An Adventurous Vegan in the Kitchen: Tales of a Former "Box Grabber” Vegan

After nearly a decade of operating as a vegetarian, I was constantly lingering in the vegetarian frozen-food aisle of the grocery store, buying veggie burgers, veggie chicken, veggie bacon etc, or I would be in the back of the fruit sections buying my favorite vegan dips, or I could be found perusing through the veggie milk section of the store, trying to decipher the real difference between the multitude of brands on the market. I assumed I had to get some of my veggie products out of a package or a container in order to enjoy the great taste of some of the basic vegetarian foods. I took advantage of an industry that took advantage of people’s busy schedules or people’s basic ignorance when it comes to cooking vegetarian foods. Although, I’ve realized in order to be an independent vegetarian and not a processed vegan-food junkie, one needs to be adventurous and willing to experiment by learning new ways of putting food together—not necessarily by imitating a meat or dairy texture or flavor, but that’s exactly how my journey began. So as I found more time in my day, I had became committed to finding out how to cook vegan foods, which I oftentimes made to imitate the prepared foods in the packages that I had grown so familiar with. So I started by purchasing several vegan cookbooks and making use of online recipes, then I purchased a blender and a dehydrator and the results of my experimentation were amazing! 

So in this article are ten healthy vegan foods options that I have learned how to prepare over time, making me much less dependent on the veganism-in-a-container lifestyle. In fact, there are numerous benefits that come with making your own foods, including having total control over the ingredients. Some veggie processed foods could include too much sodium, sugar, artificial coloring, eggs, or excess oil, because its sold by companies that are pressured into making products that tastes good, in pursuit of gaining that lifetime loyal customer. Sure, purchasing foods out of a paper box or plastic container is extremely convenient but it could become costly in the long run, due to medial related problems and the huge price tag that comes with being sick.

So instead of purchasing veggie burgers, I would make my own “burgers" out of beans, spelt flour, corn, and carrot blended together. These burgers would taste either just as good or even better than the box burgers I had purchased so frequently. 

Then after purchasing at least hundreds upon hundreds of half-gallon sized almond milks in my lifetime, eventually I learned that I could easily make almond milk by just blending one cup of soaked almonds and six cups of water blended; then sometimes I would alternate and make a form of milk from other nutrient-rich nuts, like cashes and walnuts.  I was amazed to see that even the almond milk turned white just like the kind I had been so regularly purchasing at the grocery store! Sometimes I even added vanilla and cinnamon to the mix in an effort to enhance the flavor. Then I mixed walnuts with tamari sauce and chili powder to produce a similar texture to beef. Next, I learned how to make hummus by simply blending tahini, chick peas, red bell pepper, lemon, onion, and garlic. I also learned how to dehydrate fruits and my afternoons I would making dried apples and pineapples. Kale chips were my favorite and I learned that with just some red bell pepper and garlic blended together as the sauce, the homemade kale chips could taste absolutely delicious. I also learned how to make guacamole by mixing avocado with tomato and basil. Afterwards, I made my own health bars by mixing seeds, nuts, and dates.So why purchase these items at the store when it’s so easy to make at home? 

So instead of being a vegetarian operating out of a state of need for something found in a box, you I became adventurous and learned how to live a healthy lifestyle by mixing together whole foods, eliminating the need for preservatives or having to deal with other added foods that don't fare well with a healthy lifestyle—this is something that you can do too. In the end you’ll feel more like you’ve got a handle on your health and you’ll save a couple of dollars to match. 

So when you get some time, try you own form of experimentation in order to operate as an independent vegetarian and not someone who’s become the vegan food marketer’s dream!  

What dishes are you making now, liberating you from the confines of being a box-grabbing vegan? 

Does Veganism Make You Look Younger?

Many people are searching for the magic potion that will help them in defying the aging process. Some find their magic in anti-aging creams and other beauty products, facelifts, or even the conventional make-up, but what if I told you veganism could become your personal fountain of youth, helping you to age more slowly ultimately feeling more radiant and energetic? Would it get you to decisively give up meat? Unfortunately, meat can become a drag on your life, draining your bones and cells of precious minerals in the pursuit of restoring your alkaline levels and this speeds up the aging process. In fact, meat does not fare well on humans, contributing to the onset of some of our most prevalent diseases that speed up the aging process. Although, a vegan diet helps in disease presentation and it gives your body the minerals it needs for glowing and young looking skin, making you look and feel better than your age counterparts. So everything you would need to look younger than your biological age can be found in a vegan diet.

