Bad News on Dairy.... ahhh

I'm sorry I've been away for a while.  Hard times on the home front and I knew this post would take a lot of thought.

Dairy consumption is entrenched in our culture.  We've been taught calcium is vital and the prime source comes from... well cows... in the form of cheese, yogurt, milk, cottage cheese, etc.  I was  a big fan of dairy.  Growing up, my mom always had plenty of cheese in the fridge, Jarlsberg, Swiss and Cheddar.  We would eat it plain by the chunk, hacked off by a butcher knife.  One of my favorite treats was homemade pimento cheese, served up on wheat bread.  We drank skim milk with every meal and later as a dieting dancer, I lived on low-fat yogurt.

Those were the good old days before I heard that dairy creates an environment in your body that turns on cancer growth, especially breast and prostrate.  It also creates inflammation and a host of other problems.  I enjoyed my cheese and ignored it for a while, but the news soon found me again.  You can google dairy + cancer and see a lot of controversial discussions, or take a look at the Dr. McDougal and the China Study, profiled in Forks Over Knives, a must-see film.  It's hard to get accurate information and it's plausible the dairy industry is so immense that I'm sure they thwart any efforts to prove that dairy is a danger.  Who can blame them?

As for calcium, according to Forks Over Knives, consumption of dairy protein casein (which is in higher concentrations in low and nonfat dairy sources) creates an acidic state in our body.  Calcium is drawn from the bones to neutralize it.  In English this means we are consuming calcium only to then leech it from our bones. Oh hooray! There are greater rates of hip fractures and osteoporosis in countries where dairy consumption is highest, though other factors my be involved.  I was diagnosed with Osteopenia in my 30s, so certainly all that dairy did not help me.  I have a family history of breast cancer so a year ago, I drastically reduced dairy consumption.

When all is said and done, we need to consider that no other animal ingests milk into adulthood, nor consumes the milk of another animal.  Cow's milk is full of casomorphins intended to grow a 70 lb. calf into a 1000 lb. cow in a year.  These casomorphins are addictive, which is why cheese, especially, is so hard to give up.  The hormones in cow's milk are equivalent to the hormones an adolescent female produces while growing breasts, and yet we are taking them in our entire lives, stimulating our cells unnaturally, and potentially, contributing to cancer growth.  Obviously if you must eat dairy, organic is better but cows are still artificially inseminated to insure gestation to produce vast amounts of milk. Take a look at the following sites to see what's done to cows to get them to produce milk, and you'll find it's not a pretty story.  Ironically their calves are not fed cow's milk since it's reserved for us!  

http://www.veganpeace.com/animal_cruelty/dairy.htm
http://www.drmcdougall.com/med_hot_calcium.html

What to do? Gradually decrease dairly consumption, and leave it for a special treat - like pizza night or a light sprinkle on your bean burrito.  Coming from a cheese maniac, I know it's tough!  If you have kids, leave the cheese sticks and gogurts on the shelves - yes this is very radical.  My kids too, lived on dairy.  Give them nuts and fruit, carrots and bean/nut dips instead. Larabars are the best whole food "granola bar" options or make your own - see Lisa!  Find an alternative milk you like - almond, coconut, rice, soy.   Coconut and soy creamers abound for your coffee.  Use ground cashews/almonds in soups, dips and desserts to provide a creamy sensation.  Reserve ice cream for special occasions. 

Alternative cheeses are on the shelves - I haven't found something I love yet.

I've discovered how to make a vegan cheese sauce, it came with an enchilada recipe in an old vegetarian cookbook.  It makes alot and lasts at least a week in the fridge.  It comes out like melted velveeta, use in casseroles, lasagna, mexican dishes, on potatoes, in quesadillas for the kids, on pasta, etc., or as a dip for tortilla chips.

