Raw Vegan Challenge - On the Menu This Week

Thursday's "mystery box" from Mariquita was full of wintery goodness.  A stalk of brussels sprouts, two gorgeous turnips, a bag full of multi colored carrots, spigariello greens, chard, three gorgeous red onions, a giant squash, savoy cabbage (bringing me up to 3 heads of savoy in the fridge!), cilantro, fennel and collards.  Ialso got 9# of  Bearess limes.

Yesterday, I decanted the current batch of kim chee to make room for a batch of savoy cabbage sauerkraut.  The newest batch of kim chee is fuschia in color from the red cabbage, purple carrots, daikon, ginger, hijiki, green onion and habanero peppers.  I ended up with 1.25 gal of kimchee, and it is delicious.  I expect it will get hotter and more gingery the longer it sits in the fridge like the first batch has done.

An awful lot of greens all at once!  I still have a bunch of kale in the fridge, so decided to make up a new batch of kale chips with both the kale and the spigariello greens.

On the list of "to do" items for this afternoon and tomorrow morning, making up my menu for the week:

• zest & juice 9# of Bearess limes - freeze most of the juice & dehydrate the zest
• kale & spigariello chips (dehydrator)
• shredded brussels sprouts salad - little enoki mushrooms, lemon, nama shoyu, olive oil, black pepper, garlic, marinated in dehydrator at 105 for a couple hours
• savoy cabbage salad w/lime, ginger, sesame oil, nama shoyu, red onion, cilantro, garlic, mango & topped with sprouted pumpkin & sunflower seeds
• grated turnip & carrot salad dressed with agave/nama shoyu/lemon/white wine vinegar, liberal amounts of finely minced parsley & cilantro, red onion & garlic
• sprouted pumpkin seed & sundried tomato pate
• fennel & grapefruit salad with jalapeno & cilantro
• soaked cashew red pepper pate
• buckwheat & carrot pulp crackers
• romesco sauce w/sprouted hazelnuts, cherry tomatoes & red bell pepper
• shelling Louisana pecans that I brought home in November to store in fridge
• key lime pie (lime, young coconut meat & water, avocado) with pecan/mac crust

I'll be using the collards to roll up pates with sprouts, shredded carrot, cucumber & zucchini sticks, kim chee and other good combos.  The best thing about all the salads is that they last quite well in the fridge and the longer they  marinate, the tastier they become.

Raw Vegan Challenge 2011, update

It's now been over 2 weeks - I've lost almost 10 pounds.  I confess - the first week of January, I didn't do very much to push myself to get into the gym.  I did, however, get my refrigerator cleaned out and put together my workout regiment tracking sheet (this is not new - I've used some version of this for the last 10 years).

EXERCISE: My workout regimen - granted - it's getting off to a slow start and I'm lazy, is something like this:

• Visit the gym (3-5x/week)
• Ride my bike to the gym & back (4+ miles total)
• 80 minutes on the recumbent bike - it's good for hamstrings & I can read my book!  I usually work out around 160-170 bpm for an hour, then step down from 150 to 100 in a 20 minute cooldown
• Strength training
• Crunches/push ups (2-4x/week)
• Yoga (1-2x/week)
• Hiking (1-2x/week) 

Yoga at home is different from going to a teacher-led class, that's for sure.  Cats interfere, space is limited and there are more distractions.  In December, I went to about 20 classes at Square One Yoga - and I love the space and some of the teachers were really great.  However, it reminded me that I really don't like Hatha yoga - it's too "busy" and fast.

I like iyengar for the precision, the slow stretching and the long held asanas that are more body weight training than yogaerobics I get in Hatha, Vinyasa or Ashtanga.  Also - as a swimmer, I value my shoulders and just a few weeks of Hatha had my shoulders crying "foul!" from too many repeated vinyasas.  I am going to go back to yoga with Stack Buss - she's a certified iyengar instructor and and very patient.

