Cooking Up a Storm on the Weekend

I am a woman on a mission this weekend: a mission to lessen the stress and tension in my life. I guess you could say that I have come to the realization that unless there are salads already chopped, soups already simmered and food already cooked waiting for me when we get home at the end of the day, I'm basically screwed.

Notice that I didn't say "we" or "we're" already screwed.

It's just me that gets screwed.

Reader Advice Day. Plant-strong Comfort Food. Your Favorite Casseroles.

Greetings Everyone! I hope you are all doing well.


I received the following e-mail/request from an HGK reader:


Hi Wendy,

I've been reading your blog for a while and am hoping you can help. I'll try to be brief. :)

On April 2nd I had a baby boy. He's sweet and just beautiful. :) But he's got a few issues. He was born with birth defects. His overall health is very good . . . believe me when I tell you that it could've been a lot worse - his case is relatively mild and we're working with doctors to see what therapies we can get him into to help.

Add to that that my mom has been staying with us and so we have been eating what she's been cooking - lots of pasta, cheese, some meat, etc. And now we're really feeling the effects. This morning my husband asked me if we could just please have a salad today, if we could please get on the plant-strong path before we each gain 20 pounds and feel even worse physically than we do now.

What I'm trying to say is that I'm a) really stressed, b) my husband and I both want to go plant strong ASAP so we can at least regain our health to make it through this stressful, sleep deprived, doctor appointment-filled time, and c) I would be so honored if you could ask your peeps to generate a big list of tried and true plant-based casseroles like you did with the smoothies and salad dressings so that I can rely on them and not have to cook every night of my life. Because if I don't figure something out, I have the feeling it's going to be a really long time before we can be on that plant-strong path consistently. There will be nowhere near enough time in my day for the next few years.

My initial reaction is that casseroles tend to be very calorie dense, as compared to soups, stews, and salads. And although they are certainly great tasting, I'm not sure if they are the kind of thing to get you and your husband feeling your best every day. 

Juicing: The Dos, the Dont's and Why I'm Over It, For Now.

My juice feast/fast officially ended last Thursday. Before I put this chapter of my life to a close, I am going to get some of my thoughts down on "paper." I know that a lot of you have a lot of questions, so if I don't cover something that you are curious about, just ask me in the comments section.

First, I want to say that this is how my experience went down:

• two days of partial juice fasting (one juice meal on day one, two juice meals on day two)
• followed by three days of complete juice fasting (juice, hot water with lemon, tea and coconut water all day)
• followed by two days of partial juice fasting (dinner was "real" food)

I learned a ton about myself during the process. I learned that I DON'T need coffee to get through the day, that I am tired at certain times of day whether or not I have coffee in my life.

DON'T stop living your life because you are on a juice fast. I learned that I can sit in a restaurant while other people are eating and that I can be perfectly happy sipping on hot water with lemon or club soda with lime. A few times I brought along my jar of juice and sipped it happily while friends and family ate their meals. It was fine.

DON'T try to cook for other people while juice fasting. Give yourself a break. I learned that I cannot, at least for very long, cook for other people and do a juice fast. Maybe the Plant-strong food that I have come to know and love is just too good, but I was not able to have my favorites around and not partake for very long. This soup was calling my name the entire time and I gave in (if you haven't made it yet, don't wait another day! It's that good.)

Unless you have a lot of weight to lose, DON'T expect much. I learned that if you are already Plant-strong, juice fasting is not some way to lose a few pounds quickly (like it appears to be for people who eat the SAD and have a lot of weight to lose). Weight loss would  probably be the result of a very strict juice fast, but it would be an extremely slow process and I'm not sure their aren't easier and better ways to accomplish the same thing.

DO try a juice fast if you need to reboot your taste buds. Of all of the effects of the fast, I have to say that this was the most dramatic. Your sense of taste completely resets. Salty food tastes ridiculous. Sweet things are too sweet. And no-oil vegan food tastes amazing! Juicing would work wonders for people who want to be Plant-strong but can't seem to like the taste of fruits and vegetables.

If you are still thinking that a juice fast is in your future, DO prepare a lot of juice in the morning and take it to work with you if you work. Store it in a glass jar and refrigerate it. This eliminates any need to juice during the day. I made 5-6 cups of juice in the morning and it covered me for breakfast, lunch and a mid afternoon snack. I also drank about a cup or two of coconut water during the day. Then you can break out the juicer for dinner and all it took was two sessions with the juicer for a whole day's worth of juice.

DO expect to feel really great while you are juicing. It was almost a spiritual experience. I really loved that part of it. I felt very clear in my head and able to focus on other people in a new way.

But even with the great feelings that I had while I was juicing, it was just too difficult to continue give my obligations and commitments. I pretty much pooped out because I had some social events this past weekend and I didn't want to stand out like a sore thumb. The benefits of the juice feast weren't outweighing the feeling of social isolation, so I stopped.

I'd probably do it again. But not any time soon . . .

If you would like to leave a comment, please click on the title of this post (the orange text above).

Juice Cleanse, Day 6-7: Effects and Experience of Juicing

Good morning everyone!

