Good news, everyone!
In early 2009, researchers at the University of Western Sydney confirmed that bio-available B12 exists in the skin & flesh of button mushrooms, 5% RDI (per 100g).
Link: shrooms!
There’s also info on the availability of vitamin D2 in mushrooms at that link. Whee!
An actual blog update, oh no!
I’ve borrowed this survey from my friend Nicole, who is the wondrous wonderful beacon of inspiring wonderment glowing in the vegan firmament who originally inspired me to throw caution to the wind (and vegan pies into the faces of naysayers) and go veg in the 1st place! All the MoFo-ing (“Vegan Month of Food” blogging) going on in the blogosphere has also inspired me to forgo valuable sleep and answer the following questions! 
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1. Favourite non-dairy milk?
… Good grief, just one? Well. I love the heck outta my homemade raw nut milks. Almond & date milk is a classic. Macadamia milk is frothy & perfectly creamy, cashew milk is great in tea & in berry smoothies, & hazelnut milk is simply divine (but pricey!). Shop-bought? I usually go for Vitasoy rice milk or Bonsoy. Or a coconut if they look nice!
2. What are the top 3 dishes/recipes you are planning to cook?
… Only 3? Another good grief! I’ll just tell you my most immediate plans: 1. For my 6mo daughter, I’m going to try whizzing up a raw mash of sweet potato & zucchini, maybe a dash of flax oil or Udo’s oil, & warm it slightly; 2. Mango sorbet coconut tartlets from Ani Phyo’s dessert book; 3. Sprout & tempeh sang choy bow.
3. Topping of choice for popcorn?
Tamari & nutritional yeast is BRILLIANT on popcorn. Just ask Webly.
4. Most disastrous recipe/meal failure?
A while back I made a gluten-free orange cake that collapsed near the end of baking & turned to mush in the centre. But it still tasted good! I made many gluten-free test loaves with too much baking soda, yick. & onion in juice… What the hell is up with people drinking that? Yargh.
5. Favourite pickled item?
Radish in sushi.
6. How do you organise your recipes?
Organise? In one big random pile! Or with categories or tags on a blog!
7. Compost, trash, or garbage disposal?
Compost, bitches! We have 2 enormous bins in the garden, & a bokashi bin in the kitchen. There’s a rumour going around that we named them after our favourite characters on True Blood. I think you’ll find that’s an outright lie. Or true. One of those.
8. If you were stranded on an island and could only bring 3 foods…what would they be (don’t worry about how you’ll cook them)?
ONLY 3? Wot! Very uncool.
1. Bananas
2. Parsley
3. Sesame seeds
… damn it. I want goji berries & dates, too. & a million other things! Like raw brazil nut carob/cacao cakes! & coconuts. D’oh.
9. Fondest food memory from your childhood?
Mushrooms. On the BBQ. I remember I thought they were gross & didn’t want to try them, but then I did & said something like: “Mushrooms are better than chocolate.” Wise words, indeed.
10. Favourite vegan ice cream?
I can’t go past the lime icecream from Ani Phyo’s raw dessert book. It’s like the best fruity gelato & the best creamy icecream ever all at once! So lovely. & FYI: I’ve heard it said that vegan icecream is not real icecream, & that’s very true: it’s unreal icecream. Fucking A.
11. Most loved kitchen appliance?
Blender! Of course.
12. Spice/herb you would die without?
I’ve grown to love parsley. It’s brilliantly versatile & packed full of nutrients. Good, old parsley! It’s underrated. & quite lovely in the right smoothie or juice.
13. Cookbook you have owned for the longest time?
I have an enormous collection… not sure. I think my 1st vegan recipe book was Vegan With A Vengeance.
14. Favourite flavour of jam/jelly?
Raw jam made out of dates & raspberries srsly kicks butt. & I don’t mind some fig jam.
15. Favourite vegan recipe to serve to an omni friend?
Ooo… Snackwise, the raw brazil carob & coconut slice kicks even “carob haters” in the arse, so that’s fun! Mains, I find baked vegan shepherd’s pie wins many hearts. Or a salad of raw Asian greens, herbs, avocado, & tomato dressed with a tamari-gingery-sesame seedy-nice oil concoction amazes anyone & everyone. You CAN win friends with salad!
