say we can't drink wine and be vegan? Or was that a dream." I said, "That was a dream. It would be crazy if we couldn't drink wine."
Well guess what. A lot of wines are not vegan friendly. This doesn't mean that there are animal products or byproducts in the wine itself, but that these things are used in the process.
Wineries and breweries may use:
Gelatin
Isinglass: from the dried swim bladders of fish
Chitosan: from the exoskeleton of crustaceans
Casein: milk protein
Egg Albumen: the white part of the egg.They add any one of these things to the top of the liquid, and as it sinks to the bottom, it absorbs any proteins, yeasts or organic particles that they don't want in the wine or beer.
Not all wines and beers go through this process, called fining. Some just aren't fined. Others are fined with vegan friendly products, like seaweed.
It turns out that there are quite a few wines and beers that are vegan friendly.
Just to list a few:
Wines
Charles Shaw red wines, but not white,
Fetzer whites,
Francis Coppola whites,
Red Truck,
Yellow Tail reds.Beer
Anchor,
Bells,
Blue Moon,
Corona,
Full Sail,
Lagunitas,
Sierra Nevada,
Summit,
Trader Joe's (just about everything they carry with their name on the label).There's a lot more. You can check out Barnivore for information.
Quick note though, Guinness, Newcastle and Surly are not vegan friendly.
Yeast
16 November 2010This one may be obvious to you, but I had to question it, and I've had a handful of people ask me: Is yeast vegan?
I wasn't sure because I remember learning in my community college biology class that of all the living things we've studied, the DNA of yeast most closely resembles the DNA of humans. I don't know how biologists explain this; in the blogging world, we call it weird.
Yeast is a fungus, so it is indeed vegan.
B12
15 November 2010Vitamin B12 is the only nutritional element that cannot be acquired naturally on a vegan diet. All other vitamins, minerals, proteins, iron, calcium, fats...everything your body needs to survive can be obtained by eating a variety of plants, except vitamin B12.
Sunny asked me the other night if that was proof that people aren't meant to be vegan. I'm sure it's been used as proof in some arguments. But then I've also had people ask me, "If you were stranded on a desert island and the only thing to eat was meat, would you eat it?" Of course I would. And they told me I wasn't really a vegetarian then.
In the real world though, it's completely feasible to maintain a vegan diet, and take a B12 supplement. I bought a B-Complex supplement from Trader Joe's the other day. On the label, it says that it's vegan, so I know they didn't obtain the B12 from animal products. They must obtain it from bacteria. There is B12 in seaweed, but studies have shown that our bodies can't absorb that form.
If you don't want to take a pill, you can eat foods that have been fortified with B12. It turns out that a lot of substitute foods are fortified with B12. We eat Big Franks and Vegetarian Burger from Worthington/Morningstar/Kellogg, both of which are fortified with B12, among other things.
The point is that if you're eating a lot of substitute foods, you don't need to worry too much about B12. Yesterday, Sunny and I didn't eat any substitute foods, so we took a pill.
Actually, we each took half of a pill. According to the label, this pill provides eight times the daily recommended dosage. We're really not sure why that's necessary. I suppose it's a marketing thing. Maybe people who generally buy supplements think more is better. Even with half a pill, we each got four times the daily dosage, but it was too hard to break it down further.
Nutritional yeast flakes are fortified with B12. This is something Sunny and I like to put on popcorn, and even though "nutritional" is in the name, we've never really thought of it as a nutritional food. We just like the flavor, and we often call it by another name: yeast flakes, or brewer's yeast. Not really the same thing by the way. Beware though: unless the yeast flakes are refrigerated and kept from light, they will lose some of their nutrients. We don't refrigerate ours, but we don't count it for our nutrients either. And we only eat it on popcorn, which means not all that often. By the way, yeast flakes are a complete protein.
Quickly, what I ate yesterday:
Smoothie for breakfast. Sunny made it. I'm not sure what all was in it, but it was green, so there must have been some spinach.
Roasted teeny, tiny potatoes, grape tomatoes and pearl onions with some mustard greens on the side.
Tater tots, followed by apple crisp. I used almond meal instead of flour in the apple crisp. It was delicious and healthier. It would have been gluten free, if I'd used gluten free oats from Bob's Red Mill.
