Veganize it!

I don't know about you, but I love a little milk and sugar in my coffee. For years, I would make my daily stop at Dunkin' Donuts for a medium coffee with skim milk and sugar. As I started this whole vegan quest, I cut out drinking glasses of milk but had a little dilemma when it came to what to put in my coffee. I tried soy milk at first. It wasn't my favorite and I'll put a little in with sugar if I have nothing else (and I do like the Starbucks espresso drinks with soy), but I needed something else. Enter the "So Delicious" brand. They make dairy free products using coconut milk instead. You can't taste any coconut flavor and it is thick enough to give you the feeling of dairy milk without the moo factor. I personally love their french vanilla creamer (I don't even add sugar) but they also have plain and hazelnut. They make a ton of other products too including, drum roll, ice cream. So if you're looking for a way to veganize your coffee, try coconut milk or some other non-dairy milk to see what you think!

Junk Food is Not Cheaper

Yet another great opinion piece by Mark Bittman in the Sunday Times today...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/opinion/sunday/is-junk-food-really-cheaper.html?ref=opinion

On the menu

There's nothing like pancakes to start your Saturday off right! If you're like me, you probably grew up eating pancakes made with batter that you add eggs and milk to. But yummy pancakes don't have to have those ingredients to taste delicious! Here is how I made vegan blueberry pancakes for my family this morning...

2 cups unbleached flour
3 tbsp. sugar
3 tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
2 cups vanilla soy milk
3 tbsp. canola oil
blueberries

Simply mix the dry ingredients, then add the soy milk and canola oil. Ladle the batter onto the grill and put in as many blueberries as you want. If blueberries aren't your thing, substitute blackberries, raspberries, banana slices or, my personal favorite, vegan chocolate chips. Yum!

We had some other tasty vegan dishes today when we stopped at Eden Alley Cafe in Kansas City for lunch. I enjoyed the sweet potato burrito which was fabulous as usual. Brian had their veggie burger which he said was okay but not one of the better ones he's had. (We are continually sampling veggie burgers everywhere we go!). I had a Pumpkin Spice Latte with soy milk and no whip cream as an AM snack and later we'll be having some leftover vegan lasagna (recipe from The 30-Day Vegan Challenge).

It can be easier than you think to eat a vegan diet. Believe it or not, your favorite veggie sandwich can still taste good without cheese. You can ask for avocado or guacamole instead of cheese on a burrito. Most coffee shops have soy milk to replace the dairy and soy milk can also replace cow's milk in many recipes, especially for baked goods. Next time you cook or eat out, think about what you are having and give it a try without the animal products.

The Glass is Half Full

Hello again! So sorry for the absence, but now this blog is back in business.

Last night, I went to see Gene Baur speak at a local college. If you are not familiar with him, Mr. Baur is the founder and president of Farm Sanctuary, an organization that rescues injured and abused animals from factory farms and allows them to live a peaceful, natural life in the rolling hills of Watkins Glen, New York. The group also does a ton of policy and legal work for the rights of animals.

Listening to Mr. Baur speak confirmed so much of what I've learned over the past two years about compassionate eating and the power we have every time we pick up our forks and dig in to eat. We have to power to choose foods that will not only make us healthier but will also save the lives of millions of living beings that currently live in squalid, heinous conditions. Gene Baur has devoted much of his adult life to documenting factory farm conditions and trying to change policy. He shared photos and experiences he has had, much of it painful to look at and overwhelming to comprehend. As my eyes were tearing up, I listened to this man speak with such equanimity and I thought, how does he find the strength to continue fighting for this cause he believes in when the odds for change are so overwhelming? 


So, I asked him just that question. "How do you not become completely overwhelmed when you can only make small changes while the problem is so huge and systemic?" And of course his answer made complete sense to me, as I often try to see the glass half full rather than empty. Mr. Baur, the optimist, said, "You have to focus on the positive changes." He went on to tell us that he knows he is making a difference when he looks into the eyes of an animal at Farm Sanctuary that he saved from a certain and unnecessary death and sees that creature living a peaceful and natural life. He said that when things seem so overwhelming, you have to focus on the victories and the progress that you have made. This is so valid, both in his struggle as well as all of our own.

I am so incredibly happy that I went to hear Gene Baur's lecture last night and I highly recommend that you check out the Farm Sanctuary website (listed in my blog list) to read more about the group's work. I want to take the lessons from last night and apply them to this blog. Sure I may include an uncomfortable fact or article from time to time on here, but I want to focus on all the positive things that come with being vegan. After last night, my commitment toward living a vegan lifestyle has been renewed and positively strengthened and I am going to sit down and start reading Baur's book right now!

Beautiful sight of the morning

While I was running this morning, I witnessed a beautiful sight. The sky above my head was clear and the stars were still out. The air felt a smidgen "cooler" although I use that term loosely. And off to the west, there were big, poofy clouds with heat lightning flickering continuously. It was like a light show while I was running. Fabulous! Have a healthy and happy weekend!

(Note: this picture above was not taken by me, but you get the idea...)

Self-regulation

I remember my husband coming home from a food industry conference a few years back and telling me that Pepsi is now healthy! His sarcasm was obvious, of course, because he knows this comment would now push every health-related button in me. But his point was that Pepsi was launching a product that would be "vitamin-infused" or something like that. Most companies that put out the processed crap in our grocery stores try such marketing techniques to reassure us (and when I say "us" I am especially referring to mothers who want to make sure we are feeding our children proper nutrition) that we are doing right by our kids. That is why Apple Jacks can be considered part of a balanced diet and french fries are listed as a vegetable in the school lunch guidelines.

Bottom line, people: think about what you are eating. If you choose to eat Cookie Crisp cereal because you want to junk out on something sweet go for it. Just don't fool yourself into thinking that it really has whole grains in it that are going to keep you healthy. Read Mark Bittman's latest in the Times this morning about food industry self-regulation...

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/02/when-big-food-makes-its-own-rules/?ref=opinion

Your Garden

A Facebook friend of mine put up a post today that really made me think. He started by saying "Every thought, intention, and action is a seed." He then went on to say that it is our job, our responsibility to plant each seed and tend to our garden. Sometimes we plant good seeds, sometimes half seeds, sometimes bad. Whatever we plant will grow.

This post just really inspired me today because I have been struggling with staying positive the past week and a half. I've been lacking motivation and I've been allowing certain things weigh on me. I'd happily blame it on the continuous triple digit heat or the fiasco in Washington but I know this is not true. I've planted a couple not-so-great seeds and tended them with not-so-great water too. And I've done this with full awareness.

But I've also learned some great lessons by doing this. When negativity creeps up on me, I feel like I've developed some great tools to help me work through it and I've put those tools to good use this week to pick myself up. For example, I've been starting each day with the positive passages in my Daily Word, which is a spiritual magazine. I try to read at least one or two entries from the "Crazy Sexy Life" blog each day. I've surrounded myself with positive friends and made plans with them to give myself something to look forward to. I've reminded myself that I don't have to eat 100% healthy, 100% of the time. These are the good seeds. These are the seeds I will tend to with all my energy.

There is no time to wallow. Pick out the weeds and work on your beautiful garden.