Interesting website

plantbasedresearch.org.   They link to peer-reviewed journal articles related to plant-based diets.

June 13 food

B: baked oats and peaches.  This was really good. I love toasting the top in the broiler at the end to give a little crisp.

The peaches have been on special all week at the co-op, along with the strawberries and grapes, so I got some more today and cut them up and froze them.

L:  small baked potato, yesterday's beans and veggies, sugar snap peas, grapes.

D:  small oriental yam, yesterday's beans and veggies, small baked potato, nibbled on the fruit as I prepped it for the freezer, small bowl of peas and corn.  did I overeat?  maybe a wee bit.

E:  walk 6 miles, bike 7 miles.  meditate 30 minutes.

June 12 food

B:  2 small baked sweet potatoes

I cooked up all the veggies from the fridge:  onion, mushroom, kale, cabbage, asparagus, arugula, added white beans, can of tomatoes, herbs from the garden (cilantro, chives, parsley, dill).  it was liquidy, so called it soup.  It should last a few days, yea (less cooking).

L:  small baked potato, soup

D:  repeat of lunch

Snack:  salad made from...lettuce.  advantage of a lettuce-only salad:  you can snack on it like chips and it's not messy.

Exercise:  swim 1 mile, bike 7 miles.

Dr. Alan Goldhamer

I love this guy:

http://www.healthpromoting.com/learning-center/truenorth-tv/dr-alan-goldhamer-success-plant-based-sos-free-diet

It's only 4 minutes long, worth it.  Watch him enough and you learn to say "meat, fish, fowl, eggs, and dairy products" really fast, and also "salt, oil, sugar, flour".

Vegan vs. Paleo

Sorry, if you thought I was going to debate this, I'm not.  I've noticed that I don't care about this issue but I didn't realize why until a friend asked me to give my scientific assessment of this critique of the China Study.  Now I realize the reason I have no interest is that I'm vegan for other reasons (animals and environment).  I'm interested to know what the healthiest vegan diet is, not whether it's healthier than a meat diet.  Going vegan improved my health dramatically so I am experientially convinced that the Standard American Diet is unhealthy, and likely it's due to too many animal products and processed foods.   But whether or not the optimal diet includes some animal products doesn't interest me because I'm vegan regardless.  I feel more healthy than I ever have in my whole life, and it seems healthy enough to me.  It's easy to be an unhealthy vegan, and maybe that's why some vegans become ex-vegans.   The books I've linked to at right tell me how to be a healthy vegan.  I'm very happy to be a vegan.

June 11 Food logs

Brekkie:   baked oats and fruit.   This is one of my favorite breakfasts.  I found this really little baking pan that's just the right size for one person.  I put about 2/3 cup fruit in the bottom, sprinkle cinnamon, add 2/3 cup oats and 1 cup water, bake for at 350 for 30-40 minutes while I go meditate, then I turn on the broiler for a few minutes to toast the top.  I buy whatever fruit looks good, and cut it up and freeze it. Today's fruit was strawberries, blackberries and bananas.   Here's the end result dished out in my bowl.  

Now last week I would have added a chopped date to this but I'm on the Captain's challenge.  And you know what, it tasted great.  The date would have covered up the taste of the oats and berries.  So I'm quite pleased about this!

For lunch I tried a baked plantain for the first time.  I just threw it in the oven and baked at 375 for 1 hour because I'm all about taking the easy way.  It was kind of dry.  It had an interesting taste, sweet and...lemony?  New things always take getting used to so I will definitely try this again several times (I'll experiment with cooking methods) and see if it sticks.  I also had the veggies I cooked up last night:  onion, oriental yam, kale, broccoli rabe, asparagus, mushrooms, beans, herbs from the garden, a little singapore seasoning.

Afterwards, I nibbled on some frozen peas and corn and some romaine lettuce leaves.

Early Dinner:  we had family over for their traditional meatloaf dinner.  I had the baked potato topped with a big pile of those veggies from lunch and yesterday, peas and corn, salad.   While others ate their cake and ice cream, I had a little of that frozen fruit which tasted lovely.  Sure it was easy, but it's only day 2.  Temptation doesn't usually hit me until about day 15...

Snack:  small baked potato.  small bowl of peas and corn.

Exercise: walked 4 miles.  meditated 30 minutes.

okay, I promise my future posts won't be so long, because my food is pretty similar day to day.

I'm back, maybe, with a challenge for myself, maybe

By now, no one will be reading this, and yet, I still like blogging even if it's to no one.  Plus I don't have the pressure of worrying that I'm wasting people's time, haha.   I've been thinking about getting back to this for a while--I've been snapping pictures of food to blog about, and I have more time--and just haven't taken the last step.   What got me going this time was a challenge that I thought of after eating a potato yesterday.   It was a cold baked potato that I grabbed from the fridge to to hold me over to a late lunch.   And it was soooo good.  I was thinking, do I like a cold plain baked potato more than my wonderful potato fries topped with seasoning and dipped in home-made soy yogurt (with garden chives and dill) or home-made ketchup?   It's possible!   And I was reminded of some food I made last week that was just cooked veggies and sweet potatoes and beans.  and that was soooo good.  The produce I get is so good, it doesn't need to be overly spiced and sugared and salted and all that stuff.   A lot of recipes and restaurants include sauces and spices and the 3 favorite additives (SOS: salt, oil, sugar), not to mention chemicals, to make up for what are probably low-quality ingredients.  That's true of the food industry, and it was probably true of many traditional recipes, since it's only been recently that high-quality food is available in abundance at low-cost.   

Then I was thinking, our plant-based healthy diets contain a lot of recipes that are imitating our previous unhealthy recipes.  It's understandable.  But often those things make me crave the original unhealthy thing a little too much.  What if I came up with a new paradigm for myself, that's not trying to imitate anything, just making up new dishes from my high-quality produce that doesn't need any additives (SOS)?     

Another thought for me is that I still have a problem with craving sugar, whether it's the so-called healthy things like dates and turkish figs (love those especially), or okay-to-eat-in-small-amount refined sweeteners (maple syrup, mmmmm), or the really bad stuff (SOS baked goods, vegan ice cream).   So what if I dumped the sugar for a while, both refined and dried fruits.   Whole fruit is okay, in modest amounts.
   
Finally, I'm a member at E2X, and haven't been participating for months, and my membership is due to expire and I need to decide if I should renew, and they are doing a 28-day challenge, and the Captain's challenge is pretty much what I'm considering in my new paradigm (they are one step ahead of me) and I really like the coaches there (Natalie and Ami and Char), so why not participate the Captain's challenge?  This will help me decide if I should renew.

I'm especially curious about this sugar thing, so I'm tempted to try to go longer than 28 days.   I heard it takes 12 weeks to break a sugar addiction, which is 84 days.  But I like the number 100.  So I'm going to try a 100-day Captain's challenge.   Don't worry, I know I won't succeed 100% every day for 100 days.   But I am keeping in mind the advice of the E2X coaches:  "Will every day be perfect?  No.  We're not perfect people.  What we want to see is that drive and desire to be the healthiest person you can be."  The most fun part is that there are several people eating the same as me. Where else am I going to find that?  It's lonely out here and it's easy to feel weird and extreme, which is one reason I stopped blogging.  But it's okay to be weird and extreme as long as no one is harmed.

Here's the diet plan I've come up with for myself.  It's very simple. 

When hungry, eat:

• starches and intact whole grains:  potatoes, beans, sweet potatoes, oats, rice, corn, quinoa
• non-starch vegetables
• spices
• fruit

When full, stop eating.

How easy is that?   I'll try log my food to see what glorious creations can be made from this.