I have been a vegetarian for the past twenty years, and for the past ten years as a college professor, people have time and time again mistaken me for a student, even though I am older than my students. This could be attributed to genetics and another portion I believe, could be attributed to living a vegan lifestyle, because it’s been proven through research studies and simple observations that people living a vegan lifestyle appear younger than those who do not. So here’s a few ways how living a vegan diet can become your personal fountain of youth, and the answers are all found in the intake of nutrients. So this is part one in a two-part series on Veganism and the fountain of youth. We will first deal with an essential mineral embedded in our fountain of youth--collagen.

Collagen has been linked to looking younger, that’s why many of the wrinkle creams contain this essential mineral. Moreover, one-third of our body is made of collagen, it's found in our skin, connecting tissues, eyes, blood vessel walls, and throughout our body, and the lack of collagen leads to thinning hair and to the develop of wrinkles (not the mention bad eyesight and weak bones), both of which are signs of aging. One way of producing collagen is by taking fruits that contain protein and fruits that contain vitamin C. The plethora of fruits containing vitamin C are listed below.

• Berries
• Kiwis
• Plums
• Broccoli
• Guava
• Red and green bell pepper
• Kiwi
• Oranges
• Strawberries
• Papaya
• Pineapple
• Grapefruit
• Mango 
• Kale
• Parsley
• Peas

The recommended daily amount of protein is 56 grams for men and 46 grams for women, and there are more than enough vegetarian foods that will supply your body with the necessary amount of protein. In fact, these protein-enriched foods work with your body better than the proteins that come from animal meat. Here are some of the foods containing protein:

• Nuts
• Hummus
• Pomegranate
• Portobello mushrooms
• Kamnut
• Avocados
• Broccoli
• Peas
• Passion fruit
• Grapefruit  

So there is it, the fountain of youth is at your own personal disposal. So you don’t have to buy products to give you all of what you need, which in essence grows naturally from the earth.  Eating whole foods with collagen is a first start in the process of looking young and feeling vibrant! 

So do you think you'd explore the vegan lifestyle to look younger? 

Should "Veggie Meats" Really Exist?

As a vegan, I have been operating on the fence of a grand marketing scheme. I called myself a vegan and at the same time I accepted the popular framing of the vegan food industry’s classification of vegetarian protein-based processed food as "veggie meats.” So I would eat bacon, burgers, chicken strips and nuggets, and meatballs, but these foods were not made from pigs, chickens, nor cows. I was disillusioned often calling these products by their true nomenclature in the meat world and taking out the veggie part of the description. However, the promise of it satisfying my body with the necessary proteins was appealing; it wasn’t until much later in life I learned that all of the essential proteins one needs to acquire can also come from plants, and when considering the prevention of diseases, a plant-based protein is idea because meat-based proteins can contribute to health issues. Not only was I disillusioned by the aggressive marketing campaigns among the so-called veggie meat industry, but also the foods started creating health problems for me. 

I started feeling extremely lethargic everyday even though I was getting enough hours of sleep at night. The truth is that even though I was in my 30s I felt as if I was somebody’s tired grandmother, and that’s not sexy! My quick fix solution was to start drinking coffee daily, which I loaded with caramel and so-called almond milk to dilute the coffee bean taste, which I’ve never liked even as a child, it worked initially but eventually I felt as though I had become immune to its stimulating affects—that’s when I decided to see my primary care physician. After speaking to him, I was shocked when he explained that it was normal to feel tired after working throughout the day, but in my heart I knew this could not be a “normal" way to feel. And since I substituted processed foods for whole foods I feel vibrant and am no longer suffering from tiredness 360.

