Say Cheese, or say Smack

When I decided to try the whole vegan thing, my biggest worry was how I was going to say no to cheese. Part of my earliest memories of visiting my Grandma was that she would make us her macaroni and cheese. It was legendary (in my book anyway!). All of the emotions I associate with my Grandma - love and comfort just to name two, are wrapped up in those little cheesy noodles.
I also loved grilled cheese sandwiches (I later acquired the taste for the accompanying tomato soup), nachos, scalloped potatoes, and that pepper jack cheese with all those green and red bits in it. Bleu cheese came on the scene, first only in salads, but it quickly became a favourite as well. Let's just say I love cheese.

So how has it been going without? Well, I will say that on a Friday night, I miss making a meal of wine, cheese and crackers. (Ok, so that's my secret single behaviour from when I lived on my own!) But I still miss a good slice of aged cheddar... mmmm. Ploughman's Feast anyone? Anyway, I digress. The point is that I've survived, and I've actually learned a thing or two about why cheese might be so addictive. I figured it was worth sharing because maybe you've got a hankerin for the cheesy goodness too.

I was reading the book "The Vegetarian Flavor Bible" by Karen Page. She quotes Dr Neal Barnard, who tells us why cheese 'addiction' actually has a physical component to it.

"...cheese is a special case. Nutritionally, it is awful - with a very high content of saturated fat, cholesterol, and sodium. However, cheese is extremely high in casein, the dairy protein, which is not like the other proteins. It breaks apart to release opiates into the bloodstream, and these milk casomorphins attach to the same opiate receptors in the brain that heroin attaches to, called the mu-receptor. So it's not just taste, it's not just mouthfeel - dairy products are unique in that they release casomorphins, and cheese has a much higher concentration of them than milk or ice cream." 

"If I stuck a needle in your arm a half-hour after you ate cheese, there would be opiates in your bloodstream and attaching to your brain. While it's not enough to make you drive dangerously or rob a convenience store, it's enough to make you say the next day, 'I think I'd like a little more cheese.' Completely stinky, repugnant cheese become more attractive when a person associates what's going on in the brain with the smell and the flavor."

He goes on to say that "If you are hooked on cheese - or anything else- you might consider trying to make a clean break. That's easier than teasing yourself with little bits here and there."

Hmm. Cheese is like mini-heroin to your brain? Hard to believe, but lately what I've read a lot about the whole sugar / cocaine thing is similar. Why not cheese & heroin?

So... does that mean I'm going to go cold-turkey? Well, I have already, and I don't seem to need rehab. Truthfully, though, I just don't think I will stay off 'the good stuff' forever. I'll keep the doses low, carefully measured out to ensure I just take about one ounce. That should do it, right?

-VE

Gettin my Green On

I've been busy. Sorry, it's true, that even though I'm not working currently, I've still been busy. It takes time to find a job, you see, and I've allowed myself to be all consumed with it. It paid off because I've landed a job!! Maybe more on that later, we'll see. Anyway, the other reason I've been busy is that we've had family visiting. Well, ok, that last part has only been for the last 3.5 days or so, but it still counts.

Anyway, I thought I'd take the opportunity to share 2 recipes that I'm totally in love with. The first one is what I drink every morning for breakfast. I actually feel guilty when I DON'T drink it for breakfast, because it gives me my greens first thing in the morning. If nothing 'good' happens the rest of my day in terms of my diet, at least I know I started off on the right foot!

Now... don't get me wrong, either. I'm not a juicer, and up until now the only smoothie I would fix myself contained either a yogurt / strawberry / banana / oats combo, or sub out the strawberry & banana for raw cacao and peanut butter & that's my go-to number two. That was my repertoire... partly due to the fact that I wasn't really buying the whole "drink for breakfast" thing, and partly because my blender was a typical run-of-the-mill blender. Insert my sister's Blentec and the smoothie world is my oyster!