As I already mentioned, I also took a vitamin B pill.
That doesn't look like a lot of food, but I wasn't terribly active yesterday.
Substitutions
14 November 2010Like I said, right now I'm eating nonvegan food as long as it's free. Last night at work, we sampled some brie fondue, so I ate some. It made me think, going vegan won't be so bad, because that fondue was not good.
Here's something I find interesting: all the fake food out there. Meatless meat made of soy or some other plant; milk made of soy, rice, almonds, coconut, hemp, etc.; egg substitute; margarine; ice cream made of soy or whatever. I get that these things make transitioning easier. If a person is used to drinking milk, or putting it on their cereal, then it's nice to simply switch to vegan milk. And there are a lot of really good vegan products out there that are imitating nonvegan foods.
But if the whole world were vegan, if mankind had never started eating meat and animal products, then there'd be no such thing as soy ice cream, because there'd be no ice cream to begin with. Seems like with that step missing, we never would have reached the conclusion.
I like eating fake meat products occasionally, but as a vegetarian, I really like eating vegetables. If I'm going to eat a fake hamburger, I'm going to add a big slice of tomato, some onion and lettuce. The burger, unlike a beef hamburger, won't be the center of the sandwich; it will be equal to the vegetables.
So far, in my vegan journey, I've been drinking a lot of vegan milks. I don't see that changing. I've always liked cereal, and since I'm making my own granola, full of nuts and fruits, I'll keep drinking almond milk.
I see two types of vegan meals, and I think most vegans eat both types. Type one is really a nonvegan meal where items are substituted to make it vegan. Type two is completely vegan, where you wouldn't say, "You just left out the chicken," or, "You used applesauce instead of egg." Type two would stand alone, so that meat eaters would try it and say, "This is good," rather than, "This would be better with some bacon on top."
Type two is what I want to make. I think vegan food can really be its own thing, and be really good.
Cornbread
13 November 2010This morning we found a cornbread recipe online and made substitutions, so it looks like this:
1½ c Cornmeal
2½ c Coconut Milk
2 c All-Purpose Flour
1 T Baking Powder
1 t Salt
⅔ c White Sugar
½ c Applesauce
½ c Vegetable Oil1. Combine milk and cornmeal and let stand for five minutes.
2. Combine dry ingredients in a separate bowl and mix.
3. Then combine everything, mix it up and pour it into an oiled 9x13 inch pan.
4. Bake at 400 degrees for 30-35 minutes.It looked like it was going to be drier than normal cornbread, because it cracked on the top, but inside it was moist and delicious. I did put Earth Balance margarine and applesauce on top, which probably helped make it even moister, but that's what we normally do with cornbread.
By the way, Smart Balance isn't vegan. In fact, some varieties aren't even vegetarian. They have fish oils.
Note that the coconut milk isn't the from-the-can stuff; it's the milk substitute stuff, made by So Delicious. It's a little too thick for drinking or putting on cereal, in my opinion. I think we'll be sticking to almond milk. We bought the shelf-stable variety. I'll probably give the refrigerated coconut milk a try at some point, but I'm pretty happy with almond milk in general.
We have eaten ice cream made with coconut milk, also by So Delicious, and it was really good. However, it was over $5 for a pint. At the end of this month I'll check out how much we've spent on groceries and compare it to October, when we were still just vegetarians. I'm a little scared. But even if it's high, I'm sure we can lower it while remaining vegan. We're doing a lot of experimenting this month. Once we find recipes and products that we know we like, we can settle into more of a routine and control our spending habits.
Freegan
12 November 2010I've been telling people that I've stopped buying nonvegan food but that I'll still eat nonvegan food if it's offered to me. So, for example, we've got a lot of holiday food coming in to Trader Joe's that isn't vegan, and we sample the new products so we can tell the customers about them.
Anyway, someone at work said, "So you're a freegan?"
I said, "Yeah, I guess so." A freegan is a vegan who will still eat nonvegan food as long as it's free, right? Not really.
Turns out freegans are something else. Something more. They eat food from dumpsters and make soup out of the weird things growing on the sides of buildings. They believe that our society as a whole is pretty much corrupted by greed, that you can't really buy anything without supporting something or someone corrupt.