DIET: Breaking one of the cardinal rules of good dieting and nutrition, I have not been keeping a food journal.  My basic diet is that the bulk of my meals should be high nutrient, low glycemic index vegetables, with some fruit.  Over the past couple of weeks, my diet has looked like this:

• Breakfast:  decaf organic coffee (french press) with sucanat & So Delicious coconut milk creamer, carrot juice or green juice if feel like it, maybe 1-2 apples or a couple of carrots.
• Green smoothie: my favorite is 3-4 leaves of kale, 1 small zucchini, 2 cubes of frozen persimmon puree or 2-4 frozen strawberries, brown rice protein powder and psyllium husk powder
• Snacks have included:
• "I Am Spirit" sprouted teriyaki almonds (from I Am Grateful)
• Kale chips
• "I Am Relishing" Buckwheat crackers & sprouted almond hummus (from I Am Grateful)
• Flaxseed & carrot pulp crackers
• Dinner varies, and I have skipped a few dinners after having a great big green smoothie late in the afternoon.  Dinner has looked like this:
• Kale & fennel salad
• Romaine salad with red pepper, avocado, carrots & dressed with lemon juice, salt, black pepper and olive oil
• Green papaya salad
• Raw cabbage salad/coleslaw
• Raw enchiladas from I Am Grateful - the spinach tortillas came out a little thin, but delicious, and the two fillings I made were Red bell pepper & Cashew, Pumpkin Seed & Green Chiles with raw cashew sour cream (also from  I Am Grateful) and a nice spicy sauce leftover from kale chips
• Cauliflower couscous - holy cow!  who'd have thunk?
• Kim chee - I'm very fortunate that a friend passed on a 7.5 Harsch Gairtopf Fermenting Crock to me last summer for kombucha.  The kombucha mother lives on in the compost pile in the backyard and my first batch with green cabbage came out great! A couple of friends came over for a motorcycle mechanics tutorial and they helped me test it extensively!  For recipes check out  I Am Grateful and  Wild Fermentation - there are also plenty of resources on the web.
• "I Am Authentic" Koi Teow soup, from I Am Grateful, a super delicious and easy miso based soup - equal parts miso, agave & lime juice mixed with hot water, add 1 cup of spiralized, shredded or julienned veggies, a bit of garlic & hot chile oil.
• Herbal tea (unsweetened)

 My goal is to keep my caloric intake around 1000-1200/day, which - combined with my activity - should effect the weight loss by end of April.  Never fear - I eat appropriately for my activity level and weight loss goal.  My salads are quite big - a whole bunch of romaine with half a red bell pepper, a whole avocado, a carrot & 1/4 c sprouted seeds (sometimes).

SIDE EFFECTS:  Other than weight loss, there are definitely some side effects to switching to a raw diet.  Detoxing will happen when you cut out wheat anyway - but I was quite unprepared for some of the effects.  After the first week or so, I started noticing a few things.

First, a few sips of port tasted like cough syrup.  I tried having a glass of wine last week and again on Saturday and it just tasted sour - and not in a good way.  Late last week, I noticed that my eyes felt goopy - I was waking up with lots of crusty bits in the corners of my eyes, and for about two days - my eyes felt blurry and bleary, and I noticed a decrease in distance vision.  I had a few headaches, too, so I thought I was coming down with a cold or allergy attack but the symptoms passed after Saturday.  I also noticed that my skin has gotten a lot drier - and yes, I am eating avocados in salads & smoothies, in addition to nuts. 

Finally, I noticed that - well - I don't feel as "hungry" as I did before I started this regimen.  I don't have the desire to snack.  I feel pretty well satiated - after chewing through 3 bowls of kim chee, you get to mandibular workout  and enough nutrition.  I haven't had any unusual cravings (though tempted by the knowledge that Cha-Ya's expanded location is open to go get agedashi tofu!).

