In my last post, I shared with you my convictions regarding meat and dairy foods that resulted from the movie I watched called Forks Over Knives. Armed with my first book dedicated to a whole-foods plant-based diet, I set out to learn and eat like a vegan. So far, the experience has been an interesting – and challenging – one. I am grappling with all kinds of emotions right now – from feeling great because I have been eating well, to the frustration of being overwhelmed with everything there is to learn, to sorrow from missing foods that I love… and the guilt that comes with that when I now know that those foods are the culprit behind diseases I have always feared like Alzheimer’s and Multiple Sclerosis.
Eating meat became troublesome for me about a couple of weeks before I watched Forks Over Knives. I was watching the show 30 Days (created by the totally cool Morgan Spurlock) on Netflix in which a deer-hunting, steak-loving guy goes and lives for 30 days with a Vegan family whose members work for PETA. Watching how the animals are abused was hard to swallow. The conditions they live in, the mistreatment they suffer, the cruel death that ends their life…. it is safe to say that heinous criminals have it better in prison than these innocent creatures do.
So eliminating meat has not been a problem for me. That is, until I drove by a construction site that is the future home of Chick-fil-A, my favorite restaurant! I have lived here over a decade missing Chik-fil-A because there has not been one here. Now they are opening up a restaurant just a mile from my house. Life does not seem fair at all, does it? There is a part of me that wants to be one of the first people to eat at the newly opened restaurant. Then there’s the other part that vividly recounts meeting my meat. As if that weren’t enough, there’s yet another part of me that knows that animal products are responsible for the majority of diseases we have in this country. So much for my chicken sandwich. And Cookies & Cream milkshake.
I can relate to the statement in Ecclesiastes 1:18 that with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief. This is not to say that I would rather “eat and be merry” and live in ignorance of what I am putting into my body. I am very grateful that I have learned this information, but I have also been in a tug-of-war with my newfound knowledge because I have been craving – and fondly thinking of – foods that I have always loved.
Honestly, eating meat just is not the same for me anymore. Dairy products seem a lot harder to cut out of my diet. Animal-free cheese, yogurt, butter, mayonnaise, sour cream, and milk – all of it is pretty darn expensive. Some books I looked at have you save on costs by making your own sour cream and mayonnaise using tofu as the main ingredient. Let’s just say that after my experience with tofu, I likely will not be utilizing it to make anything.
I dived into The Engine 2 Diet: The Texas Firefighter’s 28-Day Save-Your-Life Plan that Lowers Cholesterol and Burns Away the Pounds by Rip Esselstyn and started trying recipes from the book. The more I read, the more I found that just about every food in my diet was in contrast to a whole-foods plant-based diet. All of the bread and rice I had in the house did not meet the standard. Bread is supposed to have the word “whole” as the first ingredient listed rather than “refined.” Brown rice is supposed to replace white rice. Since the diet is also low in sodium, an alternative soy sauce is used instead of regular soy sauce.
Here are the recipes I tried:
* Mushroom Stroganoff - I made this meal in a hurry, and accidentally read the amount wrong that I was supposed to use of one ingredient: balsamic vinegar. I do not cook with balsamic vinegar because I think it has such a putrid smell. But I tried it out for this recipe, and ended up pouring in way more than I was supposed to. The kids took one bite and refused to eat anymore. I took several bites, equivalent to about 1/4 cup before I could no longer eat anymore. I put the entire failed batch onto a plate for our dog, Raja, and after he took a whiff, he would not go near it.
I assumed my ill encounter with this ruined dish was over after I took the last bite. Unfortunately, that balsamic vinegar had all night to wreak havoc in my body, and the next morning I started having very peculiar symptoms. I got very dizzy and had to catch myself to keep from falling. My body temperature felt like it rose thirty degrees. And then I felt it. A wave of nausea so strong that I ran to the bathroom in pain. After that was over, I had to lie down and sleep. I could not function for half of the day.
