The Vegan Experiment: Day 22

Day 22

Breakfast: Kashi Island Vanilla cereal with soy milk
Lunch: Whole wheat pizza, orange
Snack: Crackers and hummus
Dinner: Peanut butter and jelly on whole wheat toast, fruit salad

I’ve lost another pound! Kathy Freston was right when she said that following a vegan diet will help you slim up without even thinking about food portions. I’m also starting my 4^th and final week of this experiment. It hasn’t been as difficult as I thought it would be. It helps that I already wasn’t eating meat before I started, but some of the food substitutes have been difficult. I really miss milk. I’m surprised by that. I thought that I would miss other things more, like milk chocolate and cookies. The truth is that I really don’t like soy milk or almond milk. I was thinking about trying rice milk, but I don’t think that it would satisfy my milk craving. I’m sitting here wondering if I could go the rest of my life with milk. That would be a tough change for me to make.

I also had success in finding farro today at Whole Foods. I find it disappointing and frustrating that my grocery store does not carry some of these foods that are so good for you but a little different. I don’t have the opportunity to frequent multiple grocery stores. My regular grocery store isn’t that close to Whole Foods and the Whole Foods isn’t that big, which doesn’t enable me to really do all of my shopping.

How Eating a Steak Can Cause Global Warming

Have you ever thought about how your food choices affect the environment? We’re all aware of the benefits of recycling, driving hybrid cars, and packing our groceries in reusable bags, but have you ever given any thought to the food you eat and its environmental impact? If you haven’t, today is the day to understand what it means to consume different foods.

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) just released an assessment of the environmental impact of a variety of protein sources. When you eat a steak, it’s not as simple as butchering a cow to get it on to your dinner plate. The cow needs a place to live until it is slaughtered. This home requires running water which is powered by electricity. It needs farm workers which travel via car to the site. The cow needs to eat, which requires another farm to grow and ship the food. The cow then needs to be transported to a slaughterhouse to be butchered. During this whole process, the cow is eating and emitting methane gases through the digestive process.

Why is methane bad you ask? According to the EPA, methane is 20 times better at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. That translates to methane being much more effective at global warming. When there is large consumption of food that originates from methane producing animals, we are contributing to global warming. Since cows produce methane, the food products that have the largest carbon footprint are beef, lamb, and cheese.

Here are just some of the climatic savings that you can make by eating less meat:

• Eat 1 less hamburger per week –> Taking your car off the road for 320 miles
• 4 person family skips meat and cheese 1 day per week –> Taking your car off the road for 5 weeks
• 4 person family skips steak 1 day per week –> Take your car off the road for 3 months
• Everyone ate no meat and cheese 1 day per week –> Taking 7.6 million cars off the road or not driving 9.6 billion miles!!!!

Protein sources with the lowest carbon footprint are lentils, tomatoes, milk, and beans. To make a difference, all you have to do is replace a hamburger with a veggie burger 1 day a week or have beans in your taco instead of beef. It’s cost savings for you, and an environmental savings for everyone.

The Vegan Experiment: Day 21

Day 21

Breakfast:  Oatmeal with brown sugar and banana
Lunch:  2 slices of whole wheat toast with peanut butter
Snack:  Cashews
Dinner:  Whole wheat pizza with sauce, roasted onions and roasted green beans

OMG! Roasted green beans are delicious!  I typically only think of roasting the typical roasting vegetables – potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, carrots, beets, etc.  I decided to get a little crazy tonight and roast green beans.  They were so much better than steaming them.  I could have eaten them as a snack.  Combined with the roasted onions and pizza sauce, I didn’t even slightly miss the cheese on my pizza.  It would have masked the flavor of my vegetables. 

My other experience of the day was my search for farro.  I have a recipe for a farro salad that I would like to try and attempted to buy some during my weekly shopping trip.  First of all, you may be asking what farro is.  In a nutshell, it’s a whole grain.  I’ve read that it is compared with barley and can be used interchangeably.  I have barley in pantry but really want to try farro in this dish and see what it tastes like for myself.  It is full of protein and high in fiber but not sold in my grocery store, not even in the natural foods section.  I’m going to search for it tomorrow at Whole Foods and am keeping my fingers crossed that I will find it.  Stay tuned for my review.