So... let's get to it. My new favourite go-to breakfast is the "classic green monster" from Oh She Glows. It's TASTY! See my recipes section for the ingredient amounts, but it's basically made with almond milk, spinach, frozen banana, peanut butter, chia seeds, vanilla and cinnamon. You can try subbing in kale for the spinach, but personally, I'm just NOT a fan of kale in a smoothie. It just flavours the whole thing which I feel is a bit overpowering, particularly in the morning. Let's just say that if I'm going to drink something green, it better be tasty.

So... here it is!

Now, I may have said that kale does not work in the smoothie. Ok, I will most certainly go on record and stand by that. I have, however found a fantastic place for kale. My 2nd favourite recipe right now is the "festive kale salad with sweet apple-cinnamon vinaigrette & pecan parmesan", again from Oh She Glows. Let's face it, I'm seriously loving that cookbook, and I think I could eat that kale salad every night. BIG TIME. And I don't feel guilty about it at all!

Please don't take the picture as any indication of what it tastes like. This picture makes it look like something you picked out of the seaweed at the beach - but that's partly because I've used Lacinto Kale. I was using curly kale originally, and it's not so dark green, but I figure it's good to change things up in the kale department every once in awhile! Both types of kale work really well, but I will say, you have to MASSAGE it. If you've never heard of massaging your kale, well, then you've probably never eaten kale (or enjoyed it if you did). What a chewing nightmare. If you've massaged the dressing into it properly, and even let it sit awhile (a few hours maybe) before you eat it, then you should have a perfectly 'relaxed' kale that won't make you feel like a cow eating dinner.

So... I've been busy getting my green on, and hopefully these 2 recipes will help you do it too!

xoxo
-VE

Moving Outta the Neighborhood

My sister and I went to Atlanta over the weekend. We went down there to go to Dr Furhman's "Nutritarian One-day Intensive" course on Saturday. If you've heard of Dr Furhman before, then you know what it was probably about. But for those of you who don't know who he is, he's written books like Eat to Live, The End of Diabetes, Eat for Health, and The End of Dieting, among others.

Dr Furhman promotes "Nutritarian" eating, which basically has 4 principles.

1. Your health expectancy is in direct proportion to the number of micronutrients you take in. Micronutrients are things like vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals. You should focus on eating the foods that will give you the most micronutrients per calorie you eat. 
2. Comprehensive Nutrient Adequacy. It's a long term that basically means you need to eat the rainbow. Haven't heard that before? You know, eat reds, greens, yellow, purples... so that you get all the different nutrients you need and don't end up looking like a carrot after eating too many of them.
3. Hormonally Favourable. Our bodies are full of hormones and they react to the different foods we eat - insulin and IGF-1 to name a few. He is basically saying here that we should eat foods that don't spike up our insulin and cause us to gain weight. IGF-1 is "Insulin-like Growth Factor 1" and it's a bad boy. It promotes cell division and growth. That ain't bad, right? Well, if you are a growing kid, no, it ain't bad, but if you're a cancer cell, well, that's really bad. So.... it's good to limit that sucker if you can.
4. Avoid toxins. Easy, right?! Not so easy. For example, I took a trip to my local grocery store to buy some corn tortillas to make enchiladas. The kind we buy at Trader Joe's have corn, water and lime in them. That's it. I don't think the corn is non-GMO certified or anything, and they aren't listed as organic, but in my book that's WAY better than the list of ingredients you'll find on a package of Mission (a popular brand).

Ingredients: Whole Grain Corn, Water, Cellulose Gum, Propionic Acid (to preserve freshness), Benzoic Acid and Phosphoric Acid (to preserve freshness), Guar Gum, Amylase.


What IS that stuff?!?  The point is, toxins are everywhere and in nearly everything. You really have to be diligent to avoid toxins, but believe me, I'm doing it. I even try to avoid toxins in my cosmetics... ok, I haven't graduated to eliminating it from my make-up, but I use brands like Yes To for my shampoo, body wash and lotions!

