a day in the life...for my niece

One of my nieces asked me to post a sample menu for one day in this plant based diet i'm on.....i don't like calling it vegan, because a true vegan is against killing or harming any animals, not just for food, but for clothing, shoes, belts, purses, wallets, car interiors...you get the picture. I'm not there yet...probably never will be. Maybe if I started when i was 10 or something...but, um, 59 may be a little late for that drastic of a life style change. Lets keep it at the just eating healthy level for now.  Actually, I've always been semi against animal cruelty. Semi....not fully. I have thrown my share of cats in swimming pools....don't hate me. Cats can, and will, walk on water...... But I remember when I was a little kid in Ashland, PA, my dad and I used to go on hikes. In the fall, late fall, when all the leaves were down, I remember I helped him build a little shelter out of branches and downed trees. He said we were building it for the animals, so they could have a place to stay when it snows....I'll never forget that. The other thing I remember from being a kid is Reidlers farm. Our neighbors, Paul and Betty Reidler, had a farm a few miles outside of town. In the summer, sometimes we would drive out there and have a picnic, cookout, swim in their FREEZING cold pool, and then walk out in the fields with a bucket of corn. The deer would see us with the bucket, and slowly, shyly, walk up to us and actually eat corn out of our hands....it was an amazing experience. In my teenage years, all my buddies hunted...I just could never do that...couldn't kill one. The only time I'd be able to kill one is if I was hungry....other than that, I'll just go to the store and get food. Anyway, thats some of the early memories of how I viewed wildlife, Maybe thats why I still love to hike to this day....especially if I can catch a glimpse of a deer or anything else in its natural home....

Anyways...So, for my niece, a sample of a daily plant based diet.....

• Breakfast.....typically, I don't eat breakfast, if I do, it's on the weekends when I have a little more relax time in the morning. Usually just a cup of fresh ground coffee. I actually have a hand coffee bean grinder that I bought on Amazon a while ago. I put that in a French press, and have the frickin greatest cup of coffee ever....one while shaving, then another for the 10 mile drive to work. But on the weekends, when I do eat breakfast, I eat a bowl of oatmeal. Steel cut oats with some fruit on top, usually blueberries or strawberries, with some honey or agave syrup on it, and I also add some soy milk. Vanilla flavored. Has a lot of protein in it. 

I just so happen to have a nice pic I took a few months ago of my oatmeal and blueberries....with honey, honey....ha ha. Maybe I can get into the food photography business...

• Then for lunch, I take leftovers from last nights dinner. If not, then I either go to the company cafeteria and get a salad, not a very big one, with oil and vinegar, and all the legumes I can put on it for protein. A side of fruit salad usually, and if the soup is vegetarian, I'll get a small bowl of that. If I go work out at lunch, there is a place right beside the gym that has vegetarian crepes...the Greek one is awesome.  All organic ingredients, super fresh. It's called 3rd Wave Crepes in Lyndhurst, NJ.....stop by if you are ever in that area.
• For the famous afternoon snack, I walk to the vending machine and stare at it....stare at the goddam chips and crackers I used to eat...stare at the food from the factories....I swear to God they put some chemicals in that shit that makes it addictive and craved.....so I stare at it....and then claim victory for not putting money in the machine.....pat myself on the back, go back to the lab and grab a handful of almonds and a glass of water....usually a few handfuls of almonds...again, a lot of protein packed in those little suckers. That usually gets me to supper.
• Then I leave work, head to the grocery store. Pick up what I'm gonna make that night. I usually have something in mind. Usually look up a recipe on one of the thousand vegan/vegetarian sites and one will catch my eye. For instance, tonight I made vegan enchiladas....I thought they were good. Basically consisted of steamed potatoes, beans, ( I used black beans cause i love them), onion, green pepper, garlic, mushrooms, vegetable stock, green chili peppers from the can, and a bunch of spices (cumin, chili pepper, sage, salt and pepper), and then wheat tortillas with enchilada sauce from the jar.....pretty tasty. 