16. Seitan, tofu, or tempeh?
I love tempeh the mostest, but don’t eat it often enough. Tofu is easy & nice. I don’t do wheaty seitan usually, but occasionally yum-out on Asian soy faux meat. In a protein kinda category (& FYI ugh, I loathe the world’s protein fixation & exaggerated RDIs), I usually steer more towards nuts, mushrooms, greens, lentils, & beans.
17. Favourite meal to cook (or time of day to cook)?
I’m all about breakfast, baby. Smoothies, juices, fruit pudding, freshly blended nut milky things, berry-laden raw muesli, scrambled tofu or nuts, leftover pizza or curry, herbs & greens, nut spreads on toast/raw bread, marmite, tomatoes, faux pho, miso, & raw desserts… Breakfast for every meal, k thx!
18. What is sitting on top of your refrigerator?
Placemats & kitchen scales &… random stuff.
19. Name 3 items in your freezer without looking.
Berries, carob sauce/raw icing (frosting), tempeh.
20. What’s on your grocery list?
Right now? Tomatoes & garlic. Running low!
21. Favourite grocery store?
Don’t really have one… I prefer outdoor produce markets, & they vary week to week… Asian grocery shops that stock crazy “pure vegetarian” foods are always fun. I like the one at Q-store shopping complex on the Gold Coast. They always have fresh coriander, which is more than I can say for the bloody awful chain stupormarkets around here! Fie.
22. Name a recipe you’d love to veganize, but haven’t yet.
A proper crème brûlée. I’ve been meaning to for aaages. People always make them custardy instead of really creamy. I reckon it would be easiest replicated using gourmet raw foodie techniques rather than with cooked stuff. Macadamia nuts &/or cashews are probably a good place to start. & I shall start. As soon as I have time & develop a hankering for an insanely rich dessert.
23. Food blog you read the most (besides Isa’s because I know you check it everyday). Or maybe the top 3?
Way to embarrass me, survey. I haven’t been keeping up with any blog regularly since bubs arrived! Sorry, blogosphere. 
24. Favourite vegan candy/chocolate?
Swami’s Rawganic chocolate bars. No contest. She’s a brilliant cook/uncook.
25. Most extravagant food item purchased lately?
I don’t really do extravagant..? Perhaps hemp oil… oh, wait. That’s not officially recognised as a foodstuff in Australia yet! Way to be behind the times, Australia. Also hemp flour, since you can’t buy hemp seeds. & hemp flour is only supposed to be used animal feed, apparently. Gee, lucky humans are animals, then! But. Ok. So I’d better just feed it to my cats because our backwards-arse government regulatory body says no. Yep. Yessir.
26. Ingredients you are scared to work with?
Anything vegan ist gut, ja! Except maybe that Mexican gourmet moldy corn stuff? Pass. I don’t digest regular corn too well anyway. Also, O_o & vegan haggis. I mean srsly. WHY.
*****
Fun! I hope y’all out there are enjoying Vegan MoFo! Xoxo
Time for a book review! Welcome to my thoughts about Personal Development for Smart People. Author Steve Pavlina is a raw food vegan, but this isn’t a book about veganism, or about motivation for vegans, although it is mentioned in places as an example of self-improvement (who’d have thought there was a connection?… ha.).
Self-help books have been coming out of the publishing world’s wahzoo for the last decade in insane numbers. People can’t get enough of feel-good quackery and quick-fix pick-me-ups. But, if you’re like me, most of what you’ve stumbled across will have gone in one ear and out the other – either the author’s are repeating what you’ve heard a million times before, or they’re not quite hitting the mark where your issues are concerned, or they’re spouting tired, old rhetoric you can do without.
If you want help or new ideas about how to get things done in life or to take life up a notch, and you don’t want to be one of Those People who hangs around therapy offices throwing money at psychologists (whose patients, for the most part, only have an average 30-something-% success/improvement rate), what do you do? Improving diet is a good start – keeping it clean to keep out unnecessary hormone and chemical imbalances. You might look to friends and family who have something in common with you, often, but failing that – then what?
How about some people with similar interests and ethics who are writing self-help books? How about nerdy vegan bloggers who can string together coherent sentences? They ought to be capable of ringing a few bells in the old noggin if you’re anything like me! But looking for non-fiction books by vegan geeks that aren’t about veganism specifically narrows the field a little… and then along comes Steve Pavlina and his shiny new tome Personal Development for Smart People.