Anyway, whether you subscribe to the 4 principles or not, basically it's a primarily vegan diet that's low on grains (whole grains only if you're gonna have them) but still allows nuts and seeds - even recommends them! It's a plant-based diet that really focuses on eating healthy rather than just eating vegan... cause you and I both know by now that they really aren't the same. You can eat vegan potato chips all you want and you aren't going to lose a single pound, or improve your health.

So what do I mean about moving out of the neighborhood?

These questions were asked...
How many of you have ever been shot at?
How many of you have ever been car jacked?
How many of you have ever had your house broken into?
And now imagine you were sitting at your local town meeting, and those same questions were asked. What would you do? You'd think "I'VE GOTTA MOVE!! This place is no place for me to live!" If your family knew you were living in a place like that but refused to move, they'd think you were crazy!

Well, basically, we're living in a neighborhood where cancer, diabetes, heart attacks, alzheimer's and other ailments all seem to be the norm... and yet we are STILL living in the neighborhood and not moving. Those diseases don't have to be the norm! We can change the way we eat and make an impact on our health. I liked thinking about it that way. Sometimes it's really hard, but when I think about this.. "If you eat what most Americans eat, you'll get what most Americans get", it makes sense. I don't wanna get what most Americans get. FAT is just one of them.

The other statistic that he stated which scared the bejeezus outta me (that's a technical term).. was that 95% of American women over the age of 65 have active cancer in their breasts. It's just not detectable yet. SERIOUSLY!? I wish I knew where he got that information, but basically it's saying that the older you get, the more likely you are to have cells in your body that are acting up and morphing into things they shouldn't be. But that's not to say that it's all in your genes... basically the idea is that WE HAVE THE POWER to change our course. Sure, we might be born with some nasty buggers in there, but we can either turn up the volume and get them multiplying like crazy, or we can chill them the hell down and keep them at bay. I know, maybe it's not that easy but thinking of it as simply as that makes me at least feel like I've got a bit of control over the situation.

So... I'm moving out. Just how far away I go is yet to be seen.... but I'm doing it. This sh!t is for the birds.

xoxo
-VE

I like to move it, move it

I hit a slump this week. On Monday, I was totally bummed. I just woke up in a funk. Do you ever feel that way? It's like you probably shouldn't be sad, but you are, for whatever reason. I just felt down and like I wasn't sure what I was doing with my life. Wasn't that supposed to happen 5 months ago when I turned 40?! Talk about Monday blues!

I feel thankful, though. As I felt really lonely in my head, I reached out to a friend and just touched on the feelings I was having. Her advice? Start MOVING. And I'm so very thankful for it! 

Now, I know this kinda stuff. It's not new to me. I know that exercise will not only do wonders for your body, but it will help lift your mood. It's proven. Somehow I wasn't making the connection, or perhaps more truthfully, I didn't WANT to make the connection. I'd gotten myself into a funk and part of me was wallowing in it. Getting up the next morning and putting on a dance DVD was hard in some respects, but I started slowly. It's a dance DVD. Like.... geriatric, nursing home, low-impact dance DVD. Ok, it's definitely not marketed that way (see youtube video here), but it was certainly low-key compared to the P90X3 that I was doing before! Anyway, the point is, it got me moving, got a little sweat on and made me feel like I actually DID something productive for my health.

All this vegan stuff is great, but it doesn't seem to shift the weight effortlessly. Did I expect it to? No, not really, but I certainly hoped (prayed) it would! So, now I'm moving. Slowly, probably too slowly for some, but definitely DOing something. And that's a good thing.

So... to my friend... who knows who she is.... THANK YOU!! I needed that.

xoxo

-VE

Cheater

I can't say for absolute 100% certain that I've eaten some animal products, but if you asked me to put money on it, I'd probably bet against myself.

