Trash - a side effect of going vegan

In our pre-vegan family days we used the garbage service once a week. It comes twice, but only during heavy yard work days did we ever need it. Now we use it every 3 times, but sometimes that's just to keep the smell down, not because the can is full. It puzzles both my husband and me as to why we our trash has gone down so significantly. Even adding in yard work days doesn't increase that need very much.

Now I wish I paid per pick-up, I could get rewarded for being a little greener.

Crazy Cravings

Do you have crazy pregnancy cravings? Heard of some from friends? How about avoidances?

Through my last three prenancies I have had an aversion to sugar and ice cream. This one is proving to be no different, right down to the ice cream part - meaning I can't even have non-diary versions. The one very odd part I'm finding is my aversion to wheat. Can't do it. Can't eat my homemade bread or rolls. I can't eat a slice of white bread unless it's a sandwich, and limited to one at that.

This wheat thing has made me switch gears and focus on lots of brown rice, quinoa, and grinding barley into flour for pancakes instead of wheat. It leaves me puzzled though, why no wheat?

Mormon Composer Meets Hanukkah - That's Unique!

Senator Orrin Hatch wrote a Hanukkah song. Hip Hop style. It's catchy and so unique, I had to share.

Check out the NYTimes article. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/us/politics/09hanukkah.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss
Then the video on TabletMag.com
Watch the Video

Pregnancy can do some very strange things.

I have been craving pizza every day for weeks. I've purchased a Kashi vegan one (unfortuntely our local Walmart stocked one that expired 3 months ago - they were good to give a refund), and Trader Joe's one (which is good by the way) but all to no avail. Cheese-less doesn't cut it. I can't stand vegan soy cheese either, so I don't dare make my own and watch it go down the drain.

That craving got so strong I finally decided to brace myself for digestion misery. I stopped at Costco with the fam and treated us all to pizza. The kids were estatic. I can't blame them, pizza was one of my all-time favorite foods; I ate it at least 3 times a week in high school. Rather than just order a cheese pizza I really wanted to give in to my craving and get a pepperoni, which is exactly what I did. Good move! Did you know that pepperoni has less cheese than a cheese pizza, I know that seems like a no brainer, yet it is a detail I forgot. It was divine. I knew my limit though. After a slice and a half I traded the remainder with my daughter for the crust of her slice she was nibbling at.

All night I expected misery, I woke myself up a few times expecting it, it never came.

How? All I can thing of are a combination of 2 solutions. I've been drinking a vegan greens drink everyday since Thanksgiving that supplies lactase. I also think that this little baby needed some nurishment from it and rewarded me for supplying it. Hooray!

My First Thanksgiving - Vegan

I had high hopes for Thanksgiving. Then morning sickness set in and that was the end. I bombed out. We attended a dinner with extended family. I didn't follow the one rule I've heard vegan's have: eat before going out to eat. I know the hostess was aware of my diet and hoped for the best. Well, she remembered the no meat thing, but it stopped there. I stuck with stuffing and mashed potatoes (vegetables were a little scarce considering the number of attendees), but my homemade vegan pumpkin pie was a little too flavorful and the option to tone it down was Cool Whip. I wanted to be courteous and try a bite (and I mean only a spoonful) of marshmallow Jello salad a cousin made, which of course was yummy but had sour cream and Cool Whip. It all added up to a terrible 24 hour tummy trauma. Not the best for someone who wants to go home, nap for 2 hours, then get back up and hit Black Friday at the stroke of midnight. Alas, it happened. I did learn one lesson. There is no way on earth I can blow it again on Christmas Eve at my mother-in-law's. I can't be doubled over in pain on Christmas Day!

The silliest thing is I purchased a tofurky roast to cook and eat before hand. As of today, that roast is still in the freezer...Guess it will be a New Year's Sunday dinner. I should be about over nausea by then.

Adding another aspect of "uniqueness"

When I started this I thought the vegan Mormon was unique enough. Even compared to my husbands high school counterparts who are pursuing graduate degrees and careers, having a family, and so quickly, is another aspect. Well, yet again, I'm adding another.

How about pregnant and vegan? How many sites share stories about that? I can't find it. I looked a few months ago. I'm giving it a shot. I will say due to my ever-caring husband who offered to pick up fries for me, I also ate a half of an In-n-out hamburger (he keeps his own agenda on his mind I still can't wean him of his favorite hamburger, fries and shake, no matter how many calories it is). After a whole week, yes a *whole week* of morning sickness lasting all day and needing to be horizontal to manage it, I definitely won't be partaking of any non-vegan food anytime soon. I need to be a mother!