About the book
I have plenty of positive things to say about this book, but! I’m going to quibble nonetheless. I hate a review that doesn’t quibble in the slightest, even if the result is 5 stars! I think slapping the perfection label on something is a bit lazy… but, to be clear, this book certainly doesn’t nuke any fridges. It doesn’t even come close (and thank goodness for that! I’ve had about all I can take of people surviving nuclear blasts by hiding in refrigerators for this year!).
Personal Development for Smart People starts out well: it draws you right in – like any book worth half its salt should! – but towards the end of Part I it started to lose me. Part I is the theory behind his personal development practices, and it goes into a lot of detail. It will probably improve on a second or third read-through, if you apply his methods studiously and refer back to the text during that time, but straight up I was keen to get into some practical application a little earlier on. Most of it was pretty darn inspiring nonetheless! Steve Pavlina assumes his audience is smart, and his conversational, blogger-influenced tone is far from condescending or instructive, which is probably what stops a lot of people from acting on the useful information hidden within the depths of most personal development books.
Part II grabbed my attention very early on with methods of putting his theory into practice: I’ve read a lot of self-help books over the years, and truly this is the first one that’s ever got me off my butt immediately upon reading it! There’s some magic in them thar pages! But towards the end of Part II, the applied theory seemed to fade back into the realm of theory a little… but perhaps that was just me! The career chapter was quite motivating for me, at this point in my life, and the other sections, perhaps, are not so vitally important to me right now.
The spiritual components of the discussion may throw some people. An element of New Age creeps in, but for those familiar with personal development books of old, such as The Power of Positive Thinking, this will be seen as a very welcome improvement! Authors inevitably share themselves in motivation writing – this is not Psych 101 where the doctor keeps his issues strictly separate (or tries to) from his patients. This is your friendly neighbourhood überblogger, and he knows you – his audience – quite well and you probably know him already, unless you’ve been living under an 8-bit rock or confined yourself to a self-help-free zone. A great deal of the power behind Personal Development for Smart People comes from the personalised approach… and here’s where I’m going to delve into a few of the parts that interested me the most, and that are most relevant to the content of this blog…
The vegan-related bits!
Chapter 11 discusses health-improvement aspects of personal development, and, like all the other chapters in Part II, is divided up into sections that relate to each of the theory chapters in Part I: truth, love, power, oneness, authority, courage, and intelligence. Under the heading of “Health and Love” we find a piece about Steve Pavlina’s journey into veganism that is quite fascinating.
” … The principle of love helps you to connect with the foods that are most naturally attractive to you. Pay attention to which ones feel intuitively right and which feel intuitively wrong. How do you feel about an apple? A hot dog? A bowl of rice? A stalk of broccoli? Do some items feel healthy to you while others don’t? Could you improve your health simply by doing a better job of honoring what your intuition is already telling you? Are you treating your body in a loving manner?
I feel most connected to foods that sprout from the earth itself, especially fresh fruits and vegetables. Items that emerge from a factory or a slaughterhouse feel intuitively wrong to me. I feel more loving and connected when I eat natural plant foods.
When I think about eating animals, however, I feel disconnected from empathy and love. I’m forced to connect with the reality of rotting, decaying flesh. I know that a living being has been violently killed before its natural life span is up, usually after being imprisoned its whole life under conditions any human would consider torturous. I know that slaughterhouses experience massive employee turnover because few human beings can stomach such work for long. I know that enormous amounts of resources must be expended and tons of waste produced in order to deliver animal foods to my plate. I see major incongruencies and unfairness, with some animals being valued as loving human companions while others are treated as edible substances, merely because of differences in taste and profitability. I see a living being that’s been reduced to a dollar sign.
The only way I can justify eating animal foods is to disregard my intuition and dismiss my conscience. Since I’ve committed myself to conscious living, I cannot possibly do this. I’ve eaten no animal flesh since 1993 and no animal-derived products since 1997. I wish I could say that these realizations were the catalyst for those changes, but the truth is that I conducted a 30-day trial of eating no animal foods purely out of curiosity, and my awareness of the consequences of my food choices increased during and after the experiment to the point where I could never go back.
When I eat processed, packaged foods, I feel more foggy and disconnected. I see lifeless chemicals that may fuel my body but can never fully nourish me. I know such foods are marketed and sold based on their profitability, not their health properties, so these products don’t feel loving to me. I see falsehood promoted as truth, fragmentation presented as wholeness, and weakness pitched as strength. Eating large quantities of such foods lowers my consciousness and makes me less of who I am.
