Posts by hgharmon

When I was younger and working out constantly, I was eating around 200 grams of protein a day on a vegan diet. It's not really hard, I ate a lot of soy products, wheat gluten, beans, whole grains, and protein powder. The varity of seitan I buy has 26 grams of protein a serving and some varieties of Tempeh have over 20 grams of protein. I'm not sure how many grams you were shooting for, but getting protein on a vegan diet, even high amounts, shouldn't be that difficult.

I've come to the conclusion that a vegan diet with the inclusion of fish or  omega 3 supplementation is probably the healthiest diet around. I don't pesonally eat fish for ethical reason and the mercury issue. Everything I've read, whether you eat vegan or occasionally eat meat, is that the bulk of your diet shoud be plant matter. People who forgoe meat  and those who eat less than 10% animal products seem to to have the same benefits, provided they eats lots of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.

That being said, I advocate the vegetarian lifestyle for ethical reasons, but from a health standpoint don't necessarily think just because one is vegan they're automatically a paragon of health. I've known far too many junk food vegans in my time to make that claim.

Breakfast - Oatmeal cooked with Soy Milk (so decadent) topped with blueberries, bananas, hemp seeds, and agave nectar.

Lunch - a mock tuna salad wrap, cheese stick, chips and fruit

Dinner - Sunday dinner with the family. My mother is making vegetarian friendly Siopao (pronounced Shoo-Pow), which is basically a huge stuffed dough ball. My mother hasn't made them in 15 years, since they're fairly labor intensive, so I'm definitely looking forward to it.

When I first went vegetarian I used to buy Amy's all the time. I used to buy a lot of the frozen dinners, especially the enchilada and the veggie loaf. Nowadays, I don't eat frozen entrees all that often, mostly for economic reasons. Though I love dairy free pizza. It's got shitake mushrooms, artichokes, carmalized onions, roasted peppers....yum.

You should Google "Deva Nutrition". All their supplements are 100% vegan. Also you can shop online through Vegan Essentials or Pangea. Any decent natural/health food stores should have a variety of vegan supplements.

Sometimes I'll bit the bullet, if I'm lite on cash and take supplements with gelatin. When my budget's tight, sometimes economics trump animal rights. That's the one downside to vegan supplements they can often cost 2 to 3 times more than their conventional counterparts.

Every other week I'll make Tempeh Cacciatore and serve it over rice or pasta. I don't have the recipe in front of me, but it's really simple. It's basically crushed tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, tomato paste, tempeh, garlic, salt, and pepper. I usually cook the tempeh seperately, then add it, so it gets a little crisp around the edges.

I also like buying Tempeh Fakin Bacon, and making veggie BLTs. You can make your own by thinly slicing tempeh strips and frying them with soy sauce and a few other ingrediants.

I used to make Barbecue Tempeh all the time. Fry up tempeh either in strips or cubes with a little olive oil and seasoned salt. When their done liberally pour you favorite bbq sauce.

Really, use it in place of tofu in any recipe.

Perhaps it's more of a mental discipline thing for me. I kind of helps put the breaks on when my I allow myself far too many indulgences. I don't really disagree with what you're saying, but I'm not going to drop dead from a occasional fast, especailly when I otherwise eat a really well-planned diet.

That being said, you could make the case that a large swath of the population eating the standard american diet probably live day to day with nutritional deficits and other imbalances.

I do this every couple years. Usually, it's after having a bad junk food week and just feeling out of whack. I do it for 3-5 days, just fresh fruit, vegetables, and fresh juice from my juicer. I have no sceintific basis for doing this other than I feel better afterwords. There's literature in the natural health world which supports it, the medical profession tends to not find merit in it....I'm usually skeptical of both. Bottom line is, you'll be fine, despite running some nutrient deficits for a few days.

Thanks for the recipe! Would it taste all that much different if I used regular paprika? I've had a hard time finding smoked paprika.

I'm on a pretty strict budget with a family of 4. I find that as long as I steer clear from processed soy products, fake meats, and other convenience foods, I can actually buy quite a bit on a limited budget. Granted, I like a lot of fake meats, but when money is tight I can make do without them.

I often find that shopping at a couple extra stores saves me a lot of money. For dry goods and non-dairy beverages I shop at Wal-Mart. While I've got no love for Wal-Mart, it's amazing how much cheaper some of their food is. Often times you can find organic products and other specialty items that would cost 3x more at a nautral food store