So after much contemplation, a few months later, I identified that maybe I was feeling so sluggish because of my daily use of processed foods—so I stopped eating the so-called veggie meat products cold turkey, no matter how healthy they were marketed as. I had no clue as to what classified a so-called veggie meat product as good or bad, so I just gave them all up. When I would find time in my day, I began educating myself on processed foods. So foods are processed when they have been chemically modified, and in order to preserve these foods they usually contain artificial substances and refined ingredients, like preservatives, colorants, artificial flavoring and even texturants, which gives foods more texture! Processed foods typically do not have a lot of nutritional value and are high in all the things your body craves like sugar, calories, sodium, and fat but can give you major health issues if you acquire too much of it, like obesity, diabetes, cancers, and high blood pressure. Afterwards, I discovered that some of the ingredients of these veggie meats were artificial and some of them included eggs, sodium, and even sugar. Plus, even though the products typically were made from soy, a natural ingredient, if they were not verified as a non-GMO product in their labeling then they could have harmful effects on the body—in fact, most of the cultivated soy goes through genetic modification. In addition, some of the so called veggie meats had high sodium levels which could increase one's risk for heart disease, stroke and high blood pressure. Last, some of the so called veggie meats I consumed were breaded and fried which increased my exposure to unhealthy oils. It took me so long to uncover the unhealthy nature of a growing healthy vegan foods market, and it all started with the way I was feeling. 

So not only are these so called veggie meats marketed to appeal to consumers whom have been conditioned to think that in order to get enough protein you must eat meat, which is not true, but also based on my experiences eating processed foods was making me not only sluggish but it also had the potential of creating a sickness in my body, this compounded with an understanding that plants alone provide one with all the necessary proteins making it unnecessary to purchase a veggie meats to accomplish this. For instance, many plant-based protein rich foods exist, like lentils, black beans, pinto beans, almonds, cashew nuts, walnuts, spirulina, hemp seeds, chai seeds, quinoa, and more. So why support an industry that misleads consumers by using the word “meat” to simply describe another processed non-meat food, and especially when that processed food could contain harmful additives that could eventually cause you to become unhealthy? It’s not necessary, especially when all the proteins you need can be found in natural and whole plant-based foods. So who really should determine what is vegan, the marketing executives or the general public? 

What has your experience been like with so-called veggie meats and what do you think of the questions posed? 

Going Vegetarian to Be Like Beyonce?

"Life is an adventurous maze."

Beyonce has a certain "je ne sais quoi," which makes people to wonder if her popularity is based on the vital aliveness of her dance moves, her long and thick hair that's forever blowing in the wind, her curvaceous coca-cola figure that she enjoys flaunting, her high stamina during all performances, or could it be the level of relatability she has among her fans. That "something special" Beyonce has, has subsequently lead some meat eaters or omnivores to wonder if they could also look and feel like her, by subscribing to her newly launched vegan app. and becoming a vegan too. After spending the past 20 years as a vegetarian and a vegan I believe that I can provide insight. 

Beyonce's newly released "22 Day Nutrition" app. appeals best to those in a state of transition. So it could become a useful tool when gaining an entry point into a vegetarian lifestyle or it could motivate people whom are finding vegetarianism difficult to maintain--so like an egg in an incubator Beyonce's app. helps to ensure that the egg doesn't break, among those newly proclaimed vegetarians. So once vegetarianism is maintained, could this diet help people to look and feel as good as Beyonce looks and feels on stage? 

I must say that if the answer to looking good and feeling good was found in a $100 subscription, which is the annual fee for Beyonce’s new 22 Day Nutrition app., then we would no longer have diseases like obesity or plastic surgeries like liposuction. The meat of this issue is that unfortunately the genie does not exist in reality, and so the issues ailing you will not be cured by the sudden nodding of her head. In other words, vegetarianism is not simply a food choice to embark upon to look better and feel better, but just like hip-hop, it comes with a lifestyle, one that involves a gigantic mental shift and a subsequent behavioral change, the behavioral change without the mental shift leaves one half steppin' and vulnerable to cracking up in the incubator. 

Some of the mental and behavioral shifts of vegetarianism are: 

• Incorporating a meatless and or dairy free diet.
• Reading about vegetarianism's connection to the environment, including global warming. 
• Becoming more conscious about the ills of the meat industry, and understanding your direct impact on the livelihood and outcomes of animals. 
• Learning the nutritional components in the foods you eat and don't eat. 
• Living a more authentically natural lifestyle and using the whole and natural foods that you are bringing into your body as a stimulus for a more natural appearance overall.  
• Developing a regular exercise regimen.