What do you feel when you tune in to the foods you eat? … ”
Personal Development for Smart People is by no means a non-mainstream book, but here, within the pages and anecdotes, we nonetheless find ourselves with some vegan smarts usually not brought up for fear of frightening people off. And the one above is not the only mention made of his preferred ethical and healthful approach to life.
Steve Pavlina is known for being forthright, and his book is no exception. It’s a relief! And it’s honest, and it encourages you to bring more honesty and directness into one’s own life. To me, the whole book is about healthy living! I was a bit wary about reading chapter 10 about Money, but I was pleasantly surprised by what I found there, too. I thought the Spirituality chapter would bug the hell out of me (excuse the pun), but it was a holistic, dogma-free approach that was more about philosophy than religion… although a religious person approaching it from a different perspective would probably interpret much of it otherwise!
In conclusion…
So… I think I’ll cut it short and end the review here… yes, short. There’s plenty more I could say about this book! It’s sure to find a home on my “favourite books” shelf in my rather extensive little library.
Stars? Is it possible to put a value on a useful book? Really? If I have to, then I give it: 4.5 shining stars out of 5… but, as I said, some sections of the book may improve on a second or third read-through, so that score may be amended in the future.
Personal Development for Smart People is available in bookshops all over the internet. I’m not going to give you a link to Amazon, because I’m not a fan. Instead, here’s a link to The Book Depository, which has free (free!) postage… worldwide! Nice. Interestingly that means that it works out to be the cheapest online bookshop for Australians to buy from… Wacky.
You can also check out Steve Pavlina’s blog over at stevepavlina.com, where you will find him currently engaged in a trial of a juice fast! Fascinating stuff, and some good juice recipes to boot. Yummy. Check out his blog archives for other fascinating trials he’s conducted on various ways of living/improving, such as polyphasic sleep.
Coming up next…
I’ve updated the look of this blog over the past few days! I think it’s pretty, but let me know if it bugs the heck out of you.
I’ve noticed a lot of vegan blogs are participating in Vegan MoFo – “Vegan Month of Food” – in which people post about what they’re eating and other vegan-type things during the month of November, rather than participating in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). So… count me in! It’s about time I started updating this thing on a regular basis again.
I’ve pretty much got into the swing of incorporating a lot more raw food in my daily life, and my pregnancy has settled down and the little bits of nausea and tiredness and other bothersome issues have passed by now… So, onwards, and into Vegan MoFo, with recipes, photos, research tidbits, news, and other fun (hopefully!) bits and pieces. The beginning of next week is a bit busy, and includes my 20-week ultrasound, various homebirth midwife and other baby-related things, and also World Vegan Day stuff, so the first week might be a bit scant, but I’ll do my best to post daily-ish… or thereabouts! See you ’round the interwebs!
Happy Halloween/Samhain, northern hemispherians! & Happy Beltane to the southerners!
And increase longevity! With vegan and living foods.
Free lecture found on Google videos:
FREE GARY NULL LECTURE – CHANGE YOUR LIFE
60 min – Jan 4, 2007Watch Gary Null’s Latest Incredible Lecture. This Extraordinary Presentation Was Filmed LIVE before thousands of people in Dallas, Texas. Enjoy!
Worth a watch. Good science, other good ideas, and good references. Quite a funny presentation in places (and even includes information on improving rat diets & health, too!).
Also, I’ve changed the header on this site to stacks of colourful fresh produce. Looks prettier! The old header was gluten-free baked bread… and I don’t bake cooked bread these days as I prefer raw flaxbread, so it didn’t seem appropriate any longer.
People “prefer” the meat version of foods, even if… it tastes, looks, and feels exactly the darn same.
“An ingenious study just published in the Journal of Consumer Research has provided a striking demonstration that taste perceptions and product preferences are strongly influenced by our personal values – to the point where people who believe in the importance of social authority perceived a sausage roll labelled as vegetarian as far inferior to a ‘meat’ version, even though they ate the same sausage roll on both occasions.
The same result appeared whether the participants actually ate meat or vegetarian sausage rolls, and the participants couldn’t reliably distinguish the two in any condition.”
