1st Quarter

Before cooking

I have made through the first quarter of the year as a vegan! Yea!!  It has worked pretty well. This past month my only missteps were the almond cheese with casein and the overdose of beet juice.  I am trying different aspects of the lifestyle which meant that least week I had 2 meals of juice a day and one of solid food.  From taste aspect that was very interesting.  I got a much more intense blast of the fruits and veggies.  It definitely did not fulfill by desire to eat and I was much more hungry than usual.  Even with the restricted diet, I only lost one pound during the month.  That part of the juicing experiment is over.  I will still make some juices and they do make a good breakfast.  I will say that during the last week I did have an energy boost.  I do not know if it was from the juicing or a delay in the start of the vegan diet. We shall see as the year progresses.

My breakfast juice was a lovely shade of brown.  It was made from 2 tomatoes, a lime, and arugula. I used an entire container of arugula and it made very little juice. The leftover pulp just looked like chopped arugula. I do not see it as a good veggie for a juice.  The flavor was good, but it seemed like a waste of the greens.

My lunch juice looked very similar. It was made from 4 tomatoes, 2 cucumbers, and 6 stalks of celery.   The cucumbers, while not my favorite flavor are good for juicing because of the quantity of juice they make.  the weather was nice today, so I made my juice to go and we took the dogs to Panera to eat outside.

Overall, I would say that juicing is not very cost effective.  Large quantities of fruits and vegetables are used to make a much smaller amount of juice.  Actually eating the plants seems to make more sense.  Also, I needed to make a grocery stop to keep us going for the next 2 weeks.  I will say that this trip figuratively broke the bank.  Mainly because of vitamins. I was out of my B12 and D3 that I normally take every day.  I decided to supplement that with Omega 3 and a multi vitamin.  Buying those at Whole Foods was $100.  Now the Omega 3 lasts for 4 months, the multi and the D are for 3 months, and the B12 is for 2 months.  I also bought some chia seeds that are good supplement for vegans.

What I did get that was more cost effective was dried beans.  I bought some garbanzo and kidney beans from the bulk aisle. I cooked a batch of each so that I would have them for the next few weeks.  Some went into the refrigerator and some into the freezer.

For dinner, I roasted some fennel, red onion, parsnip and carrot in thyme olive oil with salt, pepper, asafoetida, and lemon juice. I like just about any vegetable roasted, that is my favorite preparation.  I  also microwaved some setian and seasoned it with hoisin sauce.

Snow Day

Well, it wasn't really that much snow.  It was enough to make the dogs go a little crazy and jump around and play.  I wish I could tape it because they are so cute in the snow.  If we actually get several inches on Friday, they will love it.

Breakfast was the last of my Apricot Oatmeal and I made some Gingered Cantaloupe.  The melon was mixed with some powered ginger and crystallized ginger with a little honey to cut the spiciness.

Lunch was a clean out the fridge salad.  The last of my salad greens with some beets, broccoli, asparagus, cherry tomatoes, alfalfa sprouts, chickpeas, carrot, croutons made from the peasant bread and dressed with the ginger sesame vinaigrette.

For dinner we  finished off the Cuban Black Bean Soup and I made some Collard and Chard Chips.  I have used chard for chips quite a few times, but this was the first time for collard greens.  They did not crisp well.  While still crunchy, they were bitter with an unpleasant taste.  You could tell the difference between the collards and the chard even though they looked the same.  Going forward, collards will not be crisped.

While embarking on this vegan transition, I have not had this burst of energy that some claim to get from the lifestyle.  Maybe this is because I did not eat at fast food establishments or make processed foods a normal part of my diet before hand.   For me, the change was not that drastic.  Just cut out meat, cheese and eggs.  Other that cheese, dairy was already out because of my lactose intolerance and cheese was beginning to bother me.

I feel that I have done well in keeping my nutritional needs in check.  I take B12 because I have pernicious anemia.  I could eat a 100% meat diet and not get the vitamin because of my stomach's inability to digest the vitamin.  I use a sublingal B12 that is absorbed under the tongue in the same way nitroglycerin pills are for heart patients.  I also take a calcium supplement, though I don't know if that is necessary because kale and collards are full of calcium.   Protein only needs to be 10% of your daily caloric intake and I have been between 12 - 18%.  This study http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10490&page=589  talks about the protein needs and that the 35% most people get is way too much.  Otherwise, a varied diet provides all the vitamins and minerals that you need.