I've felt this way before. Kraft, Nabisco, and Kool-Aid are owned by Altria, formerly known as Phillip Morris. Gillette, Pampers, Mister Clean, Pringles, Duracell and more are owned by Procter & Gamble. So you're supporting the tobacco industry or a company that does animal testing just by buying everyday item.
So, I completely understand freeganism. I just don't think I could maintain that sort of lifestyle.
Feeling Better
11 November 2010I'm feeling a little better, anyway. I haven't been sleeping well for the last three weeks, and last night was no exception. That lack of sleep isn't helping me recover from this cold, but...
Yesterday I started my morning with Emergen-C and orange juice. Then I had a smoothie—banana, orange juice, coconut milk, raspberries and spinach—with some hash browns and MorningStar sausages. The sausages were not vegan; they have egg whites in them.
Then I had some ravioli from the co-op—squash and soy ricotta—with some basil tomato sauce.
And this morning I'm starting off with Emergen-C and orange juice, followed by granola and almond milk.
I did some shopping yesterday: mostly grains for baking bread and making granola, but I did buy some crimson pears. Today after work I'll load up on fresh fruits and veggies, as well as dried fruits for adding to granola. I think granola and smoothies are going to be a common theme in the mornings. Quick and full of goodness.
Right now, I'm thinking stir fry or curry for dinner.
What I Ate Yesterday
10 November 2010I was asked to list what I'm eating. My original idea for this blog was to do just that, but then I thought it would be pretty boring an monotonous after a while. This request came from someone who has no idea was vegetarians eat, so a vegan diet is probably even more baffling. So here's how today went:
I started with French pressed coffee with soy creamer.
Then I had Cheerios with almond milk.
Just before work I quickly threw together some rice (already made and sitting in the fridge), Cuban style black beans (from the can), fire roasted corn (frozen) and spinach (frozen). I enjoyed it, but I'm afraid that it's the sort of meal that causes nonvegans to think all vegan food is bland and gross. Like I said, I threw it together quickly.
Then I ate some frozen Pad Thai from work, and some peppermint Joe-Joe's (the Trader Joe's version of Oreos, in case you didn't know; unlike Oreos, Joe-Joe's are vegan).
A little later, my friend Aaron gave me a piece of homemade vegan cheesecake. All I know is that cashews were involved and it tasted lemony. It was really good. A little grainy, which didn't bother me at all. Maybe the mistake was in calling it cheesecake, because then people tend to imagine a certain texture. But now that I think about it, Aaron may not have called it cheesecake. It was someone else who said that.
So that's what I ate today. Not too exciting. Tomorrow I have the day off, so I plan to make some actual meals.
I'm feeling a little sick right now. Sore throat, headache, tired. In being forced to list what I ate, I realize it lacked fruit and vegetables. That's not common for me; I just need do some grocery shopping.
I think pushing the transition forward may not have been a great idea, because I'm not yet sure how to eat wisely.
I looked up at nutritionist today. I'll make an appointment soon to see if I'm missing anything from my diet.
Almonds
9 November 2010Sunny hates peanuts, which means she hates peanut butter. Knowing that peanut butter on whole wheat toast constitutes a complete protein, she asked if almond butter on whole wheat toast worked as well. So I checked it out.
Combining legumes with grains provides all the indispensable amino acids, which is why combining peanuts (legume) and whole wheat (grain) provides a complete protein. But almonds are not legumes. They're drupes. Yeah, I didn't know either. A drupe is the seed of a stone fruit. So almonds fit in the same category as peaches and plums.
That said, almonds are actually amazing when it comes to amino acids. They have all of them, just not all in the amounts one might need. In order to get the enough of the amino acids almonds are low in, you'd have to eat—you guessed it—grains.
Short story: almond butter on whole wheat bread does indeed constitute a complete protein. And Sunny's happy.
Note on yesterday's post: My brother informed me that I missed a golden opportunity, since I had already mentioned both Mike Tyson and cannibalism. I should have said that Mike Tyson made a real commitment when he went from canniblism (biting Evander Holyfield's ear) to veganism. If he can make that switch, anyone can be vegan.
