Yup. I eat fish and other seafood.

I think I may have mentioned this fact before, but from the looks of things on this site, I really come off as a die-hard veg. Aaaaand… I am.
Let me explain:

The Hubs and I have an agreement that we will eat to live, eat for health, and also occasionally splurge on things that aren’t so healthy (like that homemade chocolate cake my grandmother makes). Personally, I don’t let my eating habits interfere with relationships.  For example, a veg cousin of mine once refused a butternut squash soup, made by our sweet, aforementioned grandmother, because it was made with chicken broth. Poor Grandmom thought she was making a perfectly fine veggie soup, and when Cousin said she wouldn’t eat it, “You should have seen Grandmom’s face. I’ll never do that to her again. I wish I would have just eaten it.”

Now, this is not to say that I’m going to partake in a traditional Thanksgiving, just for the sake of the matter, or that I’m going to give in when my mother says (even though she knows the answer), “You guys won’t eat chicken?” Or, “But I made a delicious pulled pork…” But I will enjoy myself when in the company of friends and family and not get too caught up in the ingredients of things (to a point) if it’s beyond my control.

And I will eat some fish. Wild caught. Not an over-fished species. And purely for the health benefits.

The last time I prepared fish (a few days ago), I thought about swearing off of it. It had been alive! I was cutting through something’s muscle and bone and veins. ::shudder:: I also made the mistake of wanting to show-off my raised-by-the-shore heritage by letting Hub’s friend bring over some freshly-caught crabs. I wanted to show Hubs how to pick one. So, I was placed in charge of overseeing the cooking. It made me sad. I can’t believe I allowed a live animal to be boiled alive in my kitchen. See how pride is a deadly sin? Never again.

This empathy is a fresh feeling for me, truly. When I began this diet, I sympathized with true vegs but had no empathy for the animals. However, after being pregnant, giving birth to a life, and being completely immersed in the process of the makings of life, it is VERY hard to consume something that once had life, or was meant to give life, or lost its life unnecessarily. It sounds a little batty, but I feel more in touch with that life energy having experienced it firsthand through giving birth.

So, little fishies, we shall see if you end up on my platter in the future. I know that the Omegas found in fish are necessary for building little Soy Sprout’s brain, but how can I counterbalance the guilt I feel eating it?

Healthy meals can be just as quick and easy as junk food! I thought I’d share two easy (read: lazy) meals I ate today that are chock-full of good stuff:

Breakfast:

Hot Cereal with Honey, Bananas and Nuts
1. Cook your choice of hot cereal. I really like Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Mighty Tasty Hot Cereal. (I half the directed recipe which makes about a cup and a half of cereal.) 7 minutes
2. Stir in: 1 1/2 T. local raw honey, 1-2 T. of Earth Balance margarine, 1/4 c. ground nuts (I keep these on hand in the fridge.)
3. Add sliced bananas (or fruit of choice).
4. Enjoy! You’ll be full ’til lunchtime

Lunch:

Yum Hash
1. Cook any type of grain that suits your fancy: quinoa, brown rice, cous-cous… Keeping cooked grains on hand in the freezer makes this infinitely easier. (15 minutes if cooking from dry state)
2. Heat a veggie burger or two in a pan or microwave. We like Dr. Praeger’s or Sunshine brands. (couple of minutes)
3. Mash veggie burger into quinoa in a bowl.
4. Add in whatever flavors you’d like! Ideas:
-olive oil, salt, pepper, nutritional yeast, Bragg’s Liquid Aminos
-flax oil, salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar
-coconut oil, curry paste
-olive oil, salt, pepper, lemon juice, nutritional yeast
-canola oil, salt, pepper, lemon juice, dill, fresh tomato
-the possibilities are endless!

A few weeks ago, Hubs decided he wanted to incorporate eggs back into his diet. He enjoys egg whites (even though a whole egg is more nutritionally sound) for a heart-healthy protein. For the record, his egg habit lasted through not-even a carton. New [eating] habits die hard, eh? During this Week of The Egg (blech), Hubs forgot to wipe up after making an omelette and egg albumin was left on the countertop (blech again), freaking me out. It had been so long since I had worried about food-borne bacteria that I realized the joys of vegan cooking:

1. There is never the risk of food-borne bacteria, aside from the possibility of bacteria living on unwashed produce. However, this type of bacteria is generally not caused by the food itself, only the handling of it. Raw meat doesn’t have quite the same built-in safety. Any spills on the counter will not send me into a germaphobic frenzy as they once did, pre-veg diet!