So, that's pretty much a day's worth of food intake for me...

The thing is....I think you have to like/love to cook to be successful at the diet change....I think it would be hard for me to stay on track if I had to eat out at a vegan/vegetarian place every day/night. Me, I love the whole process...I love researching the menu, picking out the food, bringing it home and slicing and dicing and cooking....I love that. And once I got to the point where I could actually make some complex dishes that were vegan, then I really started feeling satisfied with it...now I'm into the 4th month....I'll have some cheese every now and then, we had a GREAT cheese fondue a few weeks ago...it was awesome...bought some great cheeses from Murrays cheese shop in the West Village....then I had some fish at my birthday dinner with friends at Lure restaurant in SOHO; so I don't deprive myself entirely....but, for the most part, I simply eat a plant based diet. Never felt better in my life.......and I'm hopin my body thanks me and can be better equipped to fight off disease....that's the goal...

Peace

PS....I'll try to compile a list of links to sites that I've found with good recipes....next post...

Hippie Curry

So, continuing on with the plant based diet discussions, I had mentioned in a previous post that one of the things I've learned in the past 3 months is how to cook Indian food.  I've liked Indian food on occasion, as a matter of fact, come to think of it, one of the best meals I've ever had was in an Indian restaurant in Amsterdam. A few years ago, I went to Amsterdam to check out a music festival. It was called "Jam in the Dam"....clever name, and a really good festival, too. Anyway, one late afternoon I was strolling the streets and canals of Amsterdam, (if you've never been there, you should go....), taking in the shops, the smells, and the people. Of course some of the shops sell pot and hash, and some of the people smell like pot and hash.....but I digress. I was getting a little hungry; it was around supper time, and I noticed an Indian restaurant on the block. Looked kind of high end, a little on the fancy side, and I thought it was a little weird to see an Indian restaurant in Amsterdam, but I am a naive American, and didn't realize that Indian cuisine is all over Europe. So I looked at the menu, walked up the steps, (it was on the second floor), and sat down by myself...which I never really minded doing...I travel so much, I usually wind up eating a lot of meals alone. I ordered a fish dinner, with a lot of sides, and let me tell you, it was one of the tastiest meals I've ever had....unforgettable. I'll never remember the name of the dish, but that experience really opened my eyes to Indian cuisine.

So, tonight, I searched on line for some Indian food to make, and stumbled across this dish called "Hippy Currie" ....ha ha...loved the title. Apparently, it originated in the 60's from a commune in Marin County, California.....pretty much hippy ville back in the day. So I made it, tasted outstanding. The link is below if you care to give it a try. Simple to make, and I have leftovers for lunch tomorrow....yay.....

http://www.thekitchn.com/heres-a-simple-curry-that-130340

Eat hippy....I mean happy.....

John

90 Days...

Well, it's been 90 days since I started the vegan experiment. I can honestly say it's been pretty easy. I'm totally into it. I do that, though, I get on a roll with something, then I dive all the way in....whether it's hiking, guitar, cooking, sailing....all that shit I've done throughout my life...I'm always all in!!! So I was into the vegan/vegetarian thing deep...still am. I started with this just wanting to lose a little weight, get a little healthier, and do a little disease prevention....all the articles and research I've done over the past few months made me realize that the food we eat has a direct effect on our health. You eat shit, you eventually feel like shit. So, in the year or two prior to doin the vegan experiment, I would suffer every month or so with really painful Gout and or arthritis. It got to be ridicoulous. There were times when I got up in the morning I really couldn't walk..had to hold on to whatever I could hold on to, and work my way to the bathroom. I was only 58. This was not happening. I was always healthy up to this point in my life. So, after seeing a few doctors and taking the stupid pills to relieve the joint pain, I decided to change my diet; see if it worked. See if, by going vegan, eating only plant based food, if I could ease the joint pains.....well....it apparently worked...I haven't had one ache or stiff knee/ankle/toe in 3  months......it's almost to scary to claim victory this soon. But really, I've never, ever, felt better in my life. Not just the joint pain thing, but just everyday energy levels...my waist is down 5 inches from Jan 2, my weight is down 17 pounds, my blood pressure is 110 over 70, it's frickin great!!!!! So, I'm not done yet. I'm going to continue this little life change and stay on this path. The hardest part of it was cooking. I love love love to cook. It took a little while for me to realize that vegan meals are very unlike what I was plating in the past. In the past I would plate a huge meat entry, some veggies, maybe some rice or potato. But when you cook vegan, it's kind of like one or two dishes that make up the meal. At first it was just weird...just seemed weird eating like one thing, even though it was very complete meal. All the nutrients were wrapped up in one dish. I discovered Indian cuisine along the way, which is very healthy and some recipes are time consuming to make, which I loved....I love the process....the more complicated dish, the better.
So, anyway, just wanted to jot this down...that I made it 90 days...that I actually reached my goal, but I don't consider it the finish line...I'm doin the long haul...like I said, now it's more of a life style change and disease prevention gig.....onward.....through the food!!!!