Skinny Vegans
8 November 2010Shortly after becoming a vegetarian, while working at a sporting goods store, a customer asked me a question (about cooking meat on camp stoves, if I remember correctly), which led me to tell her I didn't eat meat. She told me, "That's why you're so skinny." As if I was skinny to an unhealthy degree. I neither lost nor gained weight when I cut meat from my diet, and I'd only been a vegetarian for a couple of weeks at this time.
A few people, when I told them I'm going vegan, said, "You're going to be so skinny." Then they looked at me and said, "Well I guess you can't get much skinnier."
I think this idea stems from the idea that eating fatty foods makes you fat. It's not true. You are not what you eat, unless you're a cannibal. Ha. Cannibals eat what they are.
I looked on Wikipedia for a list of famous vegans. Most of them I didn't recognize, just like when I look at the trashy magazines in the checkout line, with all the famous people who I don't know. But I noticed a trend among the ones I did recognize.
Natalie Portman, Casey Affleck, Emily & Zooey Deschanel, Carrie-Anne Moss, Alicia Silverstone, Jason Schwartzman, Olivia Wilde, Fiona Apple, Erykah Badu, Avril Lavigne, Moby, Saul Williams, Portia de Rossi, Jared Leto, Woody Harrelson, Toby Maguire.
You get the point. Skinny people. Or, if not skinny, definitely not overweight at all. I swear to you, vegans can be fat.
I tried to find a famous fat vegan to prove my point, when I noticed something better. A famous vegan who's not fat, but not skinny either. The undisputed heavyweight champion, Mike Tyson. Ok, he only became a vegan last year, but I think he's still a pretty big guy. I love how Wikipedia presents Tyson's veganism: Tyson's four-year-old died, he married Lakiha Spicer ten days later, and he's vegan. All this in the same paragraph.
Although, at this moment, I can't find any proof of fat vegans, I would say that vegans are more likely to be skinny for one of two reasons: they aren't eating healthily (vegans have to make an extra effort to pay attention to what they eat), or they eat very healthily, because vegans have to make an extra effort...
There's plenty of vegan junk food out there, and the bottom line is that if you're taking in more calories than you're using, you will gain weight, whether you're a vegan or a cannibal.
Fortification
7 November 2010I've never understood fortifying food with vitamins and minerals.
First let's clear up the difference between fortified foods and enriched foods.
Fortification is when vitamins and minerals are added to a food product where they never existed. For example, adding vitamin D to milk, or adding calcium to orange juice.
Enrichment, on the other hand, is when vitamins and minerals are replaced after having been removed. For example, enriched white flour has been processed and broken down to take out the fiber. In that process, some of the nutrients are lost, so those are put back in. If you just ate whole grain, the original, naturally present nutrients would already be there.
Fortification of food has been around for a long time. The whole idea seems to be that people aren't smart enough to eat a variety of food with all the necessary nutrition, so they put the necessary nutrition in the food we do eat. No more thinking.
Obviously, I'm advocating for eating a variety of food. It keeps life interesting, in addition to keeping you healthy.
Instead of drinking OJ fortified with calcium, eat more leafy greens, or drink almond milk. If you can't stand eating leafy greens or drinking almond milk, just take a pill.
I'm not opposed to fortified food. I'll eat it. There are some good vegetarian meat products I enjoy that are fortified with the nutrients vegetarians, those who don't vary their diet, are most likely missing. I don't eat them for the nutrients (I don't eat them so that I can pretend I'm eating meat either); I just eat them because they're tasty.
I'll get my nutrients from eating the food where they're naturally present.
Transition
6 November 2010The running joke at work for the last week, whenever I'm eating anything that's not vegan friendly, or even if it is vegan approved (it is a joke after all), has been:
Coworker: "You can't eat that."
Me: "I'm not vegan yet."But Sunny said today, as I put havarti on my otherwise vegan sandwich, "If we're going to be vegan, let's just do it." So we're doing it.
No more buying non-vegan food. We'll just finish all this stuff we already have in the house:
I'll still eat any of the free non-vegan food that comes my way at work, until January, at which point I'll have to learn to turn down free samples. Quite possibly the hardest thing I'll deal with, and on a daily basis.