I'm interested in how this will go. So far my sickness has made eating a chore. Eating half a slice of my homemade bread is extremely painful. When I consulted Healthy Eating for Life for Kids on my dietary intake I moaned.
7+ grains?
5+ legumes, non-dairy milks, nuts?
4+ vegetables?
3+ fruits?
Thanks heaven's sugar, chocolate, and "ice cream" is a huge turnoff right now. I don't have room for them at all!
Now I keep a Weight Watchers point-esque chart every day. I've learned that mornings are my best time, so I have a salad to chase down my cereal, that's 3 servings right there. Unfortunately for my family, evenings are terrible so dinner is usually cold cereal. Still working on lunch. It's a hit and miss. If I think too hard about what food to make, I'll end up in the bathroom.

I can't shake my memories of how easy it was to pull out pizza for dinner (one of my top 2 favorite pre-vegan foods), or how cheese and crakers was a great snack. I even caught myself thinking about meat-based dinners I used to cook.

One silver lining. Amid all the HCG dieters around me, I've learned that pregnancy is a great time to diet and this baby will have a great start.

I Make Bread

For Mormons and Non-Mormons alike, many of their eyes bulge when I tell them I make bread. I not only make my own bread, I grind the wheat to make the bread. No, I don't use a bread machine, I use my Nutrimill and Bosch. Nothing tastes so good as fresh baked bread with homemade frozen strawberry jam (which is super easy too, check out the recipe on the back of Ball's Freezer Jam packet). It's better than candy.

I sat thinking the other day. I've now had my Nutrimill and Bosch for one year. Has it paid for itself in that time? I think the two cost $650. Now for the facts. Do you know that wheat loses 90% of it's nutriets in the first 3-5 days after being ground? Yep. So that whole wheat flour you are buying at the grocery store will take a little longer to digest, but will offer you little else. What is the closest comparable commercial product to homemade bread, that gets frozen within 1 hour of cooking so that I retain as many nutrients as possible? I believe it would be Ezekiel bread. It's found in the freezer section at the grocery store and runs between $5-6 a loaf. My family can eat 4 loaves a week. I lose most of them on baking day. So I figure at that rate, my Bosch and Nutrimill have definitely paid for itself, including the wheat, oil, yeast, gluten, dough enhancer, and salt I purchase for the bread. THAT is worth it for me.

And, as a bonus, I get to grind my own barley into flour and just about any other grain I need. Yes!

What to eat?

Lately I've been feeling hypoglycemic. I think that's what it is. Prior to the vegan diet, when ever it had been a while since I'd eaten I would have an incredible craving for cheese and my body would start a small tremor. Sometimes I would just eat a dinner, but that craving didn't go away until I had a wedge. I'm getting the same feeling today. What do you do when pre-made vegan food is far too expensive for a single-income family, but you are going out of your mind getting the cheese-craving shakes if you don't eat something? Several weeks ago I resorted to cheese. I'm determined to keep myself in line today, since I'm still feeling the arthritic aches from the milk in that darn Halloween chocolate. Want to know what I ate? This is how incredibly simple vegan is:

Breakfast: Kashi Go-Lean w/ soymilk
Snack: watermelon (I got it for $0.10/lb! at our local market, hooray Arizona) & banana
Lunch: Spaghetti noodles w/ left over marinara sauce I made last night (silly me, forgot to buy more Prego for food storage and we had NONE, thank you nutritionmd.org for the recipe!)
Dessert: soy yogurt w/ applesauce
Snack: pinto beans w/ salsa and chips (my kids don't like salsa, they just eat the beans plain), apple, a "greens" vegan powder mix and water

Dinner? I'm thinking veggies with panko covered tofu, or maybe that will be a snack and I'll go to Chipotle and see if their vegetarian is truely vegan. Ah, food. Good thing it's all low-fat!

My First Halloween

I survived it! I excelled in it! This was my first Halloween on a vegan diet. The success? My sugar tolerance is terribly low. Isn't that great! On Friday night, after "Trunk or Treat" at the church, I ate one piece and called it a day, I just didn't crave it. Saturday night I passed on it altogether. Sunday I fasted then had a real hankering for some chocolate after dinner. I indulged, and yes, it was what the kids got so it was good old non-vegan Snickers and Butterfinger and Butterfinger crisp. Can you believe it? 4 snack size bars were too many. Yes! My hubby guess how I was feeling when he jokingly called after me "No bulimia in this house!" So true, I had wanted to dispose of that last chocolate bar.

