EASY CHANGES

Everyone's been quite complimentary lately on the more obvious effects of eating plant based food, as opposed to animal based food. But when you tell someone it's due to a vegan diet, they tend to clam up, exclaim "I could NEVER do that" and run away. Bill and I are beginning to dislike the "vegan" term, because everyone expects us to be running out, granola in hand, to hug a tree...and yet we don't feel any more hippie than we were when we started - just healthier.

So:

Here's a top 10 list of the changes I would consider effortless, if you wanted to stop consuming as much animal protein as you currently do.

1. Switch to Almond Milk in coffee and cereal. Soy and Rice have a pungency that I dislike. Almond milk is sweet and smooth, and tasteless but is so much like milk that Harrison and I prefer it now.

2. Vegan Mozzarella. I can not believe cheese made the list, because it was what I feared most in giving up. There are a number of brands (and the nacho flavour is brutally bad) but the mozzarella has welcomed pizza back in the house!

3. Earth Balance instead of butter. This palm, canola and olive oil based substitute for butter is a simple switch for dairy butter.

4. PC Breaded "chicken" Strips . I avoided the meat based one like the plague for years. Ditto for chicken strips. These are FABULOUS and a perfect vehicle for hot sauce, BBQ or honey garlic yumminess. Kids and fussy adults alike can't tell the difference.

5. Skip the meat in the chili, and no cheddar on top.

6. Skip the meat in a whole wheat pasta dish. Pasta is comforting, usually tomato coated, can be packed with delicious flavour, and any veggies you like can be pureed into the sauce with NO reprecussions, because no one can tell.

7. Cashew cream. Tal Ronnen is a genius for bringing this creamy substitute to the world in his book "The Conscious Cook". Raw cashews, soaked overnight and then pureed until smooth make creamy soups and risottos a possibility again.

8. Lentils (when they are cooking) literally smell like chicken soup, and add that "home"y smell to the kitchen.

9. I recently subbed in two onion rings instead of chicken breast on my formerly favourite cajun chicken sandwich at Rock Bottom, our lunch hangout. Yes, they were fried, but the bun was whole wheat, and the lettuce, tomato and side salad made it feel decadent, even without the mammaries of a dead bird. I have little trouble asking for special orders at restaurants (right Vesna? :)?

10. Soy Ice Cream!!! There are some absolutely fabulous products in the supermarket depending on the flavours you like, but it is VERY HARD to not love the chocolate and peanut butter combinations when you feel like a splurge.

Aside from the decadent options listed here, it can not be stressed enough how eliminating animal products from the plate literally ensures you are going to get veggies. The colours, textures and flavours we are eating in the last 27 days trump any animal-based food - seriously, really, no kidding. It just broadens your palate, and the colours are so pleasing! You feel efficient in the use of energy, with no crashes of energy, and no spikes in cravings.

Going Forward (after the HEARTbreak...)

Given that this is the 26th day of our challenge, it has been quite natural to consider where we will go from here. I do not plan on adding dairy, eggs and especially meat back into my diet, and that presents me with a number of challenges.

The blog has been helpful, and illustrative since it is really a snapshot of a meat-eater's transition to a plant-based diet. Sunday was impossibly funky, because it was really hitting me that there are things I will not be eating again, and ways of cooking I will not be mastering again. I had to avoid food TV for a while, too.

Sunday felt like a breakup day. I considered all the things that I have to move on, from. I love food, and now some of it is necessarily being left behind. I know it's not good for me, I see a better life without it, and I craved some closure, but the memories were still too fresh. My pantry and fridge look just a bit different now, but it's obvious in the fridge that something is GONE. Anytime we face up to choose what is good for us (and especially to unchoose what is worst for us), it can be hard. The new relationship is so much healthier for me, and it does highlight the devilish stuff quite obviously.

I am glad I went through my Julia Child months, learning to make the best beef bourgignon, and the most incredible egg and hollandaise dishes. I find it completely amusing today that the one "video" clip I was able to master that made its way to the blog is a roast chicken! My top 39 list, created just a month ago before my birthday, has more items that I can continue to enjoy than it did items which will be left in the grocery stores permanently. But re-reading it does illustrate my passion for food, the good stuff, and a commitment to delicious, efficient and healthy food.