Anti-veg prejudice is fascinating… if a little bit sad, given all the unnecessary animal suffering, environmental degradation, and health problems that result from people’s alleged “preferences.”
Winter has arrived here in the southern hemisphere, and we’ve had flooding rains and all sorts of “fun” around my city.
The cold weather has meant our feline companions have become extra needy and have been progressively taking up more and more space on the end of our bed at night, leaving less and less room for us and interrupting our sleep! We could shut the door, I suppose… but that would probably just result in a howling cat duet outside the door.
My husband and I have also been renovating our bathroom, and we’re just about done – just waiting on some tiles to arrive so we can finish fixing up the walls. There’s also the possibility we might be moving in the not-to-distant future, but we’re still working on the details, so more on that later.
I’ve been eating more and more “raw food” as well. This doesn’t have much to do with veganism particularly, as I’m largely of the ethical vegan variety, and view the diet/health part and ecological benefits as secondary to the liberation/welfare of commodified/abused animals. The combination of my husband being diagnosed gluten-intolerant a while back and my reading the Campbell’s China Study at an earlier point has led me to investigate healthy eating alternatives within the framework of a cruelty-free lifestyle, and – while a plant-based diet already seems to be the healthiest option as far as nutrition is concerned – there’s no harm in going further and improving healthy eating beyond the minimum. I was never much of a junk food person to start off with (besides potato chips… fried tater = love), and my husband has always been a bit of a “foodie” preferring fancy creations made from unprocessed wholefoods. And you can’t get more wholefoodie than raw and fresh.
I picked up a copy of Ani Phyo’s Raw Food Kitchen a few months back and have been trying out the recipes, and I have to say I’m pretty darn impressed by the raw food style of “uncooking.” Most of the foods are incredibly tasty, and I’ve been brimming over with energy. It’s quite surprising. It’s not a hugely noticeable improvement, as I was already eating a pretty decent diet and in great health, but I’m certainly perkier and sleeping less, as is my gluten-intolerant husband. Since I started increasing raw foods in my diet in January I haven’t had so much as a sniffle, and between the stress of a wedding and a family funeral combined with a background of chronic hayfever, I think that’s probably something worth writing home about. I can still have my black forest cake and eat it, too, except now it’s made out of brazil nuts, dates, carob and other goodies that form a surprisingly awesome cake that is probably among the tastiest damn cakes I’ve ever chomped on (and I’ve chomped quite a few!). And I can eat the whole damn cake while losing weight at the same time – it’s a lazy person’s dream diet! Ha. (Except that the higher energy levels mean you’re actually driven to want to exercise! Which is probably not such a bad thing, either.)
Still, it’s a separate issue to the ethical vegan life, insofar as it’s only of obvious benefit is to myself (although with the increase in local fresh foods and decrease in packaging it’s probably a tad less environmentally destructive, which is useful). I’m not going to go on about that too much here. This blog is supposed to be about supporting gluten-free vegan living, not a health programme as such, beyond the absence of gluten. Veganism is for animal rights and liberation, not personal gain/health or “just a diet.” Still, given my interest in the health/gluten intolerance areas, it’s probably a little comforting to know that my recipes – if you do try them out – are unlikely to aggravate digestive problems, hey? Ha. They might even assist with health improvements…
So if “raw” recipes start featuring more heavily, this is why. The most equipment-heavy stuff I’ll post will use a blender or food processor at most, other than the dehydrated raw bread I’ve already posted. I don’t have the intention of going 100% raw any time soon, as “My Husband, The Scientist” – in addition to his digestive system being a severe critic – is quite critical of the biological/chemical/nutritional science expounded by proponents of the “raw movement.” My Husband, The Scientist won’t tolerate any blind-faithy, airy-fairy, feel-goodery, fluffy-bunny nonsense in our kitchen! And fair enough, too – all that unscientific mumbo-jumbo would probably knock our chakras out of alignment… um.
What else? More recipes coming soon. And perhaps the most important news I’ve saved for last: I’m adopting some mice that have been rescued! I’ll post photos and stories of the little guys soon.
I found a fabulous article on the healthfulness of vegan diets during pregnancy. It also dispels many cultural bias surrounding the diet in general. Check it out! It’s quite long, but very interesting and informative.