Raw Vegan Challenge 2011

For the time being, there's a bit of a change of direction over here in the Live Green, Wear Black kitchen.  I decided to start off 2011 by going 100% raw vegan.  I was planning to do it for 1 month, but now I am thinking that I am going to extend it through April - a full 16 weeks.  Partly, I want to lose weight - the other goal is to experience the benefits of eating a live foods diet.

Let's rewind to two years ago.  January 2009 saw me dealing with the sudden onset of a really bad kink in my neck - I fell asleep in a weird position and didn't move.  For two months, the pain was so excruciating, that I gave up swimming.  I quit taking the train and went to work and back via bus because the pain was so bad that I was having Anna Karenina fantasies.  I discovered restorative Iyengar yoga and ART chiropractic - and things began to improve.  I also started riding a motorcycle (hey, fun is always a good distraction) - and my bicycle started collecting dust.

By June 2009, my neck pain was improved by going to yoga classes 2-4 times/week, and I was going to the gym 4-5x/week at lunch.  I was around 155 lbs.  My breakfast consisted of a smoothie (water, fruit, brown rice protein powder), and my lunch consisted of a big salad with lots of romaine, different raw veggies, ground flaxseed and some raw nuts, dressed with lemon & salt (usually around 500 calories with the nuts).

That summer, I experienced a lot of very stressful life changes - not the least of which being that I left my job, had a couple short term temp jobs and then transitioned to working from home at the end of the year.  I also stopped going to the iyengar studio due to differences with the owner.  The biggest change was basically cutting out the 2-4 miles/day that I walked between home/work and public transit, walking around in an office (I often took stairs if it was fewer than 2-3 floors), trading the bicycle for the motorcycle, and not having the routine of wanting to escape the office to the gym at lunch time.

In a year, I went from a 32C size 8 to a 36D size 10 - at 5'10" - most people insist I look "great" - but if I cared what other people thought about how I look, I'd probably wear make up, maintain a hair style and put more effort into my wardrobe.  I got back into the pool last spring - and the neck problem flared up again, so I would swim and back off periodically.  I went back to the gym and I spent a lot of time hiking (both mushrooming and regular hikes).  I was in pretty good shape by the time I went to Kauai for my solo backpacking trip in April 2010, but not thrilled with the size of my backside.  Actually, I was doing pretty well until I injured my knee in July 2010 and was basically on my butt for 3 months.  Bye bye, summer!

After 3 months of physical therapy, I found motivation to get back into the pool and the gym.  To be honest - I love fried food and desserts.  Hanging out with people who ride motorcycles often means lots of beer - and long motorcycle rides in Northern California don't burn calories like bicycle rides.  Often the destinations don't have a lot of healthy options for vegan dining (Barstow, for example).  As a vegan, I have to make sure I bring my own food or I end up eating french fries & beer for lunch, or some wilty horrible looking salad.

To be brutally honest - this is the most I have ever weighed in my entire life.  And yet, I'm only about 10# over the weight of the average woman in the US, and 5 inches taller.  Blame it on vanity, blame it on being cheap (seriously - who wants to go buy all new clothes? I hate shopping!) - I'm determined to get back on track.

A raw vegan diet is something that has always interested me.  I adore the food at Cafe Gratitude - but as many friends are quick to point out: there are lots of nuts in their dishes.  Nuts, it would seem are a great way to gain weight if you over-rely on them.  They are just as much a convenience food as bread & pasta.

I spent about 3 months doing a lot of reading up on various raw vegan diets, including "high fat," "low fat," the 80-10-10 (calories should come from 80% carbs, 10% protein, 10% fat), green smoothies vs juicing, fruitarianism and more.  Some basic findings include:

• Reduce frequency & don't graze.  People do not need to eat 5-6 meals a day.  This does not copy patterns found in nature and results in obsession with your diet & feeding yourself.  Eat 2-3 times a day, fast every so often (ie, skipping a meal if you aren't hungry).
• Know when you are hungry.  Most people don't really know when they are hungry - they eat because they are bored (ie, entertainment) or they eat because they are thirsty.
• Protein is synthesized by our own bodies using the amino acids in the food we eat.  Eat lots of different leafy greens and other colored veggies -- you'll be fine.  No need to obsess.
• Raw, sprouted nuts are not as fattening for you as unsprouted or roasted/toasted because they contain the enzymes our bodies require to properly digest the fat in the nuts.
• You can't eat too much kale.  I am not kidding.  It is just about the most perfect vegetable.
• Raw fermented foods are essential to the raw diet.  They provide bacterial cultures that promote digestion and taste yummy.
• Smoothie or juice - concentrated greens every day are also critical.
• Water - early and often.

Of course, standard diet advice applies: don't be too hard on yourself, if you fall off the wagon, get back on.  Also, if there is one thing that is outside the diet that can be reasonably included - indulge.  A diet is not about punishment.  My exception is decaf coffee with coconut creamer & sucanat in the morning.

My library of raw cookbooks includes:  I Am Grateful: Recipes and Lifestyle of Cafe Gratitude, Sweet Gratitude: A New World of Raw Desserts, The Complete Book of Raw Food, Entertaining in the Raw.

The web is incredibly helpful and I have found tons of great resources for information about nutrition & recipes.

My goal is to to lose at least 30# and get back to 32C (bras are so expensive and I like the collection I have in that size!).  I already eat a lot of raw food - I love salads of all sorts, I use my dehydrator to make flaxseed crackers and kale chips (among other things).  The main changes for me in this diet are the elimination of wheat (including beer), fried food, refined sugar and other convenient snacky type items.  Actually - you can see it's not nearly as "radical" as it might sound at first.

REVIEW: "Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved" & "Real Food: What to Eat & Why"

Lately, I have been in the habit of reading books that pair together - either by the same author or books that seem to treat the same topic. The two most recent books -- on the heels of the two Michael Pollan books I finished a few weeks ago, are "The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved" by Sandor Katz, the author of "Wild Fermentation" and "Real Food: What to Eat & Why" by Nina Planck. Since the Planck book is the least useful and most controversial, I'll start there - hoping to make this quick and painless.

"Real Food: What to Eat & Why" by Nina Planck has a beguiling cover that seems to offer promises of quality guidelines and content. While Planck writes with great passion in an accessible, chatty style, I found much of her book to be pompous, arrogant and repetitive. Although she does use footnotes in the first part of the book and lists a bibliography, her academic rigor is not nearly on the same level as "Omnivore's Dilemma."

In fact, there were several long sections that seem to be lifted right from Michael Pollan's book -- making "Real Food" seem more to me like a "Cliff Notes" version of "Omnivore's Dilemma" but tainted with a very subjected, personal angle that implies there is only one "right" diet and everyone else is an idiot. While Planck and Pollan are both journalists and food writers, it is clear that Planck's skill is not in writing -- her book seems like a very long blog article or diatribe. She relies heavily on secondary and tertiary sources, fails to properly substantiate many of her arguments except by anecdote -- you can hardly tear down the China Study, for example, by your own personal experience.

She also seems to be taking format cues from Sandor Katz's "The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved" -- both in terms of the structure of her book and the individual chapters. Her weak attempts at describing food preparation and providing resources don't hold water next to Katz's superior book which describes the experiences and experiments of him and his friends and is very strongly supportive of readers exploring and finding what works best for them.

Reading the reviews for Planck's book on Amazon and other places on the internet was highly entertaining -- she has a very vocal following who will defend to the death her assertions -- afterall, Planck's book validates their current diets making very few recommendations aside from staying away from packaged, processed food. It's still basically the Standard American Diet - lots of animal products, eat as much as you want. The redeeming factor is that she encourages people to strongly consider the source of their foods -- staying away from big corporate farm produced foods.