My brother told me today that our dad wants to go out to eat for Thanksgiving. We'd both rather cook, so I think that's what we're going to do. He asked me if we should make him eat a vegetarian meal. I'm not sure how that will go. He's pretty open to eating new things, and he says he likes it, but he's an Old Country Buffet kind of guy who will get one plate full of just meat, in addition to his plate full of salad and plate full of desserts.
But I'm not going to bake a turkey, and my dad hasn't owned an oven in about ten years, so if there's going to be a turkey made here, it will be made by my brother.
I'm really just looking forward to this:
Put the rhutabagas & turnips over the kale and drizzle tahini dressing over the top. Best Thanksgiving food ever.
Protein
5 November 2010As a vegetarian, the most common nutritional question I hear from meat-eaters is, "How do you get enough protein?"
Experienced vegetarians know that it's easy enough to get the 45 to 60 grams of protein required each day. On average, adults in the US get 74 grams each day. Any protein that isn't used by the body to maintain and replace tissues (muscles, enzymes, hormones, skin cartilage, ligaments, antibodies, red blood cells) is used for energy or stored as fat.
That's right: eating protein in excess can make you fatter.
And, as a vegetarian, it's basically that simple. If you eat dairy and eggs, you don't even have to think about protein. But, if you refrain from eating any animal products, you have to pay attention to amino acids.
Amino acids are not something that you find in protein; amino acids are protein. There are 20 common amino acids: 9 of them are essential, meaning you need to include them in your daily diet; the rest are nonessential.
Essential
Histidine*
Isoleucine
Leucine
Lysine
Methionine
Phenylalanine
Threonine
Tryptophan
Valine
Nonessential
Alanine
Arginine
Asparagine
Aspartic Acid
Cysteine
Glutamic Acid
Glutamine
Glycine
Proline
Serine
Tyrosine
To be clear, essential and nonessential amino acids are all necessary in order for your body to perform all the fuctions it needs to. The difference is that your body can create nonessential amino acids out of the essential amino acids. Essential amino acids must be eaten.
Sounds pretty complicated? It's not really. All you need to do is vary your diet. Make sure you're not eating the same thing for every meal. As my community college nutrition teacher said, "Don't be a starchatarian."
Combining legumes (beans, peas, peanuts, lentils) with grains (wheat, rice, corn) is all you need to do. Here are some common examples:
Black Beans & Rice
Hummus & Pita Bread
Tofu & RiceRefried Beans in a Corn or Wheat Tortilla
Pea Soup with Bread
Peanut Butter on Whole Grain ToastSome of these may sound more appetizing than others. The good news is that there's a lot of variety to suit different taste buds. And you don't have to create strange new combinations; traditional meals from around the world have paired foods to provide complete proteins for centuries.
Today's technical information comes from the third edition of Nutrition Now by Judith E. Brown. It's now in it's sixth edition.
*According to Wikipedia, histidine is only considered an essential amino acid in infants.
Religion
4 November 2010In my first post, I mentioned a few reasons that someone might choose a vegan lifestyle. One reason that I didn't mention is religious belief. There are many religions throughout the world that teach veganism or vegetarianism:
Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism all teach veganism, vegetarianism, or at least the restriction of certain meats, with the general themes being personal health, stewardship of the earth, and nonviolence.
Jains even avoid root vegetables (carrots and potatoes for example), because it requires killing the plant.
Here's a Seventh-Day Adventist blog regarding veganism, among other things. They've got some good recipes in there.
Coffee Creamer
3 November 2010Finally bought myself some soy creamer, and I used it in my coffee this morning. It tasted better than the coconut milk I used yesterday, and it didn't make the back of my throat itch the way soy milk does. Maybe not every brand of soy milk would make the back of my throat itch; maybe just every brand I've tried so far.
While typing this, and figuring out how to format the nutritional information below, I got an email response to yesterday's post about coconut milk. MimicCreme makes a coffee creamer (in addition to other creamer options for cooking and baking) that uses cashews and almonds. I got the nutritional information from their website.