I went vegetarian for the animals, then realised I should be vegan for the rest of the animals that I didn’t consider the first time around. However there is another compelling reason I stick with it other than the health and well-being of others – my own health. There are a lot of vegan success stories around about controlling and effectively “curing” type 2 diabetes, overcoming obesity and heart disease, avoiding cancer, and managing arthritis by eating a vegan diet… Why is a vegan diet healthy? A quick glance at the numbers reveals a lot.
Nutrient composition of plant and animal-based foods per 500 calories of energy:
Nutrient Plant Foods* Animal Foods** Cholesterol (mg) - 137 Fat (g) 4 36 Protein (g) 33 34 Beta-carotene (mcg) 29,919 17 Dietary Fibre (g) 31 - Vitamin C (mg) 293 4 Folate (mcg) 1168 19 Vitamin E (mg_ATE) 11 0.5 Iron (mg) 20 2 Magnesium (mg) 548 51 Calcium (mg) 545 252
* Equal parts tomatoes, spinach, lima beans, peas, potatoes.
** Equal parts beef, pork, chicken, milk.
References:
- U.S. Department of Agriculture. “USDA Nutrient Database for Standard Reference.” Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agriculture Research Service, 2002.
- Holden JM, Eldridge AL, Beecher GR, et al. “Carotenoid content of U.S. foods: an update of the database.” J. Food Comp. Anal. 12 (1999): 169-196.
Table:
- Campbell TC, Campbell II TM. “The China Study: Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss, and Long-term Health.” Dallas, Texas. Benbella Books, 2004, pp. 230.
Clearly the nutrient value in plants is much higher. You will also notice that that if you eat sufficient calories on a vegan diet, you get plenty of protein, enough to match an animal-based diet to within a gram. The idea that vegans are protein deficient and weak is a myth. Sufficient protein in combination with a much higher intake of vitamins and minerals means a big health boost. As I rockclimber, I have plenty more stamina on a vegan diet and can climb for much longer periods without getting tired. I also generally require less sleep and rarely get ill.
In my pre-vegan days, I had some relatively minor (but irritating nonetheless!) reoccurring conditions, such as: hayfever, hives, sinusitis, bronchitis, colds, menstrual cramps, pimples, easy weight gain. In particular, hayfever and sinusitis were a frustrating nightmare – every season change, my immune system would go on high alert, I’d be sniffling and sneezing with the slightest gust of wind, one thing would lead to another, I’d end up catching a cold, I’d take antihistimines or cold’n'flu medication, and I’d feel like a disgusting, dehydrated mess. Some folks say such allergic conditions are due to not being breast-fed, others say it’s an inherited condition. In my case, it could be a bit of both.
I still had all these problems when I was briefly lacto-ova vegetarian. The hayfever and sinusitis reduced dramatically when I cut out eggs and dairy products. Nowadays I only get hayfever or catch colds when I’m highly stressed. (For example: the only severe hayfever and consequent cold I caught since I’ve been vegan was when I travelled interstate to the funeral of a friend following her seemingly sudden suicide. I was stressed, ate more junk food than I had in a while, and generally didn’t sleep well for at least a month.)
Moderate stress can still bring on a few pimples, which I have always been prone to, but, traumatic events aside, I’m free of hayfever, colds, bronchitis, menstrual cramps, and the rest of it. My husband-to-be, on the other hand, has one health complaint, quite different to my own. He is gluten intolerant and has had a life-long chronic problem with his intestines, that at times can be quite painful. The severity of the condition has been reduced on a vegan diet, and to reduce inflammation further he reduces spices in his food and drinks a bitter Chinese herbal medicine brew occasionally.
Once the body and taste buds adjust to an all-plant all-the-time diet, (which usually takes a few weeks to a few months, depending on how much of a habitual animal you are!), the diet is incredibly satisfying. Physically, the energy boost is quite amazing. Intellectually, you know you aren’t contributing to future disease and long life, and you’re also protecting the environment and not sustaining violent animal industries. Taste-wise, you begin to enjoy the food more, because without saturated animal fat on everything your tastebuds become more sophisticated and discerning of other flavours. Combined with the easy digestion that a higher fibre diet brings, the increased metabolism and hunger makes food more satisfying, and you can also eat and snack more frequently without so much worrying about getting fat! New vegans sometimes get over-enthusiastic about trying new foods and put on some weight, but a bit of exercise can balance that out quickly enough.