The Vegan Experiment: Day 20

Day 20
Breakfast: Oatmeal with brown sugar and raisins, banana
Lunch: Peanut butter and jelly on whole wheat bread, chips, mandarin orange
Snack: Animal crackers
Dinner: Whole wheat pasta with marinara sauce and meat-free ground beef and veggies

First of all, I am still not a fan of faux meat. There is just something about the texture that makes me want to gag. This one was definitely not a winner. It was so bad that I didn’t even save the leftovers. I’m not willing to throw in the towel yet, but I’m slowly working through my options without success. Maybe I’ll just stick to beans as my meat substitute.

Secondly, I want to extol the praises of whole grains. Awhile ago, I read on someone else’s blog that she picks a whole grain and then plans her meal around that item. I thought that was a little weird, but I’m starting to get it. Whole grains make you feel full. This fact is essential to anyone who is trying to master the balance of eating appropriate amounts of food versus feeling hungry. Kathy Freston said in her book that usually has a breakfast of brown rice with nuts and maybe fruit. When I first read that I kind of chuckled, who eats rice for breakfast.? Rice isn’t a breakfast food. I’m learning that maybe it should be. Your body goes for hours overnight without food. It stands to reason that you need to fuel yourself in the mornings with something that is going to be satisfying for a long time.

I just read someone’s blog post today in which she said that she had a rice bowl for breakfast. It sounded really good and inspiring. It may have taken me 20 days to learn this lesson, but whole grains should be part of everyone’s diet daily.

The Vegan Experiment: Day 19

Day 19
Breakfast: Kashi Golden Sunshine cereal with vanilla soy milk, banana
Lunch: Tofu salad on whole wheat toast with vegan cheese, chips
Snack: Animal crackers
Dinner: Peanut butter on whole wheat toast, crackers and hummus
Snack: Orange

Calling all Costco shoppers! Costco samples are not vegan. I took a trip to Costco today and was sorely disappointed not to have any samples. There were decadent cheesecake samples, seafood spreads on crackers, milk chocolates and bagel pizzas. Typically, I will try all of these, splitting them with my son (he’s a big fan of the bagel pizzas) but not today. Today, I had to say no. Am I disappointed, not really. I’ve tried these things before and even though most people love free food, it was a lot easier saying no because I’m trying to be vegan than to try and say no because I’m trying to be healthy.

While vegan food can be found at any grocery store, the larger variety of vegan foods can only be found at more specialty grocery stores such as Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s. At least, that holds true for where I live. I know that other communities have larger populations of vegetarians of all sorts, consequently, there are more food options available to them. I would love to see Costco sell tempeh in bulk!

Along the same thought of community expectations, in my region, there is rarely consideration for vegetarians when it comes to events. My specific experience is work. I have on occasion been privy to work-bought dinners. Nights when you’re working late and management wants to soften the blow that you aren’t home to eat with your family and say thank you for your extra effort, so they bring in food. I give props to my work, because the food is usually pretty good; however, it is rarely vegetarian. In fact, I had a recent experience where dinner was provided and the options were pasta with marinara and meat sauce, pasta with chicken in cream sauce or salad which had bacon in it. Even when I expect dinner to be provided, I still always bring a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, just in case.

The Vegan Experiment: Day 17

Day 17

Breakfast: Kashi Island Vanilla with vanilla soy milk, banana
Lunch:  Tofu salad with vegan cheese on whole wheat toast, pretzels
Snack:  Pineapple
Dinner: Stir-Fry with brown rice

I enjoy cooking.  I find chopping vegetables and stirring sautéing onions calming and relaxing.  I love the smell of food cooking, especially as the smells change with every additional ingredient. I don’t have the time to cook every day, but the days I get the time and opportunity to attempt a challenging meal, I try to relax and enjoy the process. 