Vegan cheese sauce - Melty Nutritional Yeast Cheese
1/2 c. nutritional yeast flakes (bulk area in Wegmans)
1/2 c. flour
1/2 tsp garlic powder or garlic salt if you like a little extra salt
2 c. water
1/4 cup margerine (I use like earth balance)
1 tsp. wet mustard

Mix dry ingred. in a saucepan.  Whisk in water, Cook on med. heat, whisking until it thickens and bubbles.  Cook 30 seconds, then remove from heat, whip in margarine and mustard.  It will thicken as it cools but will thin when heated, or add water to thin.  I also put a little paprika in mine, esp. if using over pasta or experiment with some other seasonings.   I am sure you can make this into a nacho cheese dip with a little effort, like combine with a can of rotelli tomatoes.

Variation:  for richer, stretchier sauce for pizza, substitute for the flour:  1/4 cup cornstarch and 2 Tbsp. flour, instead of margarine, whip in 1/2 c. of oil after it cooks and add as much as 1 c. of water at the end, or as needed to make a thick, smooth sauce that pours easily.  Pour it on pizza and for the last few minutes of baking, put pizza under broiler for a few minutes to form a stretchy, golden brown speckled skin.

I have not tried pizza version, you certainly won't save any fat or calories with all that oil!!

Unexpected Benefits: weight maintenance or loss.  It is very hard to be overweight when you give up dairy.  Think of the 1000 lb. cow!
         
Good luck - I know you will need it if you like your cheese!

Cooking with Holly

This weekend I visited my friend Holly.  Holly has colon cancer and gives me permission to share her story in hope that it will help others.  She is so brave and positive about her journey, and I am in awe of her!  In comparison, I was a big crybaby with my pesky little cancer.  She knows she will beat this thing and go on to help others brave cancer with good eating and positive thoughts.  Holly formerly ate a lot of fast food.  When she lived in NoVa near me, she ate fast food several times a week, and sometimes even more than once a day.  Anyway, she's had a good sized tumor removed and a chemo port put in, and will begin 6 months of chemo. in a few weeks.  Definitely a daunting experience all around and she is a young mother with small children so please pray for a good journey and outcome for her.  She is already excited about talking to people at the chemo center and hearing their story - what a gal!  If I ever get chemo., I hope someone like Holly is there!

I would be lying if I didn't admit to the tiniest bit of joy for a really good pressing reason (her cancer) to share my plant based diet with her.  I know that's really terrible but Holly will be okay with my saying this because we enjoy a lot of laughts between us and she is completely transparent about her journey.  I've been criticizing her food choices for years, but let's just say there's a bit more buy in now. So this weekend we cooked and cooked and had a great time. We made my chocolate kid friendly smoothie with spinach and then we made a fruit veggie smoothie with blueberries and more spinach.  I had her do most of the hands on work so she would be comfortable doing it herself.  Her daughter liked it so much, she ate her dad's serving of the chocolate version and went on to drink some of the other as well.  Holly has a Ninja blender which does okay but still leaves particles of food unprocessed.  It didn't seem to bother her, so it doesn't matter.  It turns out her husband is a smoothie master, even owns a book, The Everything Green Smoothies Book http://www.amazon.com/The-Everything-Green-Smoothies-Book/dp/1440525641.  She turned her nose up before but now is under strict orders to share one of his smoothies each morning.  She is fortunate to have him help her start her day with great nutrients!

We also baked a spaghetti squash (split in half faced down on a baking sheet with 1/2 inch of water 350 for 1 hour - a first for both of us, and topped it with a marina sauce, made from my Thrive cookbook.  We had it for lunch and it was delicious.  Then we assembled my favorite White Bean with Kale soup and adapted it for the crockpot.  For those meat needer/eaters among you, add some sausage, chicken or ground turkey as Holly will do for hubby.  Lastly we steamed up some cabbage, lightly seasoned with salt and pepper.  We'd had some at a Japanese restaurant the night before and all the ingredients needed to replicate the Asian taste were in my cabinet back home, so I took home half the head of cabbage - uncooked of course.  More on how that works out later.  

