Well, not really. Really it's how I became a vegan.
I have been interested in vegetarianism for a long time - at least since my twenties, when I bought a copy of the Vegetarian Epicure. But I never really did anything about it, other than buying a few cookbooks that I never used.
But in recent years, as my weight crept up and my blood pressure did the same, and I began taking a statin for my cholesterol, I became more concerned about my diet. Then in 2014 I decided to start getting serious about it, as well as exercising regularly, and bought Mark Bittman's "VB6" (Vegan Before 6:00) where he promotes following a vegan diet for breakfast and lunch, and then eating whatever you want for supper. That sounded pretty doable so I started the diet. I actually read very little of the book - the intent is pretty well summed up in the title.
For my breakfast I was already eating homemade muesli, topped with fruit, so it was simple to substitute almond milk for skim milk. I usually ate a cheese sandwich and a piece of fruit for lunch, so I experimented with a number of vegan alternatives, but finally settled on avocado sandwiches, which are pretty good and real easy to make.
My homemade muesli recipe is designed for some crunch, fruity goodness, and healthy components. I don't like granola - way too sweet.
Muesli
about 2 lb of oats
1-2 cups of raisins
1-2 cups of dried mango or pineapple
1 cup toasted walnut pieces
1 cup toasted pepitas (pumpkin seeds - unsalted)
1-2 cups of dried banana - crushed into smaller pieces
1 cup of large flake coconut - briefly toasted
1/2 cup flax seed meal
I always top it with fresh fruit - usually blueberries, but in cherry season I use those, and in the brief Fuyu persimmon season, I cut up one of those on top. In a pinch I'll use an apple. Sometimes a mango if they are on sale.
For my avocado sandwiches, I always add pickle slices (avocados desperately need some acid) and dust it all liberally with chipotle pepper.
In any event, I rocked along that way for a year or so, and then after I retired I started doing the cooking, so I began to introduce meatless days. At first they were meatless Friday, because we could always buy really nice fresh beans (limas, black-eyed peas, or kidney) at one of our favorite stands at the Urban Harvest Farmer's Market. Since the beans keep well, I would use them last - on Friday. Although I will admit I would add a slice of bacon to the beans - so they were veganish.
Susan developed (or discovered) food sensitivities. She had not been able to eat chicken or hen's eggs for years, and then she started having issues with beef, and with milk and cow cheese. I cooked quite a bit of pork and lamb, but those are somewhat limited and became tiring. So I starting doing veganish 2 or 3 days a week. Usually we would buy 2 kinds of seafood at the Saturday Farmer's Market, so that would be supper on Monday and Tuesday since they don't keep. Then we might have pork or lamb one other day, and vegan the rest. Sundays we always ate a big lunch out with friends.
A note on how I organize my cooking. I discovered early on that the thing I hated the most about cooking was trying to decide what to cook - the clock is ticking, supper needs to be started, what the hell am I going to make? So I started a google spreadsheet where I would put in everything we had bought at the Farmer's Market, and then plan out the whole week in advance. That also helped make it easier to add stuff to the grocery list I knew I would need. And made cooking a lot more fun. It didn't all happen at once - it has taken me a few years to really get the process working smoothly, but now it is really painless. My latest innovation is a separate spreadsheet of recipes - name, major ingredients, and a pointer to the recipe itself, either a link to a website or a page number in a cookbook. That makes it easier to figure out what to cook - I have Swiss Chard, what do I do? Just look up all the Swiss Chard recipes on the spreadsheet and see what strikes my fancy. By planning this way I also can use first the things that don't keep well, and I almost never have food go bad. It has really minimized my food waste.
So anyway, back to the story. In 2020, for Lent, we decided to go full vegan. I quit buying seafood and meat, and began to get more serious about vegan cooking. More on those details in a later blog. And with COVID, the restaurants closed, so eating out was not an option. Over the next few months, I lost 20 pounds and my blood pressure improved. As an added bonus, my frequent heartburn disappeared. I think I have used an antacid 3 or 4 times in the past year, where it was using them 4-5 days each week. So I have been quite pleased. I did try going off my statin, and that didn't work. My cholesterol went up. But when I restarted it, the statin plus a vegan diet pushed my cholesterol levels much lower than they had been on a statin with meat in my diet. So that is a good thing.
I'll be going into more details in later entries, but before I finish, I want to put out a few caveats if you plan on going vegan. First and most importantly, you must take a vitamin B-12 supplement. You cannot get enough from plant sources, so just buy the supplement and take it. I also recommend a good multivitamin (like Centrum) to make sure you get enough iodine. You can get iodine from seaweed - in fact you can get too much - but other than that, iodized salt and seafood are the usual sources.
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