First day eating vegan

It is a holiday today, Labour Day, so should be able to stick with it as have the kitchen at my disposal.
Weighed in at 158.5 – will try to weigh in each Monday.
First up breakfast. Usually have porridge - 1/2 cup of regular oatmeal with cup of milk and some extra water, topped off with splenda sugar substitute and sometimes fruit. So I  replaced the milk with all water and had 1/2 a cup of blue berries ontop. Quite tasty, did not miss the milk, That wasn't hard at all.



Went for an 11 mile bike ride with my partner and came back rather hungry for lunch. There were leftover black beans that I squished and mixed in hot chilli from the garden. Made 2 patties, to one I added a tbsp of bread crumbs I had frozen. I think the burger with the bread crumbs tasted a smidge better but the difference was slight. I fried the patties in non stick pan with that cooking spray stuff. Picked a cup of arugula and some cherry tomatoes from the garden and allowed myself 1 tbsp of low fat ranch dressing. i know that knife over forks book says no oily dressings, so I will be replacing the ranch with whatever they suggest. Have not got the book out of the library yet..
I should have had an extra 2 cups of arugula and a bunch more tomatoes because I was still hungry.  But it sure was tasty and easy to prep.
I am used to cooking properly, which means creating a mess of dishes to clean up, so that is no great new hardship. I would normally grate an ounce of sharp cheddar to sprinkle on salad, but I really did not miss it.
Snack time was home made hummus on Wasa crackers. The hummus recipe had no oil or tahini which is sesame paste – and it tastes a bit watery. Next time will put some cherry toms or cucumber on it for flavor. Need to get a better hummus recipe. The wasa crackers are very thick dry and crunchy. Normally I would pile a load of cottage cheese or cream cheese or oily hummus on them and it would be super tasty. But with the water hummus it was just OK.
Dinner was oil free french fries with a bocca soy burger (on sale at Aldi). Got fries recipe from forks over knives website but it is basically just cut up potato with skin to 1/4 thick and bake on parchment at 400 for 15 mins, then flip for another 15.  The fries were OK dunked in bbq sauce but when sprinkled with salt the salt doesn't stick. Might toss then in a tiny dribble of EVOO next time just so the salt sticks
I cooked my sweetie her 4oz ribeye steak, cut super thin. Gave it 1 min per side in a hot cast iron fry pan. That was too much and will try 30 secs next time. It was liked well enough though.
We went to Bloomington Meats yesterday to get  her some slabs of animal flesh. She typically gets 8oz steaks but cannot really eat more than half, and the remainder only sometimes gets eaten during the next few days. So we decided to get the 4 oz ribeyes that are cut thin, for a little over $2.50 each. We got 5 and will freeze 4 of them. This meat place on the edge of town is the best quality place around, they butcher it on site from local producers and it looks properly aged. It is cheaper than Walmart (actually I have never bought food in Walmart but I will bet you it is cheaper). It is highly unlikely to have pink slime or other chemicals to make it look fresh. 4 years ago I asked if they had grass fed beef. They said yes but it is all mixed in and could not tell which was which. Apparently they did not know they could charge twice the price for grass fed. Now they have Funks Grove farm grass fed, but mostly they are out of stock. I am betting that some is humanely raised and some isn't, but its got be be better than the supermarket crap. Apparently there is only 1 slaughterhouse in the region and the organic people use it. It is probably cruel but I don;t know for sure. That is partly why I am becoming a vegan.

so this is my intake for the day - a few sugar/fat naughties like ranch dressing and BBQ sauce, but otherwise it is all vegan and non processed. It is too low in calories at 800, I give myself an A for fiber (31g) and A- for protein (41g).  I think protein should be 45 for me.

Monday labour day 09/03/2012	calories	fat	fiber	protein	calcium (mg)
oats ½ cup	154	2.7	4.1	5.3	21
blueberries ½ cup 2.5 oz	40	0.25	1.7	0.5	4.4
black beans 4.5 oz ¾ cup	176	0.7	11	11	36
Arugula 1 cup	5	0.1	0.3	0.5	32
cherry tomatoes ¼ cup	8	0.1	0.6	0.4	5
low fat ranch 1 tbsp	40	3
bread crumbs white 1 tbsp	10
wasa crackers 15	67		3	3
Hummus 1.5 oz	50	0.45	1.8	2	14
bbq sauce 2 tbsp	70
boca burger	70		4	13
potato 5oz	110		5	5
total	800	7.3	31.5	40.7	112.4

