Forks Over Knives: Conversion Day 1

I watched "Forks Over Knives" this week. I had been vegetarian for 6 years in junior high and high school. My reason for never going fully vegan was 3 fold. I want to be able to travel and being completely vegan, especially whole food plant based, would make that difficult. I was worried about bone density issues. My maternal grandmother lost height due to this before she passed away. And. I have found Vegan politics obnoxious.

"Forks Over Knives" presented research based evidence that eating a plant based whole foods diet will not cause bone density issues. In fact their evidence seems to indicate that the opposite may be true.

Starting today I am going to attempt to adopt a mostly plant based whole foods diet. I will allow myself to eat dairy one day a week, meat 1 day a week. Why keep the meat & dairy? This is for ease of travel. I do not want to develop a lactose intolerance. Similarly I want my body to remain accustomed to processing meat.

My issues with Vegan politics are side stepped by referring to this diet change as a plant based diet. Additionally many vegan recipes are not whole foods oriented. I am adopting this way of eating for health reasons and eating minimally processed foods is a key component to this path.

Note: I am not taking my husband or my children with me on this journey. Obviously they have the option of eating what I am eating but I consider this change a choice. I will continue to keep animal protein and dairy on their menu. The shift they will see is away from an American way of eating ,in other words meat as the main course, to a more global way of eating, or meat as a side dish and veg/grain as the main course.

So. Here I am on day 1. Will it be a cake walk? No. Will I feel better in the long run? I hope so.

Random

My hope for this space to post something semi coherent at least once a week. Life will get in the way some but it would be nice to average one post every 7 days. Will they be focused? It would be nice. Will it ramble? Possibly. Will it be more engaging than a Facebook post or tweet? Gods I hope so.

Eating Habit Change

Dumping the mostly paleo aligned way of eating. Two huge negatives that were making me miserable. GI issues that were not short term and not worth it. I was stinking.Like 10 minutes out of the shower stinking.

I learned a lot  from the process. I will be keeping some aspects. My default way of eating will remain largely grain and processed sugar free. I have to add some high fiber grains back in. A bowl of oatmeal for breakfast and some prunes through out the day helped tremendously. However there did not appear to be enough health benefits to argue in favor of staying high protein and fat. I will be adding whole grains back into my way of eating. I see agave playing a large part in my cooking and baking in the future.

Updatey Thing

Have been noticing some downfalls from the high protein way of eating. I will be making some changes in the next few days. I'll write more details in a later post.

Detox Interupt

Too many things have come up in my life that are demanding my attention. I can not rest as much as the detox process requires. I may try again in July.

Default & Detox

The new change in food intake has been going ok. I have been allowing myself to ease slowly into it. I am looking at grain and refined sugar free eating as my default way of eating. The view of a way of eating as a diet tends to have two downfalls that eventually lead to quitting that path. First if a person is on a diet and breaks from that way of eating the common vernacular is to call it cheating. This implies bad behavior. If a person feels like they are bad and have failed it can lead to a feeling of defeat. Second a diet is usually meant to be used for a finite amount of time. A change in eating style can be adopted for the rest of a persons life.

In my case weight loss is not my goal. If it happens great. My goal is to improve my sense of well being and avoid developing type 2 diabetes. Lowering the amount of grain and refined sugar I consume will help off set the 50% increase in my chances of developing diabetes that is a result of having had gestational diabetes in my last pregnancy.

For the next 2 weeks I will be freely allowing grain back into my dietary intake. I will be attempting 2 weeks of a simple detox interjected with a 3 day juice fast. The links for both can be found at the end of this post. The outcome I hope to achieve at the end of two weeks is having my body at a place where I have lessened my refined sugar cravings. Grain is not something I usually find myself craving. I tend to eat it out of convenience. Processed sugar is a whole different story. I do find myself craving it almost to a point of distraction.

Guidelines for detox & juice feast on My New Roots blog:

Simple detox:
http://mynewroots.blogspot.com/2009/01/simple-detox-for-all.html

Juice feast:
http://mynewroots.blogspot.com/2010/05/great-juice-feast.html

Almond Banana Bread

This recipe is a riff off of Paleo Breakfast Bread on Elana's Pantry http://www.elanaspantry.com/paleo-breakfast-bread/#more-35722

1/2 c almond butter

2 eggs

1 tbsp agave nectar

1 tsp vanilla

pinch cinnamon

pinch nutmeg

2 mashed bananas

1/4 tsp baking powder

- Warm oven to 325d F.

- Grease 8 inch round cake pan with thin film of butter.

-  In large bowl whip almond butter with hand held mixer.

- Mix in eggs, agave & vanilla

- Beat with hand held mixer.

- Add baking soda and banana.

- Beat with handheld mixer.

- Transfer into prepared baking pan.

- Bake for 15 minutes.

- Remove from oven.

- Let cool in pan on baking rack for 30 minutes.

- Invert pan onto pie plate.

- Serve.