So back to our core question, will this nutritional app. help you to look and feel like Beyonce? Well, to speak about Beyonce we'd have to also speak about the millions spent on her clothing, hairstyles, exercise regimen etc. to keep her looking in top notch shape for the entertainment business. So if you are going into vegetarianism to look and feel like her or any other person, its likely that your motivation for doing it will be shorted lived because vegetarianism is not simply a quick fad diet but a lifestyle. Beyonce's 22 Day Nutrition app. simply gives you an opportunity to crack the door open to peep in to see what's located on the inside of a vegetarian lifestyle and to see what you would like to support or reject--some of which will be profoundly different from what Beyonce may choose to do. So ordering this app. or choosing not to does not become a matter of looking and feeling like Beyonce, but its really about going through your own maze in life, becoming adventurous, and making moves towards your own personal self-discovery and life fulfillment so you can truly exhibit your best self ever. 

Will you order the 22 Day Challenge? If you've already used it, how has it made you feel? 

Confessions of a Junk Food Vegetarian

Me and my husband in Oaxaca, Mexico

Sometimes it just takes one person to skyrocket you into another direction. I’ve been dubbed as health conscious throughout my 20 years as a vegetarian, but for the first 10 years of my journey I was blindly over-indulging in non-meat but junk food products. Vegetarian foods that might not so quickly come to mind, like potato chips, fries, chocolate chip cookies, candy bars, and sodas were apart of my regular diet.  I was satisfied with this unhealthy food regimen until I befriended a South American native, in Philadelphia, and not only was he from a different culture but his conversations were absolutely strange.

He would offer me a bite to eat and would explain the food's nutritional ingredients. When eating carrots or mango he would say, “caroteen is good for the eyes.”  I thought, “really, how does he know about what’s in carrots and mangos?” At times, I would hear him tell people, “all the necessary proteins you need you can get from a vegetarian diet.” Conversations with him about food were always entangled with nutrition, and I started slowly transitioning to foods with more nutritional value. However, my drug was junk and like a person addicted to drugs, I would crave biting into yet another chocolate and caramel coated candy bar, or I simply missed the bubbly feel or maybe just the sugary taste of sodas. And holidays were the worst of times, especially Halloween, because I would eat all the left-over candy which most times would include digging in multiple bags of candy.

Eventually, with so many conversations about nutrition surfacing, I voluntarily retreated from junk foods. So instead of eating candy bars, I sparingly eat cacao nibs in smoothies, which is pure chocolate made from crushed cacao beans and is classified as a superfood. Instead of eating chocolate chip cookies, I make my own bars made from dates, seeds, and nuts. Instead of craving the sugar in sodas, I started juicing and now I indulge in natural sugars. Taking these basic steps has helped me to take even bigger steps, eventually moving to a vegan whole food diet, and I must admit, this food regime combined with regular exercise, I've never felt healthier and sexier in all my adult life. Then came my biggest move, marrying this man who exposed me to the intersectionality of foods, nutrition, and optimal health, and permanently moving these types of conversations from the bizarre realm of the unknown into an existence of total normalcy.  

So where are you on your food journey and are there any bad habits you're willing to change? Make your comment below and let's talk! 

One Death Linked to Romaine Lettuce E. Coli Outbreak

Be very careful before eating salads, veggie burgers, or anything else that could include lettuce because the first death has occurred in the Romaine lettuce E. coli outbreak. According to the CDC, romaine lettuce shipped from the Yuma, Arizona region could be contaminated and could cause deaths. One  death occurred in California and 121 others from 25 states have become sick. Plus, 52 people have been hospitalized and 14 people have experienced a form of kidney failure called hemolytic unremic syndrome. After becoming infected, it takes about two to three weeks for any illness to occur and signs are diarrhea, stomach cramps, vomiting, and as mentioned those with a weakened immune system can get kidney failure. 

Now let's talk prevention measures. Even washing your romaine lettuce would not be enough to guard against E. coli and its bacteria. So if you're looking for a sign to start growing your own veggies, this is a big one! Avoid romaine lettuce at all costs.

There are five types of lettuce, crisphead/iceburg, loose-leaf lettuce, romaine, butterhead, and stem, so you know what Romaine Lettuce Looks Like? 

Harvard Scientists say Vegetarianism Prevents Deaths

Harvard scientists say that one-third of all the early deaths, at the least, could be prevented if people become vegetarian, that's 200, 000 lives annually! So an early death is directly connected to one's daily choices in food. Walter Willett, nutrition department chair at Harvard School of Public Health says, "With the right food choices, physical activity, and not smoking, we could prevent about 80 percent of heart disease, about 90 percent of diabetes, and 70 percent of stroke (Food Day, 2011)."

What are you willing to do starting today, to change your diet for the better?