This week I had several networking events and meetings that weren't vegan friendly. The first was at a steakhouse - which, although I ordered the vegetable plate - I'm pretty certain one of those vegetables was doused in butter or cream or something. I didn't ask. Don't ask, don't tell, right? And then on another night, I was at an event where none (and I mean NONE) of the options were vegan-friendly. There was a caesar salad where the parmesan was already sprinkled on, a broccoli-cheese casserole with breadcrumbs on top, a breaded mozzarella chicken breast, and mashed potatoes (which looked yellow-y, so I'm assuming there was butter or cream involved). For dessert, they had cheesecakes or buckeyes (for those of you not from Ohio, they are basically peanut butter balls dipped in chocolate.) So... I was a bit disappointed with the choices and I'm relatively certain that I didn't get all those bits of cheese off of the salad. FAIL.

Both of those events this past week were particularly tempting to me. To some people, "Broccoli-cheese casserole" may seem like a good title for a B-grade horror movie, but to me, it's TAS-TY. I love the stuff. It was particularly hard for me to say no - so....well, I didn't. I took a little piece of broccoli and I made sure that there was no visible cheese-flecks on it, but I can tell you that if I had to pass a cheese-blood test, I'd fail! At least I'm admitting to it - you won't find it necessary for me to show up on Oprah on a "Sorry, I lied" program. (ahem, Lance)

Anyway- the whole point is to say that I've cheated a little this week. In my defense, it wasn't PURPOSEFUL cheating, it just kinda happened. All of a sudden I feel like the guilty cheating spouse who says "I'm so sorry, but if it makes you feel any better, it didn't MEAN anything to me!!"

The good news is that I've lost close to 5 or 6 pounds since the beginning of this whole thing. (Wait - that's not to say that the cheating was still ok!!)
Anyway - we're now in week 7 1/2, so it's not great weight loss, but considering that I've done virtually no exercise for the past 7.5 weeks...well, I'll take it.

p.s. I forgot to post a photo of the Valentine's Brunch that OE treated me to! It's at a place called Fern Flavors from the Garden. It was pretty tasty! No cheating there... oh wait, I think it's possible that they didn't put the vegan version of their hollandaise sauce on there, but given I asked for the tofu instead of the egg, I was hoping they knew what I meant!)

-VE

Relativity

I feel weird today. Not because of anything I ate, but because of the things that I know.

I mentioned in previous posts about how it feels like more and more people I know have been getting sick. Today, I found out about another lady who went to college with me who has been battling cancer for the past 14 years and has just moved into hospice care. FOURTEEN YEARS. She graduated two years before me, and although I recognize who she is from pictures, we weren't friends back in school. But this new information still hits home because she is very close to my age, ran in the same circles and experienced some of the same things I experienced in a significant part of my life. Even more so because it adds another name to the list of people in my head that are sick with cancer.

The other thing is, she has a blog, and she's been talking about her experience with her illness since it went into Stage IV in 2010. I can't read it. My sister was reading a somewhat similar blog the other day and I asked her "why are you reading that stuff? It's not exactly a pick-me-up." And although that may sound harsh to some, it's the way I feel. There are so many negative messages out there and depressing things in the world that sometimes I just want to block it all out. Why add to it? I know, the blogs that I have read around these things are usually focussed around positive things... simple pleasures, time with family, giving thanks. But it makes me feel so conflicted- conflicted because I feel so very very bad for them, and at the same time, I am thankful that I am not experiencing the kind of reality that they are facing. But all of that is beside the point.... the point is that she is blogging about her experience in dying. And when I think about what that must be like for her, her family, friends, and even people she doesn't know... it makes me wonder about the value in blogging about changing your diet for 90 days. I mean... seriously?

So....I'm conflicted. I guess everyone has a voice, and everyone can use their voice to help others in some way, or to help themselves cope with what they are experiencing, however great or small. I guess the point of my post today is just to stop and be thankful. Take a breath and be thankful for health, for friends, for family, for time. There are more important things in life than what I ate for breakfast... but I'm going to continue on this path because it's a positive path that I believe leads to better health, which is something I think everyone can use a little bit more of.

xoxo
-VE

California Dreamin'

OE and I just returned from a holiday to California, and if I ever had worries about eating vegan in San Francisco... well, I just shouldn't have! I was worried that eating out would be a total pain, and that it would steal all the fun out of our holiday. I do love to go to new restaurants and try new foods or eat foods that I normally wouldn't get to eat at home. How can you do that when you're eating vegan?! The fact is that, particularly in San Francisco, saying "I'm vegan" in a restaurant is absolutely no big deal, and it seemed as if the waiters were more than happy to help me navigate the menu to find some options that would work for me!

