Driving Home

I'm grocery shopping. On the way home I get a text from hubby, "I'm hungry. Feed me."

Of course, he was joking, but my maternal instinct kicked in and I thought, "What could I grab on the way home?"

Worst experience ever. You thought it was bad trying to figure out what to get on a low-fat diet? Vegetarian? Low-carb? Try whole food, plant-based.

Taco Bell? Nope.
Long John Silvers? Nope.
Subway? Nope.
McDonalds? Nope.
Burger King? Nope.
Greek Restaurant? Probably but that isn't exactly fast food.

So what did I do? I gave up and went home.

So if I REALLY needed to grab something, what would probably be the best places to go?

Probably Whole Foods for one, for best selection. I could have also gone to Boston Market for some grilled veggies. El Pollo has beans and mixed veggies. If I have absolutely no other choice, I could have grabbed a salad without meat from a fast food place, but don't forget the dressings have massive amounts of sugar. Italian would have sufficed or maybe even some lemon.

Can you think of any other "fast food" place? What would you get?

Comic-Con aka Eating While Away

Okay, we had Comic-Con for four days on top of hubby's birthday this weekend. So what to do when you're on such a restrictive diet? You cut yourself some slack. Here are some things that worked and some that didn't.

- We brought an amazing amount of healthy treats. Oranges, apples, Kind bars, Kashi bars, water. We ensured that at all times, we had a choice. That we didn't eat from desperation.
- Didn't completely blow the diet. We went in thinking we would blow it about half the time. I think ultimately, we did a little worse, but we also didn't beat ourselves up about it. Thursday night was pizza, but only a bit. Topped with an apple and water.
- Tests and meds were still done diligently. Scores weren't awesome, but they weren't awful either.
- We took snacks with us. Backpacks and purses full of water to stay hydrated, not to mention save money, and keep bad decisions at bay. Hungry in an hour long panel? No worries, we have Kind bars!

At the end of the experience we found that we hadn't completely demolished all the good things we did for the past two weeks. If anything, all those good habits set us up for a happy experience. We didn't feel miserable because we couldn't eat, and we didn't feel miserable because we didn't go wild either. It's all about moderation.

And now that we've celebrated, it's time to go back to healthy habits!

Pancakes

My old roommate had left a box of Eating Well pancake mix from sprouts. I should have taken a picture of it while I had the chance, but honestly I don't know what type of mix it was other than whole wheat I believe. When I first attempted to make these pancakes, I used almond milk and a little canola oil. It actually worked out pretty well.

However, we had to replenish our pancake mix and the closest I could find to what we eat is this.

This works for carbs and plant based, but not necessarily for Whole Foods. I decided to give it a chance though since hubby really loves his pancakes. 

I mixed in the almond milk and the oil. Fired up the pan. And cooked the mix. 

It was horrid. It didn't cook all the way through and just the taste of it (even after adding cinnamon) was unplatable. Did I mention it was horrid?

So careful of what you get, some work, some don't. Just keep on trying. 

Staples

I have created a staple for our house! I'm very excited because it's cheap, easy, and delicious!! This is a good starter meal if you are new to the PBWF lifestyle and aren't much on cooking with a lot of ingredients. This can be done via cooktop or crockpot.

1 can garbanzo/chickpea beans (strained)
1 can cannellini beans   (strained)
1 can black beans (strained)
1 can diced tomatoes (substitute with fiery diced if you like spicy)
1 tbsp fresh garlic
salt/pepper to taste

Just dump it all in the pot and cook until hot. Serve on top of brown rice.

Enjoy!

Went a little overboard

Life is all about making mistakes, acknowledging them, learning from them, then moving on.

Someone's glucose reading was a little high yesterday. But I suppose it's to be expected. We partied a little hardy. Ate a few things we weren't supposed to. And drank some things we weren't supposed to.

However, this is not the time to kick ourselves, berate ourselves, or generally feel devastated by our lapse.

This is the time to refocus, rejuvenate, and learn.

In an effort to get back on track, I am going to plan out meals (lots of fruits and veggies) and make bulk foods (rice and bean chili.)