So rather than cry about it (would you laugh if I told you I did?) I'm just going to keep going, one hopeful day at a time.

The view from the other side of the plate...

These last few days have been really hard. Lots of "tests"...Turns out is is hard to not eat a North American Diet when one lives in north america:)

Hockey party with the guys at the fave bar was impossible to navigate without meat or cheese. And it was really tempting. All those fried smells, and "tasty" bites kept passing us on platters, and the veggie tray was way at the other end of the table. I just kept repeating the same mantra in my head... "my wine is vegan, my wine is vegan..." Having said that, we did plop a bunch of veggie chicken strips in the oven when we got home, dipped them in my favourite earth balance, hot sauce and dijon, and dove in. YUM, but it was a crisis narrowly averted only because we were being strong. If we were "out" with our challenge, we probably would have ordered a bin of nachos and salsa, or sweet potato fries but in this situation it would have drawn more attention than it would have been worth... so we sipped our drinks, and made up for it later that evening in rewards.

Breakfast nook. We have a great little place for breakfast where we go when Sunday morning breakfast just feels like too many dishes... I was really stressed there too. Not just "oh, I'd like an egg..." but seriously stressed. Bill had oatmeal, and I had hash browns with some spinach, tomato, mushroom and onion mixed in. It was hard to navigate this menu too - so I just asked the waitress to take the vegetable additions to omlettes, and leave the eggs out. Again, I was strong in resisting, but it was not the easy thing to do by a long shot.

Yesterday evening, Morton's (american) steakhouse for a seriously celebratory birthday party. Checked out the online menu beforehand - they have a beautiful tuna tartare which comes in a gorgeous stacked mold presentation. Asked them to sub chopped asparagus for the tuna, and prep it the same way. It was beautiful and delicious. Chopped salad minus bacon minus blue cheese minus egg was pretty good too, with a honey mustard vinagrette, hearts of palm, artichokes and avocados. Dinner was the funniest of all - just a head of broccoli and some grilled asparagus with a balsamic glaze, and a spicy soy sauce for the broccoli, but it was food, and it did feed us.

The worst part was the sense of longing and desperation for what was on everyone else's plate. Those steaks smelled so familiar, that I really wanted a bite or two.

By far, and even more than the steak, was the temptation of the fresh hollandaise sauce in a tureen. Egg yolks, butter and lemon. I wanted to down it like a shooter.

Sad moment when the waiter brought out the dinner specials, and on the plate was a lobster the size of our cat, obviously suffocating in the "air". Barely twitching, it was a reminder that animal based food is really eating an extinguished life. I considered what the other side of the plate must look like from there.

Bill and I are going at this challenge for different reasons, and will very likely continue with it for different reasons.

He loves the heath aspects, on his slighly older arteries, veins and heart. He loves that he hasn't "had to" go to the gym, and lost 10 pounds and 2 inches from his waist.

While I love my slimmer line, and both the money and time I can add by not doing the boot camps for exactly the same result, when tested I find the animal issues more bolstering.

What I missed about the steak was the "juicy"ness. AKA, the blood, and the flesh of a formerly living cow.

What I miss about the hollandaise was the eggy-ness. AKA, a chicken's unfertilized ova, and in the states, most certainly a product of a massive factory farm.

What I miss about the butter is the creamy-ness. AKA the product of a lactating animal which is not the same species as me, most certainly a product of a hormone enhanced milker, spared only from being "veal" by virtue of her sex... just makes you wonder which is worse? Death to the baby boy cows, or a lifetime of longing and drudgery for the baby girls, shoved into parenting as early as possible, separated from her first calf and then milked until she's not worth keeping any more...

EEEW...Yuck... I'm often met with the phrase "don't think of it like that", but why not? The industry seems to thrive on the separation of these products by marketing them in a way that is not as distasteful, but it is the same thing.

While everyone around the table was curious and mildly supportive, there was still an element of "look what we have, and you don't". So I took another sip of wine and really looked...

Between appetizers, "salads", entrees, sides, desserts and cake, I figure everyone took in about 3000 calories that evening, not counting martinis, and wine.

Around the table were about 2400 oz of "overweight", two rounds of breast cancer, one recovering triple by-pass, three orders of high blood pressure and one order of prostate cancer. 5 people around the table had lost a parent to heart attack or stroke.

