Too excited to sit…

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Today I’m excited. I have all these ideas running around in my head about interactive food experiences I’d like to put together.  I just don’t know where to begin.
Maybe it’s the vegan clease that is giving me this energy….or is it the MASSIVE CHEAT I had today when I gulped down a 16 oz decaf coffe w/sugar free vanilla creamer.

Well, technically the creamer was nondairy, which might still be ‘vegan’ but I’m certain there was nothin’ clean about that combo.  But damn, it felt GOOODD going down, and perked me up.

What can I say, this week I”ve been studying the fascinating topics of cellular signaling, fatty acid synthesis and teaching a physiology lab about the electrical properties of the heart.  Hmm… its a far cry from cooking shows, cook books, and my newest idea:  “Chocolate and Chaturanga”.  I borrowed the idea from a recent article about fusing yoga and foodies together.  Brilliant!  So now I’m hot on the trail of how to put together such an event.

Yes, this is much better than reading the paper sitting in front of me, entitled ” Epitacechin mediates beneficial effects of flavanol-rich  cocoa on vascular function in humans” .  Although I think there *might* be something about chocoalte in there somewhere……..

Nighty night bloggies.  What do you think about “chocolate and chaturanga?”

food economics

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Even on a vegan diet, Matt and I spend $83/week on food for two of us, and go out 1x/week.

I love the topic of food economics.  Recently I found this website:

The Dollar a Day Project.  Check it out.  We are eating $2/meal at this point, which is way more than the project outlines, and I still feel like I’m always pushing the budget.

What do you guys think?

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I’m in

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By the way, I should absolutely be grading lab reports right now . Absolutely, without question I should be doing that.  But I’m not…and I don’t even feel that bad about it.  Sometimes a girl just needs a break.

Amidst all my grad school chaos some  good news came today.  Some of my cooking classes got approved for teaching at the Davis Food Coop.  Yes.  I’m in.  Watch out Davis, here I come!

Not your average french fry

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The vegan clease allows for potatoes…okay, so not what I’d usually have on a ‘cleanse’ but since I’m opting not to have corn or any flours at all (even GF), I’ll take an inch when its ‘allowed’.

Being the creative kitchen gal I am, I wanted to raise the potato bar and do something fun.  Besides, it was day 4 and Matt was starting to get might cranky, missing his favorite dairy and meat foods.  We decided to make  a vegan burger and fries meal:

Grilled portabello with spices
Green lettuce leaf ‘buns’
fixin’s: mustard, red onion, and tomato
“cheezy” fries.

See video below for the fries, but basically I cut up 2 lbs of red potatoes, marinated them in EVOO, salt, pepper and brewer’s yeast (what gives them the ‘cheezy’ appeal) and baked at 400 for about 17 minutes.  Delicious!  The whole meal was tasty!

Afternote: I definitely ate too many fries and it made we me want sugar.  I satisfied my urge with a not-so delicious apple, but it worked.  And hey, part of this clease is about facing those cravings and realizing the feeling is transient, relatively meaningless, and I feel much better having gone for the apple and not for some other treat!

Enjoy the video, and remeber, it is homemade (AKA, not perfect)

Hello world…

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This is what gets me going everyday.  It’s my magic bullet (ironically, you use a magic bullet to make this too!).

Yes, my friends, the rice protein smoothie has made its debut back into my life during the cleanse.  Not that I don’t eat a smoothie for breakfast quite a bit, but this one has some secret ingredients that will hopefully get my GI humming and my cells smiling.

Those secret ingredients would be mustard green, kale or spinach leaves and ground flaxmeal.  You really can’t taste the greens, I promise!  Add enough berries, cinnamon, and vanilla rice powder and your palate will overlook the bitter greens.  Try it, really.

I love this because I can make it the evening beforehand, store it in the fridge, and then sip it through my biochem class EVERY DAY at 8am.  I swear I can feel my brain cells perking up with every sip as more anti-oxidants enter my body.

Fun fact for ya: The more unsaturated fats (plant fats) you eat, the higher your requirement for anti-oxidants.  That is because unsaturated fats are prone to oxidation, which produces free fradicals (BAD).  Anti-oxidants are like cellular vigilantes that come in to wrangle up those free radicals and keep our cells happy and well.  So, eat those colorful veggies, especially if you eat a lot of unsaturated fats.

Consequently, this is also why its not advised to do high heat cooking with many unsaturated fats – the heat oxidizes them and makes them rancid….so I guess its back to butter and eggs after this 21 day cleanse for me.

Okay, back to work.  Smoothie recipe below

Toodles….

3/4 cup frozen berries
1/2 cup green leafy veggie leaves (kale, spinach, mustard – NO COLLARDS!)
1 tbsp flaxmeal
1 tsp cinnamon
8 oz or so of either water or unsweetened almond milk
1 serving Vanilla rice protein powder

Put ingredients in a blender and blend.  Add more liquid as needed.  I don’t recommend you put the protein powder in first, as it sticks to the bottom of the blender at my house….

It’s that time of year again….

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It’s cleanse time again!  Those of you who know me know that the act of cleansing/detox diet is no unfamiliar venture for an off-white pursuant like me.  Seems like every 6 months I get the bug to do some kind of detox/cleanse, and yep…its about that time.