First off, I want to say that I am certainly no expert on juice fasting/feasting/cleansing. But so many people have asked me to share how it's going on my juice fast, so that is what I will do!

Full disclosure: For the past two nights I have eaten solid food for dinner. My fast so far looks like this: 2 days of partial juice fasting, 3 days of total juice fasting, 2 days of partial juice fasting.

Where it goes from here, I really have no idea.

But here is what I have experienced so far:

1. I am no longer drinking any coffee, and it's fine. Shocking, right? Not only that, but my only withdrawal symptoms were a very slight headache for the first two days. I attribute that to the juice feast flooding my body with water and vitamins.
2. I didn't experience any of the detoxification symptoms in the first few days of the fast that you read about or watch in the movie Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. I'm pretty sure that's because my diet leading up to the cleanse was Plant-strong. I was healthy, so I wasn't in need of a detox from a dietary standpoint.
3. I lost one pound, that's it. Would I have liked to lose more? Sure. This experience is helping me with body acceptance. For people of average weight, juicing is NOT some kind of quickie weight loss fix as it is with folks who have a lot of weight to lose.

Breaking News! New Documentary from HBO, The Weight of the Nation

Thanks to Debby over at Happy Healthy Long Life for posting this to Facebook. It looks like a must watch movie. You can go to HBO and sign up to receive a screening kit, while supplies last!
This is great. I'm so loving that there's a movie telling American's what most of us already know: that we're fat and it 's a really big problem. But maybe people don't realize how big of a problem it is and what the collective implications are?

Juice Cleanse, Day 1-5, Why the Heck am I Doing This?

Thank you to everyone who contributed to my last post asking for advice on juice cleansing. Your input gave me the push to just get started, so I'm thrilled to report that as I write this, I am on day 5 of my cleanse. It started with two days of partial juicing and partial regular Nutritarian eating, then transitioned to juicing with additional drinking of hot water with lemon (how did I not know before now how good this is?), tea, veggie broths, filtered water and coconut water.

source

Needless to say, I'm peeing a lot.

For my first post about this experience, I really want to get behind the reasons that I am doing this, especially since I had been wanting to embark on a cleanse for about a year, but hadn't done it until now.

It all started, of course, upon viewing the movie Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead exactly one year ago. At the time, I didn't have a health condition that required anything as seemingly drastic as juice cleansing, or "rebooting" as Joe Cross calls it. Regardless, the concept of rebooting my system seemed interesting to me.

So I saved up and purchased a pretty fancy juicer. A Champion, to be exact, professional model. I thought for sure I would do a juice cleanse pretty soon.

But it never happened. I made a few interesting juices, but the beast just sat on my counter for eight months, collecting dust. I just didn't have the motivation. The perceived inconvenience, expense, necessary will power and commitment that were required to do a juice cleanse outweighed any perceived benefit that I believed I would get from a fast. Forget that I would have to go off of my beloved coffee, that was just too much for me to bear!

But lately I hadn't been feeling my best. My energy level was not been as high as I had experienced when first becoming a Nutritarian. I mostly chalked this up to life and it's pressures, trying to be a good mother, wife, business owner, blogger, etc., etc. I started turning to caffeine to get through just about every day. I have been drinking coffee in the morning every day for about 23 years. But never in the afternoon until recently.

Massaged Kale Salad with Lemon Tahini Dressing and the Reader Advice Day: Juice Cleansing

We hosted an impromptu dinner at our house this past Saturday night for relatives that were in town for the holidays. Luckily, I had a lot of produce in the fridge (natch!) and a few hours on my hands before everyone was due to come over. I knew after all of the holiday eating that many of us would welcome a dinner with lots of raw salads, so I made a huge tossed salad and also a raw kale salad.

Mina de Masa

You guys rock! Thank you for the input on my last post. Thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to engage in these conversations. Thank you for not shredding me to bits when I called in to question the beloved Skinny Bitch book. 

But it's been too long since I've talked about a new recipe. This Mina de Masa dish  is something that I prepared last weekend when we had out-of-town holiday guests (don't worry, I had never heard of it either). Ever since Debby over at Happy Healthy Long Life started talking about what she was making for Passover this year, I have been itching to make what I have always called a "Matzoh Lasagna."

Religion and holidays aside, I wanted to share it with you because it's so gosh darn tasty. Because of the combination of artichokes and spinach, it's like spinach artichoke dip in casserole form. I don't care who, what or where you worship, you are gonna love this!

But what specifically is Mina de Masa?

More from The Skinny Bitch: Book Review, Skinny Bitch Book of Vegan Swaps

First off, I want to say that I have never been a fan of the book Skinny Bitch. Not because I don't love a good curse word thrown into any sentence at the appropriate time, but because I read it and it had zero effect on me.

Maybe it was the false promise of "skinny just because you are vegan" that didn't seem to make sense to me, because I knew Vegans who weren't. And I've never been interested in thin for thin's sake. Healthy is and always has been my ideal.

Maybe it was the harsh dissing of coffee, which I admit, I am lovingly addicted to.