Veggie Fail!

So tonight, we had our Big Lebowski party. Just 8 of us, but with varying diets. So when I went shopping, I purchased what I had "assumed" to be faux cheese. Dairy free cheese. Vegan cheese.

The title of it was "GoVeggie" cheese. Assuming that veggie meant, I dunno, veggie, I just grabbed the pack of provolone cheese and headed home.

Proud of myself for selecting a vegan cheese for my husband (I also made portobello mushrooms, onion, and bell peppers for the "cheesesteak), I left it out on the counter for any to enjoy. I even produced it with a slight hint of suggestion, "Hey this cheese is vegan, but if you want to try it, go ahead!"

The sister looked at the ingredients: "FILTERED WATER, CASEIN* (MILK PROTEIN),"

If you can't tell, that was copied and pasted from their website. I mean come-on! This is the package!

 Okay granted it does say "Lactose Free" on the package. But I was in a rush and all I saw was the "Go Veggie". Which I once again ASSUMED was veggie!

This is not the first of my mistakes. My roommate also suggested trying some Almond Butter she purchased from the store. We had attempted some al natural peanut butter, but it was such a pain mixing the dry peanut paste with the oil. So I figured one morning I would attempt the "Almond Butter". This is the jar...

Do you see the issue here? I took a bite and exclaimed, "OMG! This tastes like buttercream frosting! This is amazing!" Then the brain finally clicked into place and figured something was wrong. This was not Almond Butter, this was HONEY with ALMOND FLAVORING. Not even almond, almond flavoring. Ugh.

You can clearly see that these bottles are labeled correctly. However when your in a rush, or just excited to find something new, make sure you ALWAYS turn over the packaging and read the ingredients.

Holiday Time

This weekend is full of a vegan/PBWF eaters nightmare. Actually let's start with last Wednesday.

My son had just "graduated" Preschool. So they decided to have a "picnic" in which we all bring our own lunches. Aside from the fact that it has to be prepared ahead of time, what does one bring? I racked my brain for something healthy that could be consumed an hour after preparation. Cucumber sandwich? Hubby told me no. It won't last. PB Sandwich? Ugh, no, I really didn't want the old standby especially since the "PB" I purchased was not that flavorful and required a commercial mixer to mix up the peanuts and the oil. Couldn't do chips anymore. So, what to do?

I bit the bullet and went to Whole Foods, which was right next door to school. I perused the prepared sections at an awkward time, between breakfast and lunch. Ultimately, I ended up getting falafel (if you haven't tried it, I suggest you do), a veggie wrap, and some brown rice and strawberries. The kid ended up consuming the brown rice, hubby was satisfied with the wrap, and I devoured the falafel.

One down, two to go.

This weekend we are hosting a "Big Lebwoski" viewing party. However, two of our eight, are big time meat fans. So I decided to go halfsies. I plan on making a portobello mushroom, onion, and bell pepper "faux" philly cheesesteak. For our meat eaters, I will throw in strips of chicken. I have purchased both regular swiss cheese and the faux provolone for choices. And because I shopped at Frys, I had to surrender and buy regular hoagie bread. For sides, I have corn based tortilla chips with faxseed, and also making sweet potato fries (baked, not fried.)

Monday, is of course, Memorial Day. This one isn't so difficult. I'm bringing the veggie burgers from Costco (they are made from chopped up various vegetables and have a nice cumin taste to them.) If there is leftover "provolone" left, we'll throw that on top. Then I'm making the avocado potato salad (you can find on my pinterest board.) Then probably munch on some fruits to top it off.

Hopefully all of this will go well, and for now, I have to sign off because I have massive amounts of slicing and chopping to do.

Pizza

Everyone has that one food. That one food that could easily send them over the brink. That one food that flashes in your mind when told you have to change your diet. For you it may be steak, french fries, chips (I know, I'm only making this worse.) But for my roommate and compadre, it is pizza.

Our roommate is in charge of Friday night dinner. Every Friday night. For exchange of endless groceries and homemade dinners every other night of the week, she's in charge of Friday. And every Friday, like clockwork, we've had pizza.