 As a vegetarian, many of my dishes include vegetables.  I’m sure that isn’t a surprise.  The resulting product is always something full of color.  Over the years, I have discovered that I love colorful meals.  It makes me excited to eat.  Tonight’s dinner was one of those colorful dishes (Sorry that I didn’t take a picture!).  It looked great on a plate, and I was happy to see my son dig in with gusto.

Last summer, we went to the shore for vacation and ate many meals out.  My son, who was 1 at the time, frequently didn’t eat much at those meals.  I think that he too is attracted to colorful plates of food.  A meal of chicken fingers and French fries is pretty blah looking.  Maybe that’s why so many kids like ketchup.  It may not be for taste but the shock of color that it adds to the plate.   Now that he is a little older, my son remembers that a French fry tastes good and is not so turned off by the color or should I say the lack of color, but he still gravitates towards the bright green of broccoli and the orange of carrots.  I try to make sure that he gets these brightly colored foods regularly so that the attraction that has developed isn’t lost.  I don’t want him to think that a blah colored meal is the norm and the bright colors of vegetables don’t belong.  A great example is cauliflower.  My vegetable loving son refused to eat cauliflower.  One of the few times that we actually got him to put it in his mouth, he loved it.  He doesn’t choose to pick it up from his plate because it’s white, a boring color.  Poor cauliflower – cursed just because it’s boring to look at. 

There are days when there just isn’t time to chop and sauté and bake a dinner filled with fresh vegetables.  I admit that those are chicken nugget nights for him.  Alongside those chicken nuggets will always be a colorful vegetable.  I keep a supply of frozen organic vegetables in the freezer.  I pour a serving in a bowl, cover them with water, and microwave them for 90 seconds.  I’m proud to say that he always eats that serving of veggies before the chicken nuggets.

Stir-Fry Sauce

3 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp red wine vinegar
3tbsp water
1tbsp cornstarch
1 ½ tsp sugar

Mix together sauce ingredients and set aside.

Saute your choice of vegetables in olive oil until tender.  Green beans, sweet onion, red pepper, mushrooms and pineapple is an awesome combination.   After the vegetables are mostly cooked, pour in the sauce.  Bring to a boil and then simmer until sauce is thick.  Serve over brown rice.

The Vegan Experiment: Day 16

Day 16

Breakfast: Oatmeal squares with vanilla soy milk, banana
Lunch: Tofu salad on wheat toast, vegan cheese, pretzels, apple
Snack: Almonds, orange
Dinner: Salad (leafy greens, sun-dried tomatoes, granny smith apples, balsamic vinaigrette), vegetable curry, brown rice

Tonight was a big night. It was the first time in ages that my husband and I got a babysitter and went out to dinner. For this special occasion, I had full intentions of cheating on this diet. I hadn’t been out to dinner in so long and didn’t want to be more limited than I normally am with my diet. I got lucky. We decided to go to an Asian Fusion place that actually had several menu options that just happen to be vegan. These jumped out at me as soon as I started perusing the menu. My eyes kept being drawn back to them and some guilty thoughts started slowly creeping in regarding my plans to cheat. Finally, I couldn’t fight the guilt and ordered a vegan dinner. I even refrained from tasting my husband’s calamari appetizer. It did look delicious, but I was afraid that I would have big regrets later. At the end of the day, I am extremely proud of myself for staying on my diet and thoroughly enjoyed my dinner.

My dish had strips of tofu in it. The tofu pieces were kind of chewy and crispy. I have to learn how to cook tofu this way. The few times that I have tried to make tofu as a main course or even part of a main course have been disastrous, but this was delicious. What am I doing wrong?

The Vegan Experiment: Day 15

Day 15

Breakfast:  Oatmeal, soy milk, banana
Lunch:  Tofu salad on whole wheat toast, cheese, pretzels
Snack:  Almonds
Dinner:  Soft tacos with black beans, onions and red pepper, orange

To start out – I lost 3 pounds!  My first reaction was complete shock and then I worked on this analysis of what I ate over the last 3 days, and the shock wore away.  Despite the large amount of food that I have been eating, I really haven’t been consuming all that many calories.  To mantain my weight, I need to eat about 2100 calories a day.  I am eating well under that amount.  It still doesn’t explain a 3 pound weight loss.  Maybe it’s because I’ve been exercising more.  Maybe I was carrying water weight last week.  Whatever.  I will take it.