2. I can taste my food at any point in the cooking process! I was throwing together some “meaty” filling recently, made with nuts, breadcrumbs, and spices, and was able to taste the concoction as I went along. Try (er–actually, don’t try) that with ground beef. I also enjoy the fact that I can lick the spoon/beaters/bowl while baking without my mother’s voice ringing in my ear, “There’s raw eggs in that!”

3.  Along the lines of the above reasonings, I like that my child will grow up in a household where the kitchen is a loving room producing life-giving nourishment, not a place where things have to be maimed, hacked, and cooked at high heat to be deemed safe.

4. I have a stellar pantry! Sometimes veg cooking calls for unusual ingredients if one is trying to replicate non-veg foods, but often veg cooking just lends itself to trying other cultural food choices (like Thai curry or Ethiopian lentils). Therefore, I’m proud to have an incredible spice collection and to call my cabinets home to things like: agar-agar, barley flour, masa harina, nutritional yeast, kelp flakes, nori, tamari, liquid aminos…the list goes on!

5. (Pretty much goes without saying but I’ll say it anyway.) No animals were harmed in the making of this food.

The biggest question I see (not hear, because I never hear it in real life) concerning veganism is, “How do I become a vegan?”  I am a regular poster and/or lurker on a few message boards that are geared toward eco-friendliness, and the topic comes up quite often, including issues of “safely” converting to a vegan diet and how to feed children in this way.

There are many, many resources online to aid in the transition to a veg diet/lifestyle, which I have listed at the end of this post. However, I’ll share my personal experience, too, in order to show how it can realistically happen. Our transition to this type of eating was certainly done in stages, so I’ll organize it as such:

Starting Out (Fall 2005)

We naively thought that eliminating animal products just meant substituting soy for dairy, veggie burgers for meat, and tossing any products/foods that didn’t comply.  When we found that all we were eating was a lot of soup, bread, and snacks (and gaining weight in the process!), we picked up a few vegan cookbooks and started learning more. One thing that made it tough was we tried to go, excuse the pun, cold turkey and ended up craving meat and cheese periodically. We called giving in to these cravings “meat cheats.”

Tip: Don’t try to go completely vegan right away. Start slowly, eliminating one thing at a time. For example,  start with soy milk in place of cow’s milk. Or, try getting rid of cheese but keep your eggs and milk for awhile.

Getting the Hang of Things (2006)

We began to understand how to cook without animal products and began building a small repertoire of dishes that worked for us, mainly using processed soy products (like soy “cheese” or “sausage”). We genuinely liked the taste of these products and didn’t miss meat. However, I’m pretty sure there were times when we were more vegetarian in our eating as we couldn’t totally get rid of cheeses.

Tip: Accept the fact that vegetarian/vegan processed foods aren’t always meant to exactly replicate the carnivorous version they represent. Enjoy these foods as they are. Enjoy a veggie burger as a veggie burger and not as a hamburger substitute. These products should make the transition easier, not painful, so choose things that taste good to you!

Really Learning, Really Eliminating (2007)

Here are some common questions (with my answers) about maintaining a vegan diet:

1. How expensive would it be in comparison to vegetarianism?  I really have to watch our budget.
I can’t really say much about cost in comparison. We spend A LOT of money on food and nutrition per month, but we also live in an area with limited options. We’re lucky enough to have an organic market that stocks many items, and there’s a chain grocery retailer that sells much of what we use, but we live in a resort area and pay high prices for everything, it seems. Like anything, there are ways of going cheap, and there are ways of going big. If you’re constantly buying processed, pre-made vegan food, it will add up. If you want, you could live off of rice, beans, and veggies and be fine!