Day 1, the numbers have to go down

So, wanted to document this little experiment I'm doing. It's always good to, once the event is over, look back and read how it all started. Sometimes its good, sometimes not so good. Hopefully, this will be a good thing. So I'm going to start a no dairy, no meat, whole foods diet. Yup. They call it vegan, but I don't want to put myself in the vegan category yet. The aim is to eat like a vegan, with results of losing a little weight, lowering the blood pressure, and lowering cholesterol. All good things. I mean, I always have, for the most part, eaten pretty healthy. Not just eating, but cooking. I love to cook, love the whole process. Choosing, slicing, dicing, the whole nine yards. Love the whole process. To the point where, if I ever get laid off or fired or whatnot from my engineering job, I think I'd go to culinary school. Just to learn more, not to really work in a sweaty busy kitchen in Manhattan, but just to increase the knowledge base. I took a few cooking classes at ICE in Manhattan, they were cool, you learn so much from those folks. Definetly worth the money. Anyway, I digress. So, I want to start this, not gonna call it a diet, I'm gonna call it a change of diet, to really get healthier. I'm also kind of big with the big food companies and the whole way they produce and treat their meat and dairy products. It's a fricking disgrace. I'm not really blaming them, because they have to keep up with demand. The world is eating more meat and poultry than ever before. So these big huge farms are just chicken and beef mass production lines. The animals get treated like shit, but I'll get more into that later. Basically, I just want to start off this blog to document my progress. So, I weighed myself this morning, Jan 2, 2015, and I weigh 201.6. I measured my waist and its a whopping 42 inches!!!!!! And to top all this off, my blood pressure is a ridicolous 151 over 101!!!!!!!! I DON'T WANT TO DIE YET!!!!! So, I'm on my way. All the numbers have to come down. I watched a few documentaries yesterday, while nursing the New Years hangover, on Netflix. One was called Forks over Knives; the other one was called Vegucated, which was excellent. It takes 3 random New Yorkers, (selected from answering a Craigs List ad., and changes their normal meat and dairy eating diets to a vegan diet for 12 weeks. Blood work done before and after, and the results are exactly what I want. Of course, during the documentary, it shows big ag poultry and beef factories, footage that would make Jeffrey Dahmer quezzy, and lots of interviews with Phd's which are experts in the nutrition field. Good stuff. Very motivating. Watch these both (on Netflix) and you will never eat fast food again. I don't eat fast food at all. I wised up to that years ago. It's not really food, it's garbage. It's certainly contributing to the health issues in this country and other developed nations around the world. 
So, now I have to get some good vegan recipes. If anyone out there has some, leave a comment or put it on my facebook page. And as I go forth with this, I'll post some here also. So for now, I'm off to surf the vegan internet for tonights recipe.....(I still get to cook meat, Adora is not doing the vegan thing.....so my cooking skills for non vegan shouldn't suffer...)