Usually Domino's. Sometimes she's fancies it up with Streets of NY. Occasionally she'll diversify into Papa Johns or frozen. However, when she heard about the new diet, she was supportive yet horrified.

"No pizza?!?!"

So I found it my personal mission to find an alternative.

I thought about it for a minute. Hmmm, crust? No flour. Paste? No sugar. Cheese? No cheese. Toppings? No meat.

Ugh, is this going to be impossible?!

I would not give up though. My firs, desperate stop the first business night that we went PBWF, was Whole Foods. I had heard horrendous stories about this chain. Overpriced. Overpriced. And perhaps a bit pretentious. But where else was I gonna go? Many a friend talked about Trader Joes, but it wasn't a "health food" store per say. I figure the least I could get was maybe some pita bread, crushed tomatoes, and lord help me, what would I use for cheese?!?

The most important part of the pizza! Cheese! What could possibly substitute for it? There really is nothing. No kale or veggie would ever match the gooey wonderfulness that is cheese.

But as I was perusing the hot foods setup, my son ran to a counter and yelled, "Pizza!" I thought, "that's nice, he found pepperoni pizza. I'm sure it's healthy, but his dad and I can't eat it."

As I stood waiting for the man to deliver my boy his pizza, I glanced over the display and came to the words, "Vegan Pizza." Okay, I thought, as I dissected it with my eyes. It looks like pizza. That's a bonus. Crust is probably not within out PBWF, but the rest of it is fair game. healthy tomato sauce, kale, eggplant and what appeared to be some cheese substitute. I eagerly asked for three large slices. Hopeful, but secretly knowing I would bring it home and probably be disgusted. I bought prepared brown rice and zucchini as backup.

I came home. Both roommate and husband looked dubious. I heated it up and laid it out. Hmmmm. I took a bite. It was actually, not bad. The cheese was almost spot on to the same consistency and flavor as normal cheese. Actually the only thing I didn't like about it was the kale. It kind of had crispy edges and I didn't like that. Was like someone put dried parsley on my pizza. Ewww...

Fast forward a week. It's roommates turn for dinner. She said she was stopping by Whole Foods. What would she get? Brown rice? Quinoa? Salad? Yes, she brought home frozen pizza. Three types. Vegan, non-dairy. One with garlic and mushroom, one "cheese", and the other I don't know because she didn't cook it.

I took my first bite of the mushroom and garlic. It was bland. The crust had not been cooked to crispy on the inside and I don't think it had been cooked through. As I ate up to the edges, it got much tastier and I found myself wanting more of the slice that was crispy. When I told the roommate, she informed me that the cheese pizza was much more consistently crunchier. So I tried that. It was actually, pretty good. I think if I am craving pizza in the future, I would go for this frozen "cheese" variety but add my own whole veggies. Bell pepper, mushrooms, and add a little spice such as oregano and garlic powder.

So I would definitely suggest grabbing a vegan pizza with "cheese" if you get the hankering.

Have you tried one? What do you think?

Interwebs

Okay, so the doctor said, "plant based whole foods". NOT vegan. And honestly, that's what I'm trying to stick to. But this is an honest blog about trying to transition, I'm not perfect, you're not perfect, so every once in awhile I MIGHT mention something vegan, or slightly corrupt. The idea is 90% of my diet has bee transitioned to PBWF and I'm sharing trials and tribulations.

So the first thing I did was go to the inter webs!

This will make PBWF so freaking easy. I'll look for a menu builder, a grocery shopper, a pinterest wall. What do I have to worry about? I have Google!

I came from e-Meals. It was great...when I was vegetarian. It built 7 days worth of meals with groceries and price check. So my first task was to see if I could fit that into my new lifestyle (remember, no dairy, no meat, whole foods, no flour.)

I went to the vegetarian meal plan. It was chock full of cheese and flour based items. I may have said a bad word at this point. I looked at all the other plans, gluten-free, paleo, clean eating, nothing. Grrrr....