2. What are the staples of your diet?
This is basically what we always have on hand, and consider it’s winter in the fruit/veggie dept:

Protein:
tofu (use this for everything, for any meal, including desserts)
nuts (not just for snacking–I use them in place of meat to make everything from stuffed cabbage to meatloaf to patties)
black beans, chickpeas, kidney beans,quinoa, soy milk, soy yogurt, avocados

Grains:
quinoa, long grain brown rice, cous cous, rice pastas, enriched pastas (the only thing we buy that’s not organic), hemp or other whole-grain breads, wheat tortillas, polenta

Fruits (right now we always have): apples, bananas,  citrus, papaya, mangoes, frozen berries

Veggies: Spinach (fresh and frozen), cabbage, leafy greens like kale, carrots, celery, onions, potatoes (technically not a veggie for us)

Supplementary items (this is where it adds up): greens drinks (for extra veggies), nutritional yeast (for necessary B vitamins), flax seed oil, good quality cooking oils, tamari, minced garlic, ginger, good spices, Earth Balance margarine, rice milk, etc.

Supplements: probiotics, enzymes, high quality multi vits, pre-natals, vit E, cal/mag/zinc liquid supplement (the only thing we take regularly is the vitamins and calcium; Hubs is better about taking enzymes and such–not really required for vegans, just something we do for good health)

3. What is a good place to start that is comprehensive but not overwhelming with vegan info?

The bottom of this post has a good list of places to start.

This is For Life (2008 to present)

We finally learned the right way to eat: we balanced our food groups, got the right nutrients, and eliminated processed soy products (which are no better for the body or the environment than any other mass-produced food).  A supportive and informed naturopath was essential in this process.

We started this diet together when we were dating, and I wasn’t in love with meat enough to hang onto it, so I supported Hubs in his quest to live a healthy, heart-friendly life, so I did most of the cooking. It was a learning process, for sure (still is). However, I advocate it not only because I learned about the horrible food-industry practices in this country, but because we have read SO MUCH about how a vegan diet is better for your health, hands down. The body cannot process all of the protein and dairy that generally comes along with a Standard American Diet, and it leads to other health issues.

Mainly, I found this: when I stopped eating meat (dead energy), my world got brighter. I believe it is because I stopped ingesting dead things. When we started eating more cleanly, more natural foods, we stopped getting sick. When I stopped eating dairy, my chronic sinus problems went away. And when I stopped eating things that most people eat, I was no longer tempted to buy into our consumerist society. Changing the way I ate changed the way I thought about life–and so much for the better.

Excellent Resources:
Veg for Life–excellent easy-to-read site about making the transition to veganism
Go Veg–in association with PETA; tons of info and their Vegetarian Starter Kit
Farm Sanctuary–a wonderful organization which is a wonderful reminder of why people choose to eat vegan

Books to Check Out:
Becoming Vegan: The Complete Guide to Adopting a Healthy Plant-Based Diet,  Davis & Melina
Food and Healing, Annemarie Colbin
The China Study, T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D.
The Great Cholesterol Con, Dr. Malcolm Kendrick
Eating Animals, Jonathan Safran Foer

Favorite Cookbooks:
Vive Le Vegan, Dreena Burton
Veganomicon, Vegan with a Vengeance, Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, Isa Chandra Moskowitz
Vegan Soul Kitchen, Bryant Terry
La Dolce Vegan, Sarah Kramer
Vegan Yum Yum, Lauren Ulm
Vegan Planet, Robin Robertson

I’ve ALWAYS hated Valentine’s Day. If you’re not in a relationship, it sucks. If you are in a relationship, there’s pressure. If you’ve been with someone for awhile, well, there’s still pressure. My hubby and I long ago decided that Valentine’s Day just wasn’t for us. It is the epitome of consumerist thinking: stores flooded with paper cards, mylar balloons, polyester stuffed animals and cheaply-produced candies, all marketed in a way to elicit a feeling of guilt in those who choose NOT to recognize who they love with these “special” gestures. Blah.

Of the millions of dollars spent on Valentine’s gifts, a large chunk of that goes toward chocolates. Now, I am not about to bash chocolate.  Chocolate is one of the finest foods produced and all the recent hype about its antioxidant properties is true if one buys the *right* kind of chocolate. So, what is the right kind of chocolate?

For this blogger, excellent chocolate has to meet the following criteria:

1. Fair Trade
Cocoa (along with coffee, cotton, and other crops) is one of the world’s most exploited products. Small farms and farmers have lost business and wages due to larger conglomerates taking over, growing in amounts that no single farmer could keep up with, and selling at amounts that no farmer could afford to match.  Just as the private farmer is disappearing in America,  such is the case in parts of the world where there is no other option for income than farming. It’s just good ethics to buy Fair Trade. Wouldn’t you rather consume something that was grown as someone’s livelihood, cared for, tended, and something that received positive energy versus a giant crop used only to support Big Business?