Yesterday I was really longing for these animal products - like an animal must long to get out of the lockdown, to play, to eat food they choose, and to live a full life, naturally. I am so lucky to be able to exercise that choice, and I find that incredibly empowering. I like withdrawing my financial support of an industry that does not reflect values I hold important.

The reality is that most of us don't really CHOOSE how to eat. We inherit it, from our families - at least initially. Once we are old enough to choose, it is pretty easy to just go with the flow of what we've learned, and even to abdicate our choices mindlessly. If you were born in a North American family, and learned north american eating, a plant-based diet does not seem "natural". Neither does switching to a plant based diet when one still lives in those circumstances.

But we can, at the very least, recognize our choices when we step up to the plate.

Budget Booster Menu?

Aside from "veganism" and all the pressure that the label contains, this week it was driven home to me how incredibly cheap it is to eat like this:)

So, for those of you looking for a quick budget boost? Try this menu for a week...

Red Beans and Rice Monday (see "$108.25 for the Holidays")
Tofu Calamari and Quinoa Sushi Tuesday (see "Grapes and our Black Widow Spider, and "Homemade Sushi and Toasted Sesame Oil"
Chicken Nugget and Asian bean salad Wednesday (below)
Indian Butter Chickpea Thursday (see "Indian Butter Chickpeas"
Pizza Friday (below)
Dinner out date night Saturday (see 52.8% on Meat, Dairy and Eggs??)
Tortilla Lasagna Sunday Dinner (below)

President's choice makes a fabulous "chicken" nugget with no chicken. I make an amazing (patented) wing sauce with Earth Balance, hot sauce and dijon mustard all whisked together. Served it tonight for dinner.

Leftover rice, some steamed broccoli and leftover black beans made a great asian salad. Dressing was toasted sesame oil, orange flax oil, tamari, soy sauce, lemon and hoisin sauce. YUM!!!!!

Pizza dough doesn't have to have eggs in it! Try yeast, flour, salt and olive oil!!! Top with homemade tomato sauce, lots of veggies and even some vegan mozzarella. I have to admit, I tried this cheese like a two year old tries spinach - full pucker face and everything! And, I am shocked to say.... it is yummy, and smells and tastes like a wetter mozzarella! It even melts!

Tortillas layered with tostitos salsa (a bit of evoo and veg stock on the bottom so it doesn't stick) a tortilla, a layer of black beans, a tortilla, a layer of red pepper, a tortilla, a layer of salsa and stock, a tortilla, a layer of vegan mozzarellla, a tortilla, and a final layer of evoo and salsa are Y U M M Y!!!
Served alongside an avocado/garlic/lime/green onion mash (aka, Guacamole) and you have yourself one delicious Sunday fiesta!

52.8% on Meat, Dairy and Eggs??

Premise #1. Our family does not eat a lot of meat when we are at home. At least 3 meals a week at our place were already vegetarian before I began this vegan experiment.

Premise #2. On days when we did include meat, we would only consume a 4 oz portion of meat eggs or dairy per person as a part of our regular routine. It would consume no more than 1/4 of the plate.

Premise #3. The majority of my food purchases were not packaged ingredients, and rather healthy building blocks for home-cooked meals.

Premise #4. 18 months ago, I really eliminated any family reliance on packaged foods (from pre-made lasagna, to premade pizza, to any style of pre-packaged dinner). This reduced my grocery bill from approx $300 per week in half, to about $150.

Premise #5. In spite of the price reduction in premise 4, I was already paying premium prices for meat and dairy and eggs. I would rely on thigh meat (cheaper than breasts), whole chickens (making stock and stretching it for several days) and buying the smallest cuts of meat in the case. Ie: if there were packages costing $15.37, $12.49 and $11.12, I would buy the cheapest one possible knowing that I probably wouldn't even know the difference once I got it home.

Why am I telling you this??

Because, in light of all of this carefullness, I am shocked to learn that a full 52.8% of my food budget was going to things that I no longer eat on a vegan diet.

That means a huge portion of my already meat-limited food budget will go back into my disposable income!!!

Since our family likes to eat at restaurants (almost as entertainment) I grabbed four similar receipts. Foia, Swiss Chalet, Chanosos and The Keg.

