Day 7: Blueberry Smoothie with Soy Protein Powder

    In the past week since I started this vegan challenge I have gotten a lot of positive responses, as well as negative. Many of my family and friends are concerned, that by eating a vegan diet, I will not be able to get the protein and nutrients that I would from meat or dairy products. The go on and on about how meat is a “complete protein” with all nine amino acids. What they don’t know is that there are so many other delicious things they can eat which are considered a “complete protein”. You also do not need to get all eight amino acid from one food source. I recently found out that hummus with whole grain pita bread together create a “complete protein” (while is great since I have a tendency to consume it in mass quantities on a daily basis).

     

    You don’t really need to worry about getting enough protein for as long as you are eating a variety of unrefined grains, seeds, nuts, and vegetables throughout the day you will more than exceed your daily protein requirement. For more information about how to find protein in a vegan or vegetarian diet check out the article "Protein in a Vegan Diet" by Reed Mangles, Ph.D., R.D. Too much protein can also be harmful rather than just help you gain more muscle after a day at the gym. Yes, you should have some protein 30 minutes after you exercise, but don’t overdo it for it will cause stress on your body which will result in excessive calcium loss, increased risk of dehydration, and possible kidney or liver damage.

    

    Today after hitting the gym I had a blueberry smoothie with soy protein powder. I picked up this protein powder at Trader Joe’s for not only does it have 25g of protein but a long list of other vitamins such as B12, Iron, Calcium, and many other vitamins. If you look at the nutrition label on the back it will look similar to that of your daily multivitamin with a long list of he vitamins it contains.On days that I use the soy protein powder I treat it as a multivitamin for that is really what it is, a multivitamin with protein.

                           Blueberry Smoothie with Soy Protein Powder

                           1 cup of frozen blueberries

                           1 cup of soy milk

                           1/2 to 1 scoop of soy protein powder

                           Blend all ingredients in a blender until smooth, and serve.

Day 6: Vegetable Curry with Brown Rice and Black Beans

     I went to Trader Joe's today to get a few things I needed for dinner tonight and for the first time realized my illusion that Trader Joe's is more expensive then a big chain grocery store was wrong! When going through the isles I started looking at prices and realized alot of their products were over 20% cheaper than were I normally shop at Ralph's! I initially noticed the difference when I saw that Trader Joe's organic bananas were only $0.22 each compared Ralphs' non organically grown bananas that were over $0.60 a piece. Also as I went down another isle looking for my soy protein powder I noticed that their "whey protein powder" (the exact same brand that Ralph's carries) was over $2 dollars cheaper than Ralph's! I must say that was a pleasant surprise.

    After returning from the grocery store I tried a new recipe and made a vegetable curry over brown rice with black beans for dinner. I must say after trying this dish this has to be, by far, the best vegan dish I have had yet!

Brown rice and Black Beans

1 cup Black Beans

1 cup Brown rice

Water
Olive oil
Salt

  Step 1: Let the beans soak in water overnight in 4 cups of water. In the morning rinse well. Add three cups of water to a large pot and bring to boil. Once the water is boiling add the beans and bring down to a simmer. Simmer gently with lid tilted until desired tenderness is reached, in approximately 1 ½ to 2 hours.
   
   Alternative method: If you have a crock pot cook the beans with enough water so the beans are covered by an inch or two, and add a teaspoon of salt. Cook at the low 8 hour setting and at the 4 hour mark add another teaspoon of salt, stir the beans, and check to see how cooked they are. You do not have to cook them for the full 8 hours but have a few options; you can cook them for 5 hours for al dente beans (which are good for soups), 6 hours which is more for ready to eat beans, or 7 hours which gives you very soft beans.

  Step 2: Combine 1 cup of rice and 2 ¼ cups of water in a pot and bring to boil. Once it is boiling reduce to medium heat and cover. Let it simmer for about 30 minutes or until water is absorbed. Once the rice is done fluff with a fork. (or just cook with a rice cooker)

  Step 3: When the beans are done cook them on a sauce pan for a few minutes while mixing in some olive oil. When both the rice and beans are done pour the beans with any left over water onto the rice and mix well.

(serves 4)

Vegetable Curry

Half a jar of Thai Green Curry Simmer Sauce (from Trader Joe’s)

Assortment of different colored bell peppers

Chopped Spinach

Green beans

1 Garlic clove minced

2 tablespoons of Olive oil

   Step 1: Heat the olive oil in a pan with garlic. Add the spinach, green beans, and bell peppers after the oil is warm. Cook until tender.

   Step 2: Add the curry sauce and cook until warm. Serve immediately over brown rice and black beans.