To learn more about Fair Trade cocoa specifically, click here.
To learn more about the Fair Trade Federation, click here.

2. Organic
Let’s just take a look at what one can find in any given Hershey’s chocolate (taken from Hershey’s allergen info). For the sake of brevity, I have taken the obvious ingredients (milk, butter, cocoa) off the list:

• Acid whey
• Anhydrous milk fat
• Butter oil
• Calcium caseinate
• Casein
• Reduced minerals whey
• Sodium caseinate
• Sweetened condensed whey
• Whey protein concentrate
• Defatted peanuts
• Hydrogenated peanut oil
• Partially defatted peanuts
• Peanut flavor
• Hydrogenated lecithin
• Soy protein
• Hydrogenated vegetable protein
• Soya
• Soya lecithin
• Soybean oil
• Hydrogenated vegetable
• Modified food starch
• Hydrogenated coconut oil
• Enriched flour
• Hydrogenated starch
• Wheat flour hydrolysate
• Malt
• Modified food starch
• Corn fiber
• Corn oil
• Corn syrup
• Corn syrup solids
• Cornstarch
• Dextrin
• Dextrose
• Flaked milled corn
• High fructose corn syrup
• High maltose corn syrup
• Hydrogenated glucose syrup
• Hydrogenated starch hydrolysate
• Maltodextrin
• Xanthan gum
• Modified cornstarch
• Foodstarch
• Hydrogenated vegetable oil
• Vegetable oil

Compare it to chocolate products from one of my favorite companies, Liz Lovely

Sandwich Cookie (Organic Unbleached Wheat Flour, Organic Sugar, Expeller Pressed Canola Oil, Organic Peanut Butter [Organic Roasted Peanuts, Organic Palm Oil, Salt], Partially Defatted Peanut Flour, Organic Palm Fruit Oil, Organic Cocoa, Cocoa [Processed with Alkali], Salt, Organic Unsweetened Chocolate, Natural Flavor, Organic Corn Starch, Baking Soda, Soy Lecithin), Organic Fair Trade Dark Chocolate (organic cocoa liquor, organic cane sugar, organic cocoa butter, organic cocoa powder, organic vanilla).
* Certified Organic

I’ll let you research all the above ingredients and decide for yourself whether you’ll choose organic chocolates next time!

3. Vegan
For me, this is big. It’s actually not as hard as you might think to find vegan chocolate. I was never a milk chocolate fan, so I don’t miss that (although great vegan “milk” chocolate is available), and high quality, dark chocolate is easily found in most grocery stores. My local store even sells fair-trade options. Vegan chocolate is just cocoa and cocoa butter, maybe some sugar. That’s it. It’s not adulterated by milk or milk by-products. The taste is pure, chocolatey goodness.

Some of my favorite chocolates, cookies, and other fantastic goodies come from Liz Lovely, which I mentioned above. All of their products are fair-trade, organic, and vegan. What could better for YOUR valentine?

Right now, you can get free shipping on orders over $29 (so easy to do; everything is so yummy!)by entering the code: TRUELOVE. And join the Fanclub! The Liz Lovely crew offers deals and fun contests (for free cookies, of course!) all of the time.

Nothing is more exciting and, truly, invigorating than getting the first big bag of fresh veggies from the CSA to which we belong. Where we live, year-round produce beyond eggs and certain lettuces just isn’t possible. (And at some point, the lettuce doesn’t grow and we don’t eat eggs so…) When those full, bountiful bags start rolling in, we’re ecstatic and we know it’s summer! This week, we picked up our harvest at a local farmer’s market so we got to sample other farmers’ wares.  We ended up with only a beautiful bottle of herb-infused vinegar, but I think that as the summer wears on we’ll find more to please us. Our CSA picks this week included: red and golden beets, lettuce, arugula, salad mix (with beautiful edible yellow blossoms!), sugar snap peas (mmmmm), broccoli, and carrots. We were honestly in heaven sitting down before dinner to a plate of just-picked veggies sprinkled with herbed vinegar. FANTASTIC.