In restaurants, it is almost impossible to avoid all the value-added cost that meat based food costs. At our most recent family meal, the average entree cost $24.50. Bill's and my veg option was 9. 64% less!

Our family's budget divides into home meals, lunch meals in restaurants, and entertainment meals for a date or a treat. They all roughly works out to about $350 per week on food, and I have a feeling that is extraordinarily conservative. When I entertain, that figure is much much higher. When we celebrate meals with family (baby nights, Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthdays, etc) those figures just do not hold up... (there was nothing like that in September or October...so the figures were bare bones).

How shocking would it be to literally add more than half of our food funds back into our lives, and keep them out of our bodies and arteries?

During this challenge, everyone is asking us how long we plan to "do this".

I can not ignore the fact that we feel better, have added time into our day, have dramatically slimmed, and (if we keep it up most of the time) have very likely cut our risks of cancer, heart problems and stroke. Also, we have virtually no food safety concerns (other than deadly spiders in our food, but I digress...)

What if we can add thousands of dollars back too?

Talk about an investment in the future.

McMonkeys and Eating like a Primate

Here's some food for thought that my newly-animal free brain cells are chewing on:

The ONLY animals that experience obesity are domestic humans (and our dogs and cats!).

Did you just chuckle? Sample this thought:

Can you even picture a morbidly obese monkey at the zoo with a remote control in their hand and a bag of cheetos in the other, lounging around on a couch with neon orange "cheese" crumbs resting on the top of their enlarged belly? It's ridiculous, right?

Can you picture a 46 year old human doing this? Of course!

Am I being too silly now? Picture this:

What if we gave that same monkey $20 to walk through the same zoo to look for a meal. "Food" from every single food stall to choose from.

He wouldn't buy anything! He'd go around forraging, looking for real food like vegetables, grains, seeds, nuts, and fruit. And (even though he isn't wearing pants) he probably wouldn't eat until his belt was tight either.

I am quite certain he wouldn't stop at the cow, pig or chicken exhibit, carve one up and grill part of that animal either. He'd just live and let live.

And we consider ourselves evolved?

Final monkey thought? The writer of this blog evolved from primates, and so did you!

Consider eating like one.

Indian Butter Chickpeas

My vegan experiment has led me to the rediscovery of the most delicious, voluminous and satisfying food that even I am surprised.

I've discovered a substance called "cashew cream" - from Tal Ronnen's cookbook "The Conscious Cook". It is incredibly easy and well worth any effort. After soaking raw cashews overnight, you puree the slippery, cold bits with a bit of water into a fatty, delicious CREAM! Seriously - it is divine and STARTLINGLY dairy-free.

I love finding "cream" in the nuttiest places!

So many observations to share...

1. Any inches gained through my crazy beginning to the fall are gone. I have never ever ever been slimmer, except when I was 17, and I lost 6 pounds the first week. I can see my muscles under my skin, more than any results I saw in intense boot camps.

2. I am devouring delicious food in huge quantities, and can not wait for my next meals. They are teeming with flavour, and more colour than even I am used to. The flavours are really full, and intense - not boring at all!

3. My skin has absolutely no need for moisturizer any more. It has never ever felt more supple, and doesn't really feel like my face! Absolutely no trace of blemishes or stress.

4. My grocery bill went up initially, since I purchased a few vegan staples like coconut oil (which smells like a tropical vacation and tastes even better), Vegenaise (which is fabulously reminiscent of my fave, Hellmanns, without the eggs) and Earth Balance (which tastes and melts and spreads just like butter). I know what everyone is getting from me for Christmas in their stockings... Coconut oil is great in cookies.

5. My grocery bills are about to be cut by about 75%. Vegetables, beans and whole grains are incredibly cheap it turns out! Can you imagine adding another 10 GRAND to your life per year, just through your food choices? I'm planning another vacation with the savings.

6. I feel incredible, and my energy level is really balanced! I sleep really well, and wake up rested.

7. I am really feeling less stressed. I have changed absolutely nothing else in my life, and work and life are as busy as ever. I can only attribute the change to the fact that there are no frustrated, stressed or scared animal molecules hanging out in my body any more.

Tonight's dinner was Indian Butter Chickpeas.