It has taken months, and there were times I was sure it hadn't happened at all, I just thought that my decrease of sweets consumption was due to having to cook it and no loving the taste of low-fat tofu brownines and knowing that vegan margarine would make my brownies too expensive. Yet it has come I broke the food seduction. Short of having a desperate need for chocolate about every 4 weeks, even Dr. Barnard grants us women that priviledge, I have won control of my cravings. Yes!

Dr. Barnards's Breaking the Food Seduction

"Eat Mor Chikin"

Chikin vs chick'n or "chicken"

Either way you spell it, it connotates fake meat, vegan chicken.

I think the cows at Chick-fil-A want the world to be vegan.

Ideas about my new diet

I have lots of ideas about my new diet.

First, all animals produce hormones. It's how they function. Thyroid and arthritis are inflammatory diseases, specifically, auto-immune. Has my body been trying to fight foreign hormones, got confused, and was attacking my own thyroid and tissues? Now that I don't have any foreign hormones, is that why it's gotten better?


Not to weird anyone out...It's a known fact that organs have memories. People to get transplants sometimes take on characteristics of the previous owner. Do animals organs have memories? Seems likely. Does that get cooked out of tissues before we consume it? OK, now I'm feeling ill.

I heard that prisoners (in State Pens) showed improve behavior when put on a vegan diet. Might that be because they are suddenly, probably for the first time in their life, eating a healthy diet that allows their bodies to self-heal? Heal from being crack-babies, or merely taking drugs their whole life in place of good food?

Meat, in particular, makes me nauseous when I'm pregnant and smell it cooking. Is that a sign? PCRM's Healthy Eating For Live for Children supports that idea.

Is eating vegan expensive?

I ALWAYS get the question, isn't it expensive to eat vegan? Perhaps, but I don't think so. We definitely don't eat the same portion size we did before, it's much smaller now.

I did make some major changes do my shopping. I can't peruse grocery ads or coupons, they are full of meat, diary, or processed foods (all subsidized by govenment monies). I found a wonderful market to get my produce from. I watch for case-lot sales and buy my canned beans in bulk. Someday I'll fulfill my wish list and buy the whole shabang of canning supplies complete with pressure cooker so I can can my own food.

My food storage is easier to keep track of now, all dry goods I can get at the LDS dry pack, or Honeyville (in the case of extra grains) eat, and rotate. I have no need for a second freezer. The one in my fridge is only half-full at any given time anyway. (And it's usually full of fresh-made, frozen bread, freezer jam, and frozen fruits and vegetables in case our money gets really short at the end of the month.) I can't afford to bake like I used to. That small tub of expeller-pressed vegetable oil (my new butter) is far too expensive to waste on cookies. That only benefits my waistline.

A Food Outlet - pent up thoughts

I just had the most divine cookies ever. EVER! While I am not a fan of the decor, the ppk's website IS full of yummy stuff, try these cookies!


I've been thinking about questions I get when I tell people I eat vegan. They are always a lot more tolerant when they find out it's more a health issue. In reality though, I believe that the benefits seen in vegan-ism is a fulfillment of Word of Wisdom blessings, only because it's the closest diet I've seen that enables someone to more fully live the W of W. And, while doctor's will sometimes make the claim that people start looking sickly after being vegans for a long time (and I'm talking decades) I don't think I will. This is why:

• You can be completely unhealthy, and be vegan. BUT most vegans are already health conscious (don't bother looking at PETA's approved foods list, it's crap). On vegan websites and blogs you're more likely to find recipes that are low-fat, low-sodium, high-vitamin ones.
  
• Vegans traditionally are animal-rights advocates. I assume that means they will just switch all their favorite omnivore foods for vegan ones, like switching dairy products to soy, dairy-free cream cheese, cheese, milk, etc. I'm not a fan. I don't agree on switching one product and going overboard on soy. Nor do I like soy cheese, so I figure if I'm skipping dairy, I'll just skip it, not substitute it. (I must confess, buying a cheese pizza at Costco for the kids lulled me into temptation. 1, 2, then 3 bites of bliss. What the rat on Disney-Pixar's Ratatouille says about the explosion of flavor, oh, I tasted that!)
• I now know of lots of different grains, what to do with them, how to cook them. Last Friday I was tired of wheat, so I made blender pancakes for dinner, but substituted in barley. It was great!