(serves 2)

Day 5: Living Food Expo and Vardo Cafe Reveiw

     After finding out about a raw food expo going on in Santa Monica I decided to spend the day on Venice beach before attending the food expo and hitting up the popular vegan restaurant Vardo Café. The living food expo was interesting to say the least. There was a small group of about fifteen venders that varied from raw uncooked chocolate to special healing water from Japan. While their were a few people who I questioned their sanity, such as the lady selling blocks of plastic that were suppose to detoxify anything they touch, their were also a couple booths that I found to be quite intriguing.

     The booth I found to be the most interesting was the raw food booth that had a biophotonic scanner which was suppose to show your antioxidant status and inevitably determine whether the supplements you are taking are currently working. This technology was introduced on Doctor Oz's Show "Cancer Fighting Antioxidants" and is suppose to show your carotenoids score or antioxidant level.

  I tried the test myself and found that I fell in the orange zone at 21,000 which meant that I had a low presence of skin carotenoids. Most Americans fall in the red or orange zones, from dietary habits with low consumption of food and vegetables, no supplementation or stuff that doesn't absorb well into your body, as well as bad lifestyle choices such as smoking, high stress, and high BMI. If you are interested in learning more about this new technology check out Dr Oz's show or go to http://www.nuskin.com.

     After the expo I decided to check out Vardo Cafe for I had seen great reviews of it on yelp.The ambiance was superb and it was almost like walking into a different country. I found the atmosphere to be funky and fun, but unfortunately it couldn't compare to the last amazing vegan restaurant I went to "Follow Your Heart". The service at Vardo Cafe was bad, I had to walk around a building and into some random parking structure to use the bathroom, and the food was outrageously priced. Overall I do not recommend it.

      Although while there were quite a few short falls the food was still great....well it better be for that price. I ordered the CoCo Sea Gypsy Soup which had fresh cabbage, carrots, mushrooms, and broccoli in a warm coconut lemongrass gallant root broth. I found it to be rich, warm, and fulfilling. For more intormation about Vardo Cafe check out there web site http://vardocafe.com/ or Yelp.

Day 4: Vegetable Stir Fry

    Today I have decided to break out the tofu. I use to think that tofu had a weird texture and tastes like nothing which is true, when it is not cooked right. For dinner I cooked one of my favorite recipes even before I decided to take on the vegan challenge, which is a basic vegetable stir fry. This meal takes about 15 minutes to make, is simple, and tastes delicious.

Vegetable Stir Fry

Green beans

Spinach

Roasted red bell peppers

Mushrooms

White Onion

Olive Oil

Stir fry noodles

Tersauki sauce

Firm tofu

Step 1:

   Sauté the minced onions, garlic, tofu, and thinly sliced mushrooms, with a little olive oil.  Add the roasted red bell peppers for a few minutes until warm. 

Step 2:

Add the green beans, the roasted red bell peppers, and spinach. Heat until the spinach is wilted.

Step3:

Then add the stir fry noodles and the tersauki sauce until warm.

     Tofu is a great meat substitute loaded with iron, phosphorus, b-complex vitamins, and has no cholesterol. It is easy to digest and an excellent source of absorbable calcium. For those of us worried about getting enough protein, soy provides high quality protein equal to that of poultry, milk, and other animal products. Tofu is a complete protein like meat, with all nine amino acids, just without all the nasty side effects. 

    There are also some studies that found the soy component known as isoflavones have offered promising hope for the prevention and treatment of cancer as well as decreases the symptoms related to menopause. The U.S Food and Drug Administration said that “diets low in saturated fat and cholesterol that include 2.5 grams of soy protein per day may reduce the risk of heart disease”

Day 3: Garden Salad and Pumpkin Bread

   Today I went to the grocery store to load up on veggies for the epic salad I was planning to make for dinner. I filled my salad with cucumbers, artichoke hearts, avocado, and red bell peppers with a little balsamic dressing on top. I must say it was one of the best salads I have made for myself. I then washed it all down with green tea and a side of rosemary bread.

    One thing that I keep reading is to eat colorful food, for numerous reasons. For starters when you go to the grocery store the fruit and vegetables that have the richest colors contain the most nutrients. It is always a good idea to have a variety of colors in our meals for that means we are getting all different types of nutrients, not to mention psychologically it is more appealing. Different companies have realized this and corporations use it all the time to make us buy there products. Take M&M's for example. The manufacturer of M&M's decided to make the M&M's many different colors to give the illusion that they taste different or that we have more options to choose from when in reality they all are the same milk chocolate.

   After my colorful salad I went on to dessert and decided to try a recipe from the cookbook “The Kind Diet” by Alicia Silverstone which I mentioned more in depth in an earlier post. The recipe that I chose was pumpkin bread. All the vegan recipes I have been looking at seem really good, but the thing that always gets me is there are way too many obscure ingredients. So after picking the pumpkin bread recipe I decided to tweak it a bit in order to avoid buying things like safflower oil or almond milk. Here is what I came up with.