One can of organic chickpeas,
One glug of homemade roasted tomato sauce
One clove of chopped garlic
One chopped shallot
Two tablespoons cashew cream
1 tsp Tandoori spice
Hot sauce to taste,

Served over Quinoa (in the rice cooker!!)and chopped green onions on top.

Veganism rocks.

Homemade Sushi and Toasted Sesame Oil

If I have one piece of advice tonight, it is that people need to invest in their children's tastebuds.

Of course, we are 9 days post-Halloween. 9 days of sugar comas. 9 days of crap, that I not only have allowed my son to eat, but actually handed out to other people's kids at the door!

Tomorrow (I have a 10 day rule for consumption of Halloween candy), I will get rid of whatever junk is left, but my son beat me to it.

After picking him up from school, he wanted to make sushi tonight, as our dinner. I had to pull off the regular route home from his after-school care to get Nori (and he found it in the store before I did!). I went upstairs to change, and found the ingredients removed from the fridge, and spread all over the counter. He has such a knack for knowing what would and should go in, the photo is posted, below.



We made Quinoa, I grilled a portobello, sliced an avocado, and rolled away.

It wasn't the best sushi - I had mine in a bowl, because I am not a fan of Nori - but it was deep, rich, and looked really cool.

Toasted sesame oil seems to be the favourite now with Harrison - very macrobiotic with the depth of the upcoming winter - with soy, tamari and mushroom. We added avocado for fat, green and creaminess.

Even he was craving something healthier than crap chocolate, refined sugar, and transfatty sludge. I am quite sure that sushi cravings are the polar opposite of these, and it couldn't have come one day too soon. His tastebuds are maturing - beyond those of a glucose-needing toddler, and into a healthy transitioning young person.

GRAPES and our BLACK WIDOW SPIDER

I'm trying to divert my mind with some discipline tonight, as to where things could have gone, and just focus on the fact that everything has worked out OK, and everyone in the house is fine.

I'm fine - the guys are fine, and the fridge has been reviewed by the super-awesome Don from pest control.

It's hard not to think things like "this vegan experiment could have killed me, or Harrison, or Bill". Or, as my dad said "the evening could have been tragic".

One of the hardest parts of my divorce was having to kill my own spiders? I've often joked about this, but it's true. I'm arachnophobic.

Not the best thing to be when a black widow spider kicks your upper lip after falling off the grape you're about to put into your mouth. Four grapes, to be exact, in my hand, scooped out of the collander after a great restaurant-inspired vegan appetizer.

Harrison wanted to go to Foia tonight for Calamari. I loved the idea, until I remembered that this month, I'm a vegan. But I had tofu in the fridge and the thought of re-creating a calamari-like dish inspired me. I "breaded" the tofu strips with crushed potato chips, after dipping them in a combo of dijon, soy sauce and olive oil. I crisped them in coconut oil on all four sides, and served them with a dipping sauce of fresh garlic, green onions, olive oil, dijon, lemon juice and some toasted sesame oil. Writing this paragraph is the most calm I have felt all night, since it is about making something delicious - through adding flavour.

During the prep, I thought I would blog about depth of flavour. I thought I would blog about the fact that chicken (or tofu) really doesn't have an independent flavour, and what we can DO to it can make it great. I thought I would be blogging about blank canvasses.

Instead, I am really upset that I could have been taken out by my quest for a fresh fruit prompted by the very same vegan experiment.

Bill joked that it was ironic that if I hadn't been buying so much fresh produce, and rather had been relying on processed, McCrap, that this probably wouldn't have happened. I am sure I wouldn't have just tossed into the garbage (quite gladly!) ANY fresh produce which was in my fridge. The expensive green onions. The gorgeous Essex County "chef's mix" fresh mushrooms. The expensive organic celery.

And the crisp green grapes that were her home for a while, and in my home since Sunday. I packed a bag of grapes for Harrison's lunch this morning, and put the collander on the counter, grabbed a bunch, and put it back. Realized Bill needed a snack, grabbed another bunch (recall struggling with the stem) and put it back again. I probably threw out $30 worth of produce because of what was living in my fridge.

Yep - I'm one of those people who have had a black widow spider crawl out of their grapes. She wiggled across my lip, enough for me to drop the other three grapes. As she fell to the floor, my mind raced.