Okay, no problem. Google will help me. I scoured the internet for meal plans. I found one that only gave you five days worth of meals for about $30 a month. I only looked at the trial and got frustrated because it wouldn't let me switch things around and was limited on options. It may have been better if I paid, but I wasn't impressed.

I looked at other various meal plans and menu builders, but I'm OCD and spoiled with eMeals. So I gave up on those.

So next I found a website with tons of really cool recipes that seemed simple enough, but it still mentioned white potatoes and corn tortillas. I wasn't really sure given Doctors orders, if this was okay, but I started pinning. It's a website called Forks Over Knives. It's actually pretty cool. Tasty looking recipes. Simple items. I actually did try the avocado potato salad and it was a hit!

But I didn't want only that. So I started pinning. Once I started pinning, I realized that I wanted two boards, one for trying and one for successful recipes. (My Pinterest Board).

So this is the beginning of my journey. I used to be a "grocery shop at Frys and Costco once every two weeks" kinda gal and have gone to "buy every few days at Whole Foods and Frys" kinda gal.

Why?

Well let me tell you. Organic...

and by no means do I really care if it's organic or not. If you do, great! Buy organic. But right now I'm focusing on just finding easy, decent stuff to eat. I just happened to buy organic because that was at Whole Foods when I went

...foods do not last long. I bought some Ezekiel bread, to be mentioned in a future post, which was great but went moldy in a few days. I bought it frozen, it did not say refrigerate, and we didn't eat it fast enough. So I would suggest refrigerating your super expensive specialty bread.

If your starting out and really have no idea where to start, here's what I suggest:

• Take a deep breath. It's cool, it's not as bad as you think it is. But let's start off slow.
• Go buy some fruits and veggies you know you'll eat. Don't go all crazy buying new fruits and veggies "to try". you may hate all of them and then not eat them. If you like peas, go buy peas. If you only like carrots, go buy carrots. 
• Get a couple substitute items to try even if they don't adhere strictly to PBWH diet. Ease into it. I suggest Spelt or Ezekiel bread (hubs prefers Spelt and it lasted longer.) Maybe some peanut butter (ingredients should only say Peanuts.)
• Get some popcorn and some Mrs Dash or something to sprinkle on it. It will satisfy your carb cravings. Costco has a big old tub of it for like $10. 

We can totally do this. I know, I know. Spelt is not white Wonderbread. Popcorn with Mrs Dash is not butter popcorn. (If you need to, put a little bit of butter sprinkles on it...just to get you through to adjusting your palate.) But we'll get through this together, truly. 

Starting, kicking and screaming

Welcome to your new plant-based, whole foods diet...that you hate.

Okay, okay, no haters. Here's the deal. There are tons of people who have started to eat a plant based, whole foods (PBWF) diet because they want to be healthy, feel fit, feel awesome, etc, etc, etc. But, let's be honest. Not everyone starts out this way. Some of us are starting PBWF because our doctor said, if you don't, you'll die at an early age.

If you're like me, you dreading all the quinoa burgers, and flaxseed, and coconut oil. You scoured the web for an easy way to start the new diet/lifestyle and immediately wanted to throw your computer at the nearest health food doctor. Then you swore only to eat fruits and veggies until after your first breakfast, when you got immediately ravenous and started looking frantically around for anything else to eat.

I'm gonna be honest with you. This sucks! It does! Making a 180 degree transition from red meat and potatoes, which is available everywhere, to fresh fruits and veggies and oddly named foods available at horrendously expensive specialty stores is not easy.

But WE can do this. I'm starting out, just like you. I've gotten frustrated at the idea of cooking everything from scratch with 50 specialty ingredients and telling all my friends, "I can't eat that." and then being lambasted for not eating the way everyone else does. So, I'm going to blog about it. I'm gonna be honest and cut the "oh my god, everything is wonderful and I feel alive and so amazing" crap and tell you how it is. I'm also going to share with you what I found, how it REALLY tasted (according not only to me but my very picky husband and child and roommate), and share some tips on how to survive the real world (BBQ, events, going out, no time in the morning.)

So welcome. We will get through this. And I hope if you have something to share that helps us all, please comment.