Here's a comparison of the nutritional information for 2 Tablespoons (on the packaging, the soy creamer and MimicCreme are based on 1Tbsp, so I converted them to match the half & half):
Calories
Total Fat
Saturated Fat
Cholesterol
Sodium
Sugar
Protein
Vitamin A
CalciumHalf & Half
40
3.5g
2g
15mg
1g
less than 1g
2%
4%Soy Creamer
30
3g
2gMimicCreme
20
2g
Soy Creamer is looking a lot healthier than half & half. It doesn't have any Calcium, or Vitamin A, but I'm not really looking to get my vitamins and minerals from the small amount of creamer I add to my coffee. I'm just trying to make my coffee creamy.
MimicCreme looks even better. My dilemma is that I can get soy creamer where I work, so I'll probably just do that.
According to MimicCreme's website, there are no retailers in Minnesota. However, MimicCreme is shelf-stable, so it may be nice to have some on hand in the cupboard, and it could be great for recipe substitutions. It is available online. Thanks for the email, Connie.
Coconut Milk
2 November 2010
My new best friend comes in an aluminum can. Sunny and I like to make smoothies for breakfast, and we've realized there’s only one ingredient we put into our smoothies that isn’t vegan approved: yogurt. At first, I thought, we’ll use soy yogurt. I’ll give that a try later on, but today (and yesterday; hence two different recipes below) I used light coconut milk.
I should let you know that I work at Trader Joe’s, and they have a lot of vegan options, so I’ll be mentioning them frequently. TJ’s is where I bought this coconut milk. Let me give you the basic rundown for the smoothie. This is listed in the order that I placed them in the blender. I didn’t measure, so these are estimates.Frozen Raspberries (a cup)
Orange Juice (a cup)
One Bosc Pear (quartered & cored)
Coconut milk (half a can)Frozen Mango (two cups)
Orange Juice (a cup & a half)
One Bosc Pear (quartered & cored)
Coconut Milk (the whole can)It was delicious. One downside is that it will taste like coconut. Not a downside for me, but if you don’t like coconut...
Another downside (this is something I never used to look at), even though it’s light, it still has more fat than the lowfat plain yogurt we normally use. At first it didn’t look like too much more, but then I realized the nutritional information on the yogurt was based on one cup, while that of the coconut milk was based on a third of a cup. Watch out for that. Point being, it had six times the fat. So this may not be something we want to do very often.
While I’m talking about coconut milk though, I also used it in place of half & half in my coffee this morning. The coffee didn’t instantly turn light brown, like it does when I use half & half. It stayed fairly dark, but I liked it. Again, not something I’ll do too often, not only because of the fat content, but also because I like my coffee to taste like coffee, not coconut. Also, as the coffee cooled a little, a film formed on the top. Still drinkable, I still enjoyed it, but I may not use coconut milk as creamer anymore.
World Vegan Day
1 November 2010The other day I went to brunch with two of my friends from high school. We went to The Original Pancake House, where they serve very large portions. I ate half of a four egg omelet and half of an apple pancake, which also had egg. It was almost like a pancake/omelet hybrid. I enjoyed the food, so even though I knew I was full, I kept eating. And I ate, and I finished it all.
You should know that I ride my bike to work daily. That's sixteen miles each day. And, when my knees permit, I run. The point being, I can eat a lot of food in one sitting, and generally, if I don't stuff myself to a nearly uncomfortable degree, I'll get hungry again very quickly. Yes, I have a fast metabolism.
That food, however, made my stomach unhappy for the rest of the day, and all I kept thinking was, "Too much egg. Too much cheese. Too much cream." I also had cream in my coffee.
I'm not saying that eggs, cheese and cream are bad for you, because if I ever wanted to run for president, I'd lose votes from too many important farmers. But maybe...
Maybe if I did eat only vegan food for a period of time, my body would be happier. I don't know. Let's find out.
One year, eating only vegan food. I'll post daily about the food that I'm eating (I plan to create some fabulous vegan dishes), the way my body feels, social interactions related to my new diet, and anything else that comes up over the course.
During this year of veganism, I will also be training for my first marathon and riding my bike through a Minnesota winter. I plan to visit a nutritionist, and other experts, to get advice. This is going to be more than my own rambling. I'm sure I'm going to learn about nutrition and food, and maybe you will too.
Over the next two months I will transition. Starting January first, 2011, I will be completely vegan.
Stay tuned.