Her argument boils down to something pulled right from Pollan's writings: anything your grandmother made is 'real food. However, that was what Pollan offered as a guideline for selecting better prepared foods -- not as a pretext to eat whatever the hell you want. Planck maintains that you should eat as much as you want of anything that's not packaged or processed crap -- somehow, your body will know when to stop because those foods are more satisfying. This leaves out the obvious -- calories are calories and must be burned. People eat for many reasons -- hunger, boredom, happiness, sadness -- and satiety isn't always a cue for ending a meal.

Planck is vehemently (and obnoxiously) anti vegetarian, particularly anti-vegan, and there is not a lot of material provided to encourage independent, critical thought or to make space for other people's experiences or conclusions. She puts little value on moderation or exercise, and doesn't allow for differences in individual body chemistry.

Pollan, on the other hand, goes to Polyface farm and works on the farm, he goes hunting, he goes foraging -- he talks to real people, he dives in and describes his experiences. All Planck does is to read Pollan and a few other books and write an over-long newspaper column that incorporates some of their key ideas with her own strong opinions. Her shameless theft of concepts from Pollan's books -- twisted to her own means -- lead me to make only one recommendation: Read Omnivore's Dilemma. It's a far superior book when compared to Planck's book or any others on the shelf.

"The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved" by Sandor Katz is created to be used by its readers, not merely consumed. He has clearly laid out as comprehensive and inclusive an agenda as any I have seen, covering industrial food production, dumpster diving, fermenting, foraging, vegetarianism and many other topics. His writing style is humble, clear and flows well -- while he incorporates plenty of information about his and his own experiences, the first person narrative is neatly integrated into the overall message. Each chapter is written as a standalone article and ends with recipes and resources for futher research.

Katz's approach is truly one of conservation and relativity -- he constantly notes that each individual's particular body chemistry, culture and food preferences mean that a diet that works for him (now) may not work for you. He encourages exploration, examination and critical thought.

Sadly, but perhaps not surprisingly, the negative reviews of his books on Amazon are largely from homophobes. While he mentions he's fighting AIDS with diet and medication, and that he lives in a queer community - he's not hamfisted about his sexual orientation or lifestyle. He's clear and up front about it but in no sense does he ever offer judgement about the relative merits of his orientation to the mainstream (nor is the book in anyway about sex). Katz provides details about his life as they are relevant to his experiences and experiments with food -- but he's clearly not out to recruit people to the "Gay Nation" nor to challenge their assumptions on homosexuality.

It's very clear that his mission is to provide a catalyst for his readers (whom he assumes are intelligent, inquisitive folks) to scrutinize their diets and food sources and to arm them with tools for making the best choices based on their own particular situations.

Chocolate

Though I confess to the occasional chocolate bacchanal, it is best enjoyed in moderation with deliberation. Life is too short for cheap chocolate. With summer here, many of us are facing bathing suit season with a pledge to eat healthier and exercise more. For some of us, that means giving up junk food and chocolate is often mistakenly miscategorized in that group despite its numerous health benefits.

Chocolate is not just delicious, it's also nutritious and contains vitamins A, B1, C, D, and E, as well as potassium, sodium, iron, and fluorine.

Many don't realize that chocolate is a plant-based food - just like all those fruits and veggie recommended for a healthy heart. Chocolate is made from theobroma cacao - literally, "the food of the gods." Cacao is typically grown in hot, humid climates in Africa and South America.

For centuries, chocolate has been used as an aphrodisiac and to treat all sorts of human conditions, including depression and PMS. Chocolate contains the same antioxidant phenol -- this is the "feel good" antioxidant also found in red wine. In fact, a dark chocolate bar contains greater amounts of phenol than wine!

Studies have shown that dark chocolate provides the greatest health benefits. That doesn't get us off the hook for an all chocolate diet! Make sure to balance the caloric content of chocolate with changes in the rest of your diet: 1 oz contains around 150 calories and can be up to 50% fat. Raw cacao is a great tasting alternative if you are interested in the benefits of chocolate without the sugar found in most chocolate candy.