So why I agreed to do a review of Kim Barnouin's newest release, Skinny Bitch, Book of Vegan Swaps, is beyond me. I guess the lure of free product was just too much to resist. Or the fascination with the promulgation of this myth that Vegan equals thin or Vegan by definition equals healthy, which is patently false. It's a complete lie perpetuated by large food companies that are looking to replace the dollars they are losing because 1% of us are waking up to the truth about processed food. One percent of a billion dollars is a lot of money to lose.

But here I am. I have agreed and I will deliver.

If you are a reader of HGK, you do not need this book on your shelf. You are way beyond thinking that because a cookie is made with 100% organic sugar and organic flour that it is good for you, so why would you need a list of all of the tasty 100% organic packaged Vegan cookies out there?

Or my personal favorite (read pet peeve): how about swapping butter with Earth Balance Natural Buttery Spread? That's sure gonna get you skinny, right?

Now, in Ms. Barnouin's defense, she does say, "Work a fruit or vegetable into every meal."

A fruit or vegetable? one? How about 5?

"KEEP IT WHOLESOME. Your diet should focus on whole grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, fruit and veggies. If that's tough to remember, your food should be in it's most natural state--the less processed the better." p. 52

Then why, Ms. Barnouin, write an entire book, two hundred and seventy two pages, listing processed food that lines the shelves of the inside of a grocery store. Vegan or not, who gives a shit?

To be totally fair, I know who might need this book.

I was all ready to publish this scathing book review even against my own best interests (saying anything critical of anyone or anything these days might just get you into a whole heap of trouble), when I had a conversation with a woman who changed my mind.

Marc Bittman on The Human Cost of Animal Suffering

I was a strict vegetarian for 11 years, from the age of 20 until 31, because the thought of animal suffering on factory farms repulsed me and I wanted nothing to do with the perpetuation of it.

You have never read anything from me here on HGK about animal welfare, not because I don't care deeply about the issue, but because the reason I came back to not-eating-animals was not for the animals that I was saving. It was for my own health.

Mommy, Why Does Everyone Say that Milk Makes You Stronger?

Thank you to everyone who left a comment on my last Reader Advice Day post. I'm thrilled to report that "Emily" is doing much better now and is very grateful for everyone's help.

"Thank you so much for all the advice on your blog and in this email! I do have a lot of weight to lose probably close to 70 lbs and I have been really enjoying all the yummy plant strong food I have been eating. I got interested in this style of eating from my good friend Beth [name changed]. I saw her change drastically and while I have spent years trying Weight Watchers with minimal effect her change was immediate. This week is my spring break (I am a teacher) so I have been taking this time to try lots of new dishes and I am feeling great! I have so much energy and really love the food I am eating. I feel full and I do not feel obsessed with tracking points and then feeling discouraged when I fail! I really appreciate all the comments and help so thank you! "

You are so welcome "Emily!" We're nothing without each other. If it wasn't for a supportive internet community, I don't know where I would be today with my health.

This morning my seven year old daughter Maya asked, "Mommy, why does everyone say that milk makes you stronger?"

It seems that her class is doing a unit on nutrition, specifically the USDA Food Pyramid, and she has been giving her teacher a real run for her money. She's been speaking up in class, sharing alternate views on matters of nutrition. Her teacher doesn't know what the heck Maya's talking about.

And I'm not at all surprised. Coming off of a ten day road trip, I have really had my eyes reopened to the pathetic state of food in America. I was left kind of depressed and a little pissed off. It feels like the world has forgotten what a vegetable is, as evidenced  by the little that is available that is not from an animal or some sort of processed carbohydrate. It's like the only safe place is in our homes.

Or not.

Reader Advice Day: Help, I'm Going through Detox

Good morning Troupe!

I received another urgent e-mail from someone new to a plant-based diet, and she needs our help!

Hello Healthy Girl,

My name is Emily (name changed to protect privacy) and I started the plant strong diet 7 days ago. I have been struggling with a few things. Maybe you can help me with some side effects I am experiencing on plant strong.

1. I am drinking only water but I am having some awesome headaches.

2. I feel really hungry a lot of the time.

3. Sometimes I don't have time to take the time to make something so instead I will just not eat even though I'm hungry.

4. I lost 12 pounds in one week....that seems like an unhealthy amount.

5. Once I almost passed out.

Am I doing something wrong? I feel like I am...maybe I need to plan better b/c I am enjoying what I eat and for the most part I even feel better but when I get hungry I feel weak and out of control.

Thanks!

Here is what I wrote to Emily:


Okay Emily, I am not a doctor or a nutritionist, but I will tell you what I think about your experiences. If you really feel like there is something wrong with you, go to a doctor now, but don't let them tell you to go back on your old Standard American Diet. That would be criminal.

Did You Catch Dr. Robert Lustig on 60 Minutes Last Night? If You Have a Sugar "Problem," You Don't Want to Miss This

Driving home from New Jersey I caught wind that Dr. Robert Lustig, one of my personal heroes, was going to be on 60 Minutes last night. He's the guy from San Francisco with the really popular YouTube video "Sugar: The Bitter Truth." I wasn't able to tell you about it in time, but lucky for all of us, this amazing segment is already on YouTube.