 

Here are the totals from my 3 day analysis.   Besides the low calories, you should notice that my fat is low and my fiber and protein numbers are way above what I need.  On day 1, my fat consumption was a little high and overall, I have eaten too much sodium.  I’m sure that is from the processed foods that I eat, like crackers and hummus.  My sugar is higher than my RDA, but I’m not overly concerned with that.  A lot of that sugar came from fruit, especially pineapple.  My take-away from this exercise is to watch the amount of processed foods that I eat.  I need to get those sodium numbers down.

Tofu Salad

12 oz firm tofu
1 tsp tumeric
2 tbs chopped red pepper
2 tbs chopped sweet onion
2 tbs Vegannaise

1.  Drain the tofu
2.  Crumble the tofu and mix all the ingredients together.

The Vegan Experiment: Day 14

Day 14

Breakfast:  Oatmeal Squares cereal with vanilla soy milk, orange
Snack:  Apple
Lunch: Kashi granola bar, peanuts, pretzels, twizzlers
Dinner:  Peanut butter on whole wheat toast, jelly beans

You’re probably looking at what I ate today and wondering where the healthful part of the vegan diet went.  I have a good excuse.  I did a charity walk today.  There you go.  That’s my excuse.  We walked 4.2 miles with the allure of a free lunch afterwards only for me to discover that there was not one vegan option except for the peanuts, pretzels and twizzlers.  Fortunately, I had brought the granola bar.  The organizers of the event had plenty of hamburgers, hot dogs, potato salad, etc but nothing vegan.  I was extremely disappointed.  I understand that these events need to take what is donated but how ironic is it that after encouraging people to walk several miles they serve nothing healthy.

After a long drive home, no one was in the mood to cook, so I stuck to my old stand by – peanut butter toast.  Since, the sweets from my lunch were already calling me to add more sweet stuff to my belly, the jelly beans didn’t stand a chance.  Ugh.  Back on track tomorrow.

The Vegan Experiment: Day 13

Day 13

Breakfast: Oatmeal Squares with vanilla soy milk
Lunch: Tempeh with olive oil and soy sauce, quinoa, crackers and hummus
Snack: tortilla chips
Dinner: Pasta with sautéed vegetables, pineapple

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how healthy a vegan diet actually is. I’ve decided to do a 3 day analysis of essential components of foods. I’m going to track not just what I eat but how much I eat and then compare calories, fat, saturated fat, carbohydrates, sodium, fiber, sugar and protein amounts against daily recommendations. My expectation is that I should far exceed or remain in the ranges for my daily consumption.

I’m most interested in protein. Many people’s first thoughts of a vegetarian (especially vegan) diet is that you aren’t getting enough protein. In actuality, people on a meat diet consume much more protein than they actually need. For example, the recommended daily allowance of protein for a woman my size is 46 g. People don’t realize that protein is found in all sorts of foods, including whole grains, legumes and even vegetables. A 4 oz chicken breast has approximately 26 g of protein. A 4 oz chicken breast is about the size of your fist. Most people eat 1.5-2 times that which means just in that piece of meat, you would be getting all the protein that you need for the day. Consequently, when you factor in the side of vegetable and pasta that you’re eating with that chicken, the cereal that you had for breakfast and the bread you had your sandwich on with lunch, you have well exceeded the amount of protein that you need in one day.

A lot of people are sitting back and saying so what if I eat too much protein. A diet in excessive protein can actually be harmful to your body. The additional protein that you have consumed is not used by the body at all, squashing the misconception that diets high in protein can build up muscle. The extra protein is removed from the body but not before it can cause excessive hydration which over time could lead to kidney damage and stress the heart.

Odds are that none of you are causing any long-term damage in the amount of protein you are eating unless you are consciously eating protein all day long. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be cognizant of the amount of nutrients that we are consuming on a daily basis, hence, my 3 day analysis. Stay tuned for the results.