Eating food that came from the Earth (not a lab or greenhouse), farmed with good energy, sunlight, and water (not pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers) and picked by someone’s good hands (not ripped out by a machine) is one of life’s blessed experiences.

I had some computer malfunctions and password losses for a few weeks, but now I’m back in blog business.

As I approach the summer months, I will find myself with oodles of free time. My job allows me incredible vacation time in the summer in exchange for parenting 150 teenagers for nine months of the year. It’s a pretty good gig most of the time, but I definitely look forward to the vacation. Generally, in the summer, I do a lot of cooking. Fresh, straight-from-scratch cooking and baking. I’m talkin’ fresh breads, organic CSA veggies, and delicious wheat-meats. Mmm-hmmmm!  Anything that takes longer than thirty, forty-five minutes tops during the school year just ain’t happenin’, especially as I see the light at the end of the cement-block tunnel. Hubs and I have been taking Kashi microwaveable meals for lunches the past few weeks because we’re just so…. SPENT. As I stand in line for the microwave at lunch time, with all the other microwaveable meals, leftover pizza slices, and take-out in styrofoam boxes, I think, “My god, how will I eat well when I have kids? How will I do this for the remaining—gag—twenty-five years of my career?  ” I know I can do it, but honestly, am I up for the challenge?

You know, eating well on a small time schedule is no simple feat. And just shut your little yappy mouth before you start to form the words “Rachael Ray.”  One, ol’ Rach has a team of people to come up with ideas, and two, when in doubt, she adds cheese and butter and it’s all easy-peasy-cheesy. The quickest meal I’ve conjured is: grain (rice/quinoa/cous cous) + veggie burger (Dr. Praegers or Sunshine) + seasonings (curry paste/olive oil/tamari/mirin/whateverislayingonthecounteratthemoment) + microwave = quickest meal ever. But there’s that microwave which I don’t believe adds any value to food. It’s most likely zapping my mind so I forget the password to my blog admin.

And so, I’m nervous. Quick, easy food is never the best for the body. Did I also mention that I’ll be on the road for much of the summer in a cross-country excursion? Hubs and I KNOW how to cook easy meals for camping and such. But, in most cases, it’s still chock full of sodium. Or sugar. Or (shiver) soy protein isolate. The good stuff goes bad, and the good stuff ain’t great for road trips or crazy weeks when my students rebel against me in a fit of pirate-like mutiny because of a computer error on their progress reports or when Hubs’ students get arrested for drug traffiking (again). True story.

So, what do you do? I can’t eat pasta or veggie burgers every night for the rest of my life. And I refuse to be one of those tater-tot and “chikin” fingers moms in the future. Oy.  I need ideas.

I generally don’t drink alcohol anymore. Everytime I do, it hits me hard and I have either a headache or a total lack of energy the next day. (And I’m not talking about getting blitzed here, people, I’m talking about 3 drinks max.)  So, it was out of the ordinary for me to get some wine tonight. The liquor store close to my parents’ home has an organic section, so I checked it out. I’ve had an organic Syrah from this store, but I honestly don’t remember the vintage. Tonight I found Yellow+Blue organic Malbec in an eco-friendly carton. The wine was smooth, with delicious notes of fruit, and had a quick but tasty finish. I had three glasses and felt buzzed for a brief amount of time, but not flagged like I would have been with any other wine. I’ll definitely buy it again! Hubs mentioned the fact that it can’t be very eco-friendly if it’s imported from Argentina. So true, Hubs, so true. But the packaging takes less energy to produce and ship than glass bottles and, like I said, the wine was great! For something I don’t buy often, I think it’s worthwhile. And I like their tagline: Yellow+Blue=Green!

We ordered some sunchokes from our CSA this week. I wasn’t sure what to do with them, so I simply roasted them as per a few recipes I found online. I roughly peeled them, chopped them, tossed them with some olive oil, placed them on my pre-heated pizza stone, and roasted for 10-12 minutes at 425 degrees. They were awesome! Raw sunchokes are very similar in appearance and texture to ginger root. However, the skin of sunchokes is completely edible. Hubs thought they tasted like french fries and stopped mid-bite saying, “Mmmmmm! I think I need some ketchup with these!” I thought they were a bit like a parsnip in taste. Either way, they were (are) delicious and chock-full of minerals! Yum!