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* Baby Field Greens Salad – I figured a salad would be a safe option, so I went with this recipe next. I had never had a salad with butter beans and grapes in it. Although the recipe called for blackstrap molasses, I could not find that at the grocery store so I made the salad without it. My husband and I loved this salad! I was surprised with how tasty it was.
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* Sloppy Joes – I was very curious to see how you could have meatless sloppy joes, so I definitely wanted to try this recipe. I had never heard of veggie crumbles, but they are supposed to be similar to ground beef – only in bigger chunks. And they sure are expensive, compared to what I would pay for a pound of ground beef on sale. I got one package, and knew that it was not going to be enough to make sloppy joes for my family of six, so I added in a can of pinto beans to the mixture and that did the trick. These sloppy joes were a hit. Everybody ate them without a complaint. They were the perfect dinner right before we went walking through a corn maze… in the dark…
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* Tofu Steaks & Mushrooms with Mashed Potatoes & Green Beans – I had never tried tofu. I did, however, have images of Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs making tofu, so I was already grossed out before I ever tasted it. Not that Mike grosses me out… it was the process of making tofu that was less than appetizing. Still, I knew I needed to try it because so many vegan recipes use tofu in them.
I opened the package of tofu and already thought “Ewwww.” It has a rather rancid smell, in addition to looking like a square concoction of jiggly white muck. I followed the instructions in the recipe and then served up our dinner. When I cut a piece of tofu and put it on my fork, I suddenly felt like Andrew Zimmern from Bizarre Foods. Curtis loves this show, and I normally watch just to see what next odd thing Andrew is going to put in his mouth. I find him humorous and one of his favorite words that he uses to describe a new food is “gelatinous.”
That is the same word that came to mind when I tried tofu. Very gelatinous. And gross. I had one of Andrew’s rare moments where he thinks the food is so terrible that he cannot take another bite. I felt like I was going to dry heave. Just the smell of that stuff is enough to make me suffer. Curtis smiled with a “You don’t like it, do you?” look on his face. No, I don’t. I was disappointed because now I have eliminated a staple from vegan cuisine. I am not going to give up though. I may try it again. I am also going to try seitan and tempeh.
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* Savory Lentils & Greens – (not available on the Engine 2 website; it is in the book). This soup was so good, that we all ate it and the kids were asking me to make it again. It had lentils, carrots, celery, tomatoes, homemade vegetable broth, and two greens of my choice. I used two that I had never tried before: Mustard Greens and Dandelion Greens. This soup really was savory!
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* Candle Cafe Brown Rice & Lentil Burgers – we have tried store bought veggie burgers, which we like a lot. But they are expensive, so I was really looking forward to making my own. Curtis and I loved these! They tasted so good, and they are so inexpensive to make that I will definitely be making them again. One thing I did do differently was season them how I wanted. I just used my blend of spices as if they were hamburger patties, and they ended up tasting a lot like meat.
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* Pasta Primavera – This was like spaghetti, only so much better. Since I normally make spaghetti with ground beef, I seasoned it like I would if there was meat in there, and this dish was so delicious that we all ate it and had seconds! The kids raved about how much they liked it. I did not have kale so I made it with spinach instead. I can’t tell you how pleased I was that the kids loved it. To see my two-year-old daughter ask me for seconds for such an incredibly healthy dish just warmed my heart. She is a really picky eater to begin with, so you’d better believe I’ll be making this a lot in the future.
The past few weeks have been void of exercise in part because I suffered an injury, and boy did it hurt. It sill hurts occasionally. Hopefully though, I can start with some yoga this week to help get me back on track. I do not like going this long without exercising. It makes me feel like a failure in so many ways. I have been down this road before, so I know I need to just move on and start exercising again. So I am going to set a goal for myself. To make it something I can reasonably accomplish, I am going to set an appointment with myself to exercise at least two days this week.
What about you? Can you make an appointment with yourself too? How about exercising at least one day this week, for whatever amount of time you can, even if it is only five minutes? Something is better than nothing!