Cooking together is a lot of fun and a great way to combine the effort and reward as this type of cooking is labor intensive and time consuming.  Holly has a great vegan cookbook called Clean Food by Terry Walters http://terrywalters.net/books/ which I highly recommend and Kris Carr's new book, Crazy Sexy Kitchen arrived in both our homes last Saturday.  It is a beautiful book with color pictures, interesting recipes and great vegan eating tips. http://www.amazon.com/Crazy-Sexy-Kitchen-Plant-Empowered-Mouthwatering/dp/1401941044

Vegan vs. plant based, eggs?

Since I have been using the terms vegan and plant-based interchangeably (so as not to bore you to tears with the same word) I thought it might be prudent to define what they mean.  I found that vegan can be more of a lifestyle (and not so much a diet) that promotes the avoidance of killing animals for any use, and that you can be a "vegan" and not consume veggies at all!  The term plant-based refers to what you actually eat, meaning food that comes from a plant; avoiding ingestion of anything that has a face! So at this point, it might be more accurate to say that I aspire to, and recommend others to follow a more plant based diet.

A friend recently asked me if I eat eggs.  I do occasionally eat eggs, but they are certainly not on the official  plant-based diet.  It is a terrific treat to mix things up a bit and I recently enjoyed a fried egg (in coconut oil,  stainless steel pan, please no non-stick coating) served over polenta and beans.  My friend Maria eats a hard boiled egg on Ezekiel bread toast with mashed avocado for breakfast - yum!

Eggs have been under a lot of scrutiny over the last few decades and it's difficult to get accurate information about their health status; many of the studies conducted are backed by the manufacturers themselves.  The current popular view is they do not increase cholesterol and provide a source of choline, an essential nutrient not found on the vegetarian or plant-based diet.  If you do eat eggs, PLEASE buy organic.  This ensures that the chickens are not exposed to antibiotics and are fed an organic, non-gmo grain.

My husband gets our eggs from a co-worker who raises chickens in his backyard.  They are sold at local farmer's markets and the grocery - two are here in Ashburn on the weekends.  One is by IHOP on Saturday morning, and by Brambleton Sport & Health on Sunday mornings.  You can also buy them at Costco for a competitive price.

You might find this amusing: http://www.thevegg.com/ - let me know if you try them! 

Name change reversed

OOPS!  My son got a hold of the blog today and changed the name unbeknownst to me.  Finally, we were able to get it back this evening, but please, in honor of my friend, read the post from earlier and pray for her mom (who is now alone) and extended family.  THANKS!

Losing a friend and one small step at a time

Today I devote my blog to Beth, a friend and talented actress, director and costumer who lost her 5 year battle with breast cancer this morning.  It's tragedies like these that motivate me to encourage people to improve their health.  Frankly I did not speak loud enough about this way of eating when I had the chance.  I need to be clear, it's unfair to say that anyone caused their own cancer because they didn't eat enough broccoli, superfoods, etc.  Certainly we all know that person who makes it to 90, smoked like a chimney and had bacon for breakfast everyday. We may even know a health fanatic who succumbed to disease before their time, but do not be discouraged!  I look at making good food choices as stacking the odds in our favor and feeling our best while we're here.  Sadly, Beth has no more options, but you do. It's hard to eat nutritiously in America, heck it's hard to breathe well.  I admit that it's time consuming, and sometimes confusing, so I encourage you to take it one step at a time.  It can, however, be very CREATIVE!

If you're not eating breakfast, then start eating something; a smoothie is a great place to start.  A friend told me she is eating whole oats for breakfast and I encouraged her to add some walnuts for protein, so she can make it to lunch.  You can throw in some dried fruit, flax seed (her idea) and spices (pumpkin pie spice)!  If you're eating two pop tarts for breakfast (and please don't make me tell you why you shouldn't) then eat only one, and have a bowl of fruit with walnuts as well.  If you're chowing on candy all day, then try to cut back gradually and replace it with something else, like nuts, carrots or pita with hummus.

The point I want to make is... start making small changes, think about adding, not subtracting and the real foods will soon take up so much room in your belly there won't be room for the others!  Don't beat yourself up for where you are now and share your self-pity with a bag of chips (my favorite snack).  You don't have to be vegan by COB, or ever for that matter, just start substituting real foods for processed foods a day, a week or a month at a time.  You determine the pace!  