Going vegan is one of the simplest changes you can make, and one of the most rewarding. Changing habits is hard sometimes, but the actual process of veganism is simple. Once you are doing it, it’s a stunning to realise how easy it is. It can be a fight eating out when restaurants aren’t friendly about it, but really, in a service industry they should be willing to serve a customers interests all the time. If they’re not, take your business elsewhere, and take your friends with you! Personally I prefer to stick to home-cooked meals, vegan cafes, or veg-friendly places with good veg-menus. That way, you can be sure of what you’re eating, both of the quality of food and what it contains. I have a few favourite places to eat out, where the staff often recognise me, which has quite a few benefits besides good quality food with a vegan guarantee: quick service, friendly conversation, and taste-testing freebees! Not to mention I found someone to make me and my husband-to-be a very fancy, gluten-free, vegan wedding cake!
Of course, it is possible to be unhealthy on a vegan diet. If you live on deep-fried food, coffee, alcohol, and cigarettes, you’re not likely to avoid many health problems. If you only eat one or two foods, you will get ill. But there are thousands of edible plants, so a limited diet is quite unnecessary when there are hundreds of plant foods that will suit your tastes, if not thousands. However, veganism is about the animals first, and not contributing to the violence, mess, and pollution of the industry. Human slavery was abolished for itself and for the welfare of the slaves, not to make the slave-owners feel better about their own state of being. Similarly, animal products are avoided for the animals, not to make the consumer feel better about themselves. For many people, the health of the animals is the primary concern, and the only concern. For others, the health of the animals leads to thinking about their own health, or vice versa.
But, as the table above indicates, eating plants can easily be better for you as well as reducing the demand for animal industries, as well as reducing your ecological footprint. So, if you’re going to deep-fry something, make it a potato! Or, better yet, make leek, potato, and quinoa soup like I did last night. It’s a meal that’s healthy, compassionate, and well-deserving of an OMNOMNOM or two! 2-3 leeks browned over medium heat in splash of sunflower oil, add several diced potatoes and as much quinoa as you want, simmer in vegetable stock until well-cooked, with a bay leaf and your favourite herb, (dry or fresh, try thyme or oregano), then blended until smooth (optional). (Optional: stir some greens into the hot soup before serving, until they wilt, like chopped spinach, kale, or rocket.) Add salt and pepper to taste. Yum!
& Happy Persian New Year &/or Baha’i New Year &/or Happy Easter &/or Happy Esbat &/or just have a happy long weekend!
Vegans sure don’t!
Rheumatoid arthritis patients may be able to improve their symptoms by switching to a vegan and gluten-free diet, a study in Sweden has found…
… At the same time, the vegans developed a lower body mass index, had lower levels of bad cholesterol and higher levels of immune system factors that potentially inhibit the inflammatory reaction. The research was reported in the journal Arthritis Research and Therapy.
Check out the full article here:
Vegan diet may ease arthritis, study finds
· Reduced swelling hints at unexpected immunity link
· Research raises hope for rheumatoid patients
James Randerson, science correspondent
The Guardian, Tuesday March 18 2008
After that bread cooled and was refrigerated over night, it became a bit crumbly, leaning a bit more towards the yeast-free cakey texture. With the maize flour, it’s a drier bread than the potato flour bread, so I guess it’s to be expected… Maybe a corny bread needs more oil? Not sure! But too much moisture and the bread won’t rise… tricky! Although I did toast it for breakfast as well, and drown it in baked beans… that could also be a factor.
In other news, I’ve lost weight recently. I think I’ve been eating a little better, but not much. I put it down to a combination of eating gluten-free and getting more exercise. I think I’ve (a) been getting more good carbs and more fibre with all the test baking, and (b) I’ve been burning it off!
The interesting part is that I don’t run out of energy rockclimbing anymore – instead I graze my too-soft-for-climbing hands until I can stand it no more, and that’s when I quit climbing. My muscles recover quicker as well, and don’t pump up too much – or, rather, they don’t stay pumped up as long… This vegan diet (+ gluten-free) has given me much better endurance.. When I build up harder skin on my hands again, it will be interesting to see how many hours I can climb for before I need a rest.
Carbs + fibre = win + ENERGY. And I see no bowel cancer in my future! Haha. *hugs veganism*
Speaking of which, this is a cool – if slightly grotesque – bumper sticker:
(from Food Fight in the USA)
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