cup of tea

Every morning I drink a large mug of tea, usually made for me by my partner in the teapot with boiling water from the electric kettle using a Yorkshire Gold tea bag. Yummy - great way to wake up.
For all my life I have had it with milk - in the olden days in the UK the milk was delivered daily via a milkman on his float. It was whole milk with cream on the top in glass bottles with a foil top. At some stage the family went to having some pints semi skimmed, that is probably 2%. At all times my family only had a dash of milk in their tea and would get very nervous when in other people's homes that their tea would be too milky for them. You could see the parents, especially my Dad hovering near the tea pouring process, all full of tension, less someone would over pour the white stuff.
We all had sugar back then, but I gave it up at the age of 14 when one of my Mother's friends who had been a nurse (back in the times of Florence Nightingale) shreaked with horror when I took sugar, said something about my poor kidneys being stressed by processing it. So that lone spoon of sugar was eliminated and it took months before I tolerated drinking tea; in fact I never did enjoy it quite as much. Roll forward 32 years and I started to use the Splenda (fake sugar alcohol with no calories) in my tea. Now  it tastes much better. I tried to cut out the milk but just cant do it. It is too much of a sacrifice.
So we have a big gallon jug of fat free in the fridge which is for tea and porridge. Will not need it for the porridge anymore just the tea. I suppose I could try that soy milk stuff but I would bet a $100 that I will not like it. Some people, poor unknowing American hosts or myself by mistake, have put creamer or half and half in my tea before - makes me want to puke. If I still have to buy milk for tea, hopefully there are smaller sizes to buy, although this fat free stuff keeps for a few weeks after opening. Must be the fat that goes rancid. Wonder what sort of process they use to get the fat out?
Anyway, it looks like I am stuck with having to buy a small container of milk every so often just for my morning tea. Pity.

why vegan?

It is basically a chain of events that lead to the decision to go vegan and eat a whole food diet . Actually it is 2 chain of events.
The first chain starts early in 2011 when I noticed that the interest on my credit union savings  account was less than 1% and I felt I should try and do better.
So here is the chain:
credit union only pays 1% - Warren Buffett value investing technique -  read investment blogs - they list retirement blogs - earlyretirementextreme.com - the book 'your money or your life' - reduce expenses - replace cable TV with Netflix - watch movie 'Forks over Knives' on  Netflix (1 week ago) - decide to eat a whole food, vegan diet.

The other chain is this:
weigh 195 lb with pregnant looking gut - gyny doctor was rude and poked my gut saying lose it or else (thank you rude but caring doc for saving my life!) -  do South Beach diet and drop 20 lb - watch movies on animal welfare - try being vegitarian - do South Beach again because it works - dislike eating so much meat on South Beach - be a flexitarian where eat much less meat - still have 10+ lbs to lose - watch 'Forks over Knives' movie - decide to be vegan.

So this decision is a matter of health, animal welfare, money and environmental reasons.

The only negatives seems to be the need to take B12 vitamins, although how the 1 billion vegan Indians survive without B12 supplements, no one seems to be mentioning on the internet.

There are going to be work and social events where it is easier to eat processed foods. Also the social aspect of not eating meat/diary/crap might take some nifty manouvering. But I think that I am strong enough to withstand the social pressure most of the time.

And that leads onto an important point - I will be vegan/whole foods 'most of the time'. For me 80% is good enough. It is good enough to increase my health, promote animal welfare, save money and help the environment.

Probably the times I will not be 100% are in restaurants. Fortunately I do not go to restaurants much - so far this year it has been less than once a month.

I think the most difficult aspect of this will be the dairy and eggs - I have porridge with skimmed milk, cottage cheese and plain yogurt as snack and cheese on lots of meals including my lunchtime salad. And creamer in my coffee.
Weekends I have veggie omlettes or scrambled eggs.
And how the hell will I get the 45 grams of protein without dairy and meat? I will record all I eat just to make sure I am not deficient. In fact I will record fibre, protein and calcium.

My gyny quack poked me in the stomach 2 years ago and told be to lose the bulge and recommended this supplement to take to give vitamins and 25g of fiber per day. The said supplement would cost 200 bucks per month. I reckon I can get more than 25g from whole foods. Might have to take a Ca supplement since will be eating no dairy. But how do the 95 year old rural Chinese ladies who never eat dairy and don't have supplements survive without fracturing their hips? Makes you think that the science for calcium has all be PAID FOR by the dairy conglomerates.

Here is another point - the Forks over Knives movie stresses a mostly plants with no refined foods, eg white flour, sugar, oils.
So it is a whole food plant based regime.
No frying  or oil dressings. I use plenty of EVOO and butter with my veggies today so this should be a challenge.

There is one other thing that makes this diet a challenge - my partner is very much into being a carnivore and will indulge in a plethora of processed snack foods. We have been having different breakfasts and packing our own lunches for some time. When a carnivore attack comes on, I have been cooking her rib-eye steak  in my trusty cast iron frying pan and just eating the starch and veggie meal component for some months also. And this seems well accepted in the household so I am hopeful that  me being more strict will not affect her in anyway. I am more than happy to cook 2 meals if need be although there always seems to be overlap to save some effort.


My intent is to record what happens re this whole foods journey. I don't expect anyone to read it but I still intend to show what it is like to do the transition and hope to share any tips and pitfalls.

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