Pumpkin Bread

2 ½ cups of pumpkin

1 cup of brown sugar

1 “egg”: 1 table spoon of flaxseed pureed with 6 table spoon of water

½ cup of soy milk

1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract

2 cups of flour

2 teaspoons of baking soda

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon of ground nutmeg

A handful of nondairy chocolate chips

    Preheat the oven to 350*F. Combine the pumpkin puree, “egg”, milk, and vanilla extract in a large mixing bowl. Then add the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and chocolate chips. Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

The pumpkin bread turned out delicious, and I even had enough left over to make mini muffins that I could take on the go. This is definitely going to be added to my list of go to recipes.

Day 2: Vegan Nachos

      Armed with my new vegan nacho cheese from follow your heart I attempted to make my first ever vegan nachos.  After I was told that I was not able to digest dairy I never thought I would ever be able to enjoy the rich flavor of nachos or pizza. Last night I enjoyed the second one, feasting on an amazing vegan pizza from follow your heart and today I am actually attempting to make nachos.

    I was hesitant at first when I opened the packaging, for the vegan cheese had a weird consistency. It was soft and malleable, unlike any other cheese I have come across. The cheese grated easily, almost disturbingly so, sliding off in a gooey clump. I added the cheese to the tortilla chips with olives, jalapeños, and salsa on top. I put it in the microwave for a minute crossing my fingers that it would melt. After two minutes in the microwave, thank god, it finally started to melt.

    While it didn’t have the same look as freshly melted cheese does, it still tasted absolutely amazing. The vegan nacho cheese was spicy with traces of different types of peppers. I was thrilled it had not only turned out how I hoped, but even better. After devouring the fiery nachos I cooled myself down with nondairy coconut mocha from Trader Joe’s for dessert.

    One of the interesting things I learned during this experiment with vegan cheese, was the different types of nondairy cheese that was available on the market. Many people simply eat soy cheese which often still has the protein casein that you find in milk products. Casein is the protein I told you about in some of my previous posts. It makes you feel relaxed and happy when it breaks down in the body and becomes casomorphins, as in “morphine”. Many people have a hard time giving up dairy because they are addicted to the protein casein.

    I talked to a Starbucks employee who informed me that Starbucks knows about the addictive tendencies that casein protein has on their customers. The employee reported that he watched a video through one of his work programs that explained that steamed milk has more casomorphins than normal milk for the steaming process breaks it down differently. This in fact is what gives you that warm fuzzy feeling when you go get coffee in the morning. Now I wonder, since Starbucks is obviously aware of this do they also include the casein protein in there soy milk alternative as well so that all their customer will feel addicted to that warm fuzzy feeling?

    People who are vegan on the other hand stay away from this soy cheese with casein, and find the few brands that carry soy cheese without it. Casein is often added to soy cheese to make it more closely resemble that of dairy products, but it comes with as price. Casein in fact is the most prominent thing in dairy products that is associated with health problems including chronic sinus congestion, constipation, and even symptoms resembling asthma. For more information on casein in soy products check out the article "Soy Cheese Products Deceive Consumers, Violate Vegans" by Mike Adams.

Day 1: "Follow Your Heart" Review

    The first day of my challenge started off just like any other day. I still had my cheerios with soy milk for breakfast and continued on with my day having a PB&J sandwich with a side of pretzels for my bag lunch.  I slide by breakfast and lunch without a single change in my routine, but I knew dinner would be a whole another story. Knowing that dinner was going to become a challenge my boyfriend and I decided to check out the well loved vegan restaurant and grocery store “Follow Your Heart” in Canoga park.

     As soon as I walked into the small store I felt like I was walking into a different culture. The room smelled heavily of incense and all the employees looked like they stepped out of the 70’s adorned with dreadlocks and funky hair dye. When I looked around I found they had ingeniously combined a boutique, book store, grocery store, and restaurant all into one. There was a small humble but decent section for each.

    After looking down isle and isles of different versions of meat and dairy substitutes I eventually decided on trying out their Follow your heart vegan nacho cheese, the earth balance vegan butter, and flax seed (which is supposed to be good for omega-3).

    Once we were done with our shopping we curiously tried out the vegan dishes at their restaurant. I ordered a custom made pizza with a whole wheat pizza crust, some type of yellow sauce, vegan cheese, artichoke hearts, basil, and roasted red bell peppers. My boyfriend cautiously tried the angel hair pasta pomodoro with vegan parmesan cheese on top. 

 Both dishes were stunning extraordinary. I can’t believe I have lived in the valley all this time and have never found this gem. For more pictures and information visit there review site on Yelp.