Editor's note: This is the third in a series of articles about Kickstart Your Health Little Rock, a 21-day experiment with a plant-based, vegan diet.
I'm several days into a vegan diet and, walking to work this week, felt light of step and happy. Am I actually lighter? Hmm, no. Happy? Well I'm not testy.
Perhaps because I'm not dieting. I'm not watching my portions, or sugars and fats and carbohydrates. On Tuesday I ate a couple of pounds of barbecued eggplant and lentils (Whole Foods Cookbook recipe) for lunch. Like two pounds. Seriously.
The rules of my diet are no animal products. That means all varieties of meat -- red, white, white flake, crustacean -- as well as milk and eggs. No milk means no butter or yogurt, of course. No eggs means no cookies or egg noodles or mayonnaise and several other tricky prohibitions.
Without question, the abstinence that pains me most is cheese, and unlike meat (veggie burgers, seitan), there is no good cheese substitute. It's just gone.
Foods I've easily slipped into the lineup:
• Almond milk. Look, none of these nondairy milks are going to have the mouth-feel of the lactic original. Why? Because part of that mouth-feel is animal fat. It's like lard in
pie crust versus shortening. Having said that, almond milk is kind of tasty and, over cereal at least, perfectly suitable.
• Veggie burgers. No, the texture's not the same, and unless you fry it in oil, it's not going to be juicy. The flavor, though, is delicious. Better than most meat burgers? To my palate, yes.
• Avocado. Avocados are one of the produce section's few high-fat options. That's good, I say. I'm putting it on sandwiches and salads and crackers. I'm treating it like butter.
A co-worker who's also doing the vegan thing suggests So Delicious Minis: Chocolate-Vanilla Coconut Milk Non-Dairy Bar -- at Kroger in the crunchy-folk freezer case, a suitably decadent-feeling reward for a day of good behavior. And another co-worker recommends Liquid Smoke for "smoky bacon flavor" in recipes.
TREATS
My fiancee will mewl at night after dinner, "I need something sweet." Usually a sweet biscuit or two satisfies. If we have a pint of ice cream, she'll scrape a layer of rime off with a teaspoon. Once I saw her reach for a banana.
One day, at the supermarket, I bought a feedbag of Reese's Pieces. I really thought I was giving her a fix. I thought she'd clap.
"No!" she protested when the pantry door swung open upon my inelegant solution.
There's something men-are-from-Mars about this moment. I thought the candy was a gift, a toothsome surprise -- like a Valentine's Day box of chocolates. She thought it was a trap. Or worse, evidence of a complete misapprehension of her desires.
In 21-Day Weight Loss Kickstart by Dr. Neal Barnard (the unofficial text for Dr. Christie Beck's Food for Life cooking class on Fridays at Baptist Health Medical Center), he addresses the itchy sweet tooth.
"If the usual fruits like blueberries, apples, bananas, and oranges are not doing it for you, try varieties that are a bit more special, like mangoes, papayas, Bing cherries or lychees."
Bing cherries or lychees? Are those new flavor fillings for Hostess snack pies? C'mon, dude.
"Or cut up chunks of cantaloupe and melon, drizzle them with lemon, and add a leaf or two of mint. Or dip strawberries in melted dark chocolate or cocoa powder. ... Try frozen grapes. ... Crispbread, water biscuits, or other low-fat crackers with jam."
Barnard's response here is a little like hearing a Japanese guard explaining empathy and compassion to a Filipino survivor of Bataan.
I am blessed not to suffer sugar cravings. I'm more likely to grab a can of Easy Cheese and Triscuits. But already my fiancee has gotten a cookbook with lots of vegan dessert recipes (Chloe's Vegan Italian Kitchen) by Chloe Coscarelli; and former patisserie proprietor turned state Capitol reporter Claudia Lauer baked us up some vegan chocolate chip cookies (banana is the egg substitute) that are, without question, as delicious as traditional ones.
DREAMING OF
When I first quit smoking, I'd dream about cheating. I'd defend against cravings and impulses all day, then light up in my sleep and dream that shame.
I haven't yet dreamed I'm eating bacon, perhaps because I'm not scratching and clawing at this thing. Wednesday, though, the co-worker who likes those So Delicious Minis told me she'd spent Monday and Tuesday feeling really tired and had even dreamed of being tired. (She jumped the gun on veganism and started two weeks before Feb. 1.)
"In my dream, I was supposed to be propping somebody else up -- that person needed to sit up straight for some reason -- but I was just too sleepy," she said.
She went directly to the grocery store and bought a bottle of B-12 vitamins and took one. (B-12 is a nutrient that comes from micro-organisms plentiful in animal products and scarce elsewhere in our diets, so vegans often take supplements. B-12 deficiencies are linked to anemia and, in severe conditions, nervous system damage.) She felt better the very next day.
But then she learned that she had been exposed to the flu over the weekend. Fighting off the flu also could explain feeling tired.
One of the criticisms of veganism is that the absence of animal protein must leave us anemic and listless. I don't doubt that vegans brush up against certain dietary deficiencies more than Western dieters, but they also avoid dietary surfeits such as cholesterol and fat, bioaccumulated metals, antibiotics and bacteria.
We don't often hear people say, "Golly, I feel backed up, sleepy and oily, it must be the meat and dairy," because we're all ceaselessly eating meat and dairy.
(What am I becoming?)
ActiveStyle on 02/09/2015