This is a pic of us crossing the Golden Gate Bridge. Get a load of that California blue sky!!

California is probably one of the birthplaces of the whole vegan movement (if you can call it that). There are plenty of options that offer vegetarian (and some vegan), so we tried a restaurant in Santa Cruz which was solely vegetarian / vegan since 1981. They definitely have whole thing down pat. It was DEE-lish! It was called Dharma's Restaurant. And I LOVED it. They also served some mighty big portions! I figured I'd be a piggy and eat all of it- just look at all those veggies in my veggie burrito!

It really was a tasty meal and inspired me to recreate some of the same options at home. I also followed it with a nice big slice of their vegan chocolate cake, but I can't show you that here. I gobbled it up too quick!

While we were in San Francisco, we stopped at a place for lunch called The Plant Cafe Organic in Mill Valley, where I had a fabulous Huervos Rancheros without the egg, sour cream or cheese. They sub in a basil-tofu scramble, and I seriously didn't miss the dairy for one second. It was fantastic! When places prepare options like that which really taste good, it makes me happy to be eating the way I am right now because I don't feel like I'm missing out and I'm doing my body good. And I'm not hungry afterwards!

One of the things I probably do a bit too much of is eating dessert and sweet things. Being vegan means I'm less able to choose whatever I want when we walk past a little cupcake shop or a patisserie. So I was absolutely delighted to find out that San Francisco has a donut shop that makes SOLELY vegan donuts. I know, right?! (Cue the angel choirs singing). Can you believe it?! Pepples donuts makes tasty donuts in quite a few different flavours - and they tasted pretty close to the real thing. I can definitely say that you would have had a hard time telling the Vanilla Glaze from a typical Dunkin or Krispy Kreme cake donut!

 Now... one of the things that makes me love OE, is that he doesn't complain when I say that I want to walk through a grocery store while we're on holiday. I know, I know... it's probably not the first thing that a normal person would do while on vacation, but I actually like going grocery shopping. (Food nerd alert.) And while driving around, I spotted a store called Mollie Stone's and wondered what it was. We don't have those in Charlotte, and it turns out that it is a grocery store! Our friends said that it was more upscale, so of course, I wanted to see it! Maybe it's because I miss the Marks & Spencer of the UK. I don't know. Either way, we went inside, and they really do a nice job of presenting their veg. (Again, ... food nerd.)

I imagine these photos are pretty lousy - I'm not intending to make a real foodie photo blog here but you get the idea.

And lastly - while in Santa Cruz, OE wanted to visit the amusement park where they filmed the movie The Lost Boys. Now... let me just say that when I saw that movie on a VCR tape in our refurnished basement circa 1987... it wrecked me. I still, to this day, hate vampires. I could only fall asleep if I had a sheet covering my neck after watching that movie. (Nevermind the fact that they'd bite through the sheet and apparently you have to invite them inside in the first place... ew... even talking about it now makes me get freaked out. BLEGH.) Annnnnyway... the point is that we went to see it and it was a pretty cool amusement park. The other thing I noticed was that there's no way you'd go to an amusement park hungry if you're a vegan.

Only in the USA, right?

So overall, it was a fantastic trip! I found it difficult in a smaller town (Carmel Valley) to find things that were vegan options. Most of the restaurants had maybe 1 or 2 vegetarian options, but that usually means it has cheese on it. Sometimes you can't get them to leave off the cheese either - like in an alfredo! Anyway, I did my best. I had a few salads and I hoped that the options I chose were vegan when I asked for no dairy. They might not have been purely vegan, but on holiday, I figured a 98% vegan diet was pretty good enough.

-VE