A spider.

On a grape. Wait-a-minute! It couldn't possibly be a black widow spider, one of the very reasons I stopped buying grapes in the first place? (They're from such foreign locales, loaded with spiders!)

No - not in my home, seriously. I grab a plastic mis-en-place bowl, and put it right over her. Then, I go to the web.

SPIDERS IN GRAPES.

Immediately, the black widow spider stories pop up. I'm on the phone with 911 when she says "are you sure it's a black widow?" and I'm not. The website indicates you can tell a female black widow spider by the red hourglass shape on the belly. The belly? It's facing the floor, darn it!! And just as she says it...the new visitor to our house tries to crawl up the bowl, and there it is.

The red hourglass.

I've stopped hyperventilating now. I've called the supermarket, the pest control guy has the spider and is freezing the body. I called the provincial pest control office to "report" it.

Having said that, I will never ever buy grapes again.

My November Vegan Experiment

I should have known better.

I gave Bill a humerous book on healthy eating that I thought he could check out in his very few minutes of down time every so often. It contained, inter alia, scathing accounts of dairy products, egg production, and horiffic accounts of factory meat production - more than anyone would ever care to know. Next thing I know, we're vegans. I should have known!

The source concludes that vegan eating is THE only way to fly. You can imagine, for someone in love with butter and cheese, that this is not my favourite news. I can do without meat quite easily - and did, for years. I love a great steak every so often, although it is increasingly important to me to purchase meat that was raised and fed properly, and humanely exited from the planet.

Vegan eating is going to be literally and completely different. No butter. No cheese??? I won't even be able to re-read my own blog this month. But, in closing one door (even for a while) my goal is to force myself to find alternatives.

I remember reading that fish don't have feelings. They don't have a cerebral cortex, so somehow eating them seems less cruel. If it can't ever feel sadness, or know its own name, it must be OK to eat? I've learned that fish are often teeming with mercury from the water, and fed on mercury-laden fish. (Tuna and Salmon are huge creatures, who feed on lots of small creatures to reach their ultimate weight, so "you are what you eat" is important to them, too) See "Remy's Law", October. The fact that farmed salmon are fed things that would never occur in their natural diet (like corn) as well as given a dose of food dye to make their flesh look "pink" was enough to turn me off of that, too.

I used to think that shellfish and mollusks were a completely feeling-free choice too. Until Sally and Jerry (the trained conchs at the Conch farm in the Turks and Caicos Islands) rolled out of their shells to give Harrison a look, and to do a few tricks!??!! Anything that can do tricks, and has a name shouldn't be delicious.

More than ever before, the sheer act of eating is a landmine of challenges.

E-Coli. Suffering. Factories. Antibiotics. Profit margins. Hormones. Cancer.

It seems that over the past 50 years we have taken the sheer joy out of eating, and replaced it with other stuff that is just not good.

So - the vegan experiment!

We are going to skip all animal products for the month. No eggs, butter, milk, meat or fish. And it is going to be HARD for me.

But, like any challenge, it offers insight and possibility.

This morning, instead of an egg sandwich, I browned some tofu in a bit of coconut oil, added some hot sauce, and nesled it on some bread smeared with dijon mustard. It was "exceed-my-expectations" fantastic. Harrison's nose led him to the kitchen where he promptly took a bite, declared that it had the same texture and consistency of egg, and walked off with it! When he returned, he asked "Could tonight be tofu night?"

Cool kid.

He totally deserves the best possible fuel for that adorable growing mind. The 30 days in November will be dedicated to healthy eating, research regarding my own habits in the kitchen, and striving for the healthiest fats, carbohydrates and proteins combinations that can exist in a busy family kitchen.

Tonight is Monday, so my Red Beans and Rice consisted of the tomato vegetable soup from last night used to steep a cup of red lentils until thick. Lentils smell like chicken soup when they are cooking, and that surprises me! Red beans and green onions are rounding out the pot. It is a gorgeous dish with a lovely, homemade smell. I've been reading a book on the couch as it simmers.

I survived the day with almond milk in my coffee (and there is NO WAY ON THIS GREEN EARTH that I am going to give up coffee). I had a veggie sandwich at work, a peanut butter and banana sandwich for a snack and a V8. I feel impossibly energized.