So when my mother in law approached me about a 21-day cleanse diet, my natural response was ‘…hello, friend’….  Not to mention the fact that she and I  could be partners in crime.  Yet another reason to detox.  Mother-in-law bonding.  Yes, I actually like doing things with Matt’s mom, including eating a vegan diet and complaining about how much we miss chocolate together.  Hey, the family that cleanses together, stays together.

I couldn’t help but ask myself, what is my attraction to the cleansing concept?  It’s much more than a physical desire.  I’m not really after weight loss, I eat a ton of veggies as it is, so what is it?  Truthfully, its kind of a spiritual adventure for me. There is something profound about being slightly uncomfortable (and trust me, not have the option to eat dairy or meat or even chocolate for 21 days will get a little edgy) that opens me up mentally and emotionally.

When I’m cleansing, I’m letting my body have a break from the ‘norm’ diet.  I’m also asking my mind and spirit to be willing to stand up to cravings, desires for food gratifications and emotional eating moments.  THese happen often to a girl like me, even still.  It’s like the Pema Chodron quote “how you do one thing is how you do anything”.  When I’m eating a certain healthy  but limited diet, I’m practicing the art of being uncomfortable and having to face my ego so I can do a little more of that in other areas of my life.

Do I have to cleanse to do this?  No, I suppose not.  But for me, food and its relationship in my life is very much a metaphor for how I see other things.  For instance, when I’m stress and want to taste the sweetness of life, I typically want mor sweet: Fruits, sweetened teas, honey on my oatmeal, etc.  Nothing bad about this, just a way that I try and make it all more comfortable, which ends up creating a dependence.  Cleansing is like letting go of the dependencies on food, and trusting that I’m going to be okay if I can’t have hot chocolate while grading lab reports.  That process helps me learn to be okay when I’m pushing the edges of my life and as a result, my mind to open up to new possibilities for myself.

Being as this is the year I want the off-white cookbook done, it seems like cleansing is appropriate.  I’ve got a few mental barriers on my ability there, and I’d like to let them go so as to create space for the possibility of finishing.

So, here I go!  Starting tomorrow my daily eating will consist of:

A vegan diet with fish as needed (white fish only, baked or pan sauteed, not deep fried, which I don’t even do anyway)

Abstaining from: corn chips/tortillas, wheat, flour in general (even GF), caffeine, chocolate, concentrated sweeteners, animal products (meat and dairy), garlic (b/c it makes me kind of crazy, to be honest!)

Enhancing my intake of: legumes, whole grains, bitter vegetables, and fresh juices, green teas.   I’m also going to spend tomorrow in a semi-fast, with 2 meals of rice protein + veggies shake and 1 regular, mid-day ‘meal’.

Nothing makes  cleansing more enticing than making yummy cleanse-friendly food.  Thank GOD I’ve had lots osf practice at making whole grain,veggie, healthy fats dishes, like the one listed below.

Care to join me anybody?  Even for 1 day?  yes you CAN!

Quinoa Salad
I believe I’ve posted this recipe in some form in the past, but if not, here it is:

  • 6 cups cooked: equal parts brown rice and quinoa ( I used a rice cooke and added a mix of oregano, rosemary, pepper, and salt while  cooking)
  • 2 chopped yellow peppers
  • 2 chopped tomatoes
  • 1 chopped avocado
  • 1/2 chopped red onion
  • 1 bunch of parsley, chopped
  • 1/2 cup EVOO
  • juice of 1 lemon

Once the quinoa/rice is cooked, let it cook.  Meanwhile chop veggies and appreciate the color.  Next, add the veggies in and mix.  Add sunflower seeds and mix.  Add EVOO and lemon and maybe a bit more salt at the end.  Mix and either serve warm or serve chilled.  Can be a simple meal or a side dish.

Yes, you CAN eat a whole food diet for less

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tomorrow I must present a paper in my Obesity class that discusses the ‘economics of food’ as a cause of obesity, rather than any one food itself.  I’m in agreement with the author (Andrew Drewnowski), as there is evidence that calorie dense food simply costs less, if you examine things on a calorie/dollar basis.

However, it would then stand to reason that if you are choosing lots of calorie dense foods, such as refined grains/fast foods/soda, you would need to spend less TOTAL money to get the same calories a health meal.

So I put my little theory to the test and  created a day’s worth of food based on a whole food plan and a refined food plan, which included one trip to a fast food joint.  I even think I was underestimating the cost of the fast food, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt that you can find a meal for $3.50 (based on about 2 minutes of web researching I did).

The caveat is that one must be willing to do two things:

1. change their palate for healthier food.  Truthfully some people eat refined foods because they are accustomed, like the flavor, and healthy food doesn’t taste good to them.

2. Be willing to spend about 15-20 min/day preparing food. I’m talking about opening a can of beans and mixing together a salad, not even turning on the oven to cook anything elaborate.  Doesn’t it take about 15 min to go to a drive thru from start to finish?  And that is just for 1 meal…….

I’ve included a JPEG of my PPT file so you can see the comparison, but basically I have the healthy day totalling $6/day for 3 meals and 2 snacks while the refined meal day costs $7.65 for 3 meals and 2 snacks.