Here's the SMOOTHIE I made today
1 whole peach  sliced w/skin but no pit - need a Vitamix for that and if you do, go for it!
1/2 frozen banana, or fresh works too
handful fresh spinach (or use other greens)
1/2 cup almond milk
3 baby carrots
1 Tbsp each of ground flax seed and hulled hemp seeds
crushed ice if desired

Whirl all ingred. in the blender till smooth, sweeten if you need to w/honey or stevia or whatever you have (remember one step at a time) and don't fret if you don't have spinach or flax or want to substitute other fruits.  Any smoothie you make at home is likely to be healthier than store bought because it doesn't contain additives such as corn syrup, artificial flavors and colors.  Smoothie recipes are in abundance in books and on the web, but I'll share some of my super kid-tested chocolate ones soon!

Yes, my daughter drank this smoothie.  Apparently I need a Vitamix because my blender keeps leaking, seriously it's Niagra Falls as soon as I start the motor!  It's usually ground up better than this, but I had to stop the blender before it was all on the floor.   I'm taking collections for the Vitamix, btw.

Cheating... and the morning after

Okay, Saturday night I was at a wonderful party and cheated a bit.  I had a beef burger (ahhh) and definitely  a few things with dairy.  Later that night my hip pain returned and I've been saddled with a headache ever since.  No way to tell for sure if it's relative to food, but it does remind me that before vegan eating I felt this way a lot, full of joint aches and headaches.  I berated myself for not planning better.

It's not the host's responsibility to feed me, and certainly there were options, but I was low on commitment.  Next time I need to plan ahead and not be so convinced that I'm full when I leave home.  I will offer to bring something like a veggie platter with hummus or bean dip.  I could also bring a veggie/bean burger or two to throw on the grill.  Who knows, someone else might be interested in an alternative, and the food I bring could start a discussion!

The good news is I spent my Sunday making some tasty treats, mushroom risotto, granola for my son who's been begging for store bought and ratatouille.  He's eating the granola but not so enthusiastic, apparently improvements are needed.       

White Bean Soup with Kale

This is an excellent easy soup I've made many times and is company quality.  I add the kale after I've pureed the beans so the soup doesn't look green.  If you need to add meat for someone, sausage or chicken would work well.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/bean-soup-with-kale/detail.aspx

Welcome To Wellness!

As many of you know, I've been thinking of writing a blog for a while but recent circumstances have compelled me to take action.  I can't keep quiet while people are struggling with disordered eating, obesity, inflammation or disease.  It all started In September, 2011.  I watched the movie "Forks Over Knives" on Netflix and felt I'd found my calling.  I began eating a plant based diet and aspired to become a wellness coach.  Over the last year I've learned about wellness in various forms and spoken to many people who are embracing this type of eating with positive results.  

On November 1st, 2002 I was told I had cancer, and on December 13th, 2002, my thyroid was surgically removed.  I don't want anyone else to hear the words "you have cancer" or lose a vital organ or any other part for that matter, while you are in your prime.  Fortunately, my cancer was non-aggressive and small in size, in an otherwise healthy organ.  If I knew what I know now, I might have adopted a wait and see approach and embraced a vegan diet.  Why didn't anyone tell me?  The evidence is clear that the traditional western diet, dependent on commercially produced animal protein and processed food, contributes to poor health.  Practicing a plant based diet can lower your toxic load, maximize your immune system and decrease your risk of developing premature cancer and disease. 

On this forum, I will share the health and environmental benefits of a plant based diet, and the various ways myself and fellow vegans incorporate plants and healthy habits into our lives.  Most importantly, I hope to inspire, educate and encourage those who are curious and beginning this journey.  Selfishly, I hope to hold myself more accountable - after all, I can't be over at Johnny Rockets eating a burger if I have a vegan blog, can I?  

It's not as hard as it seems if you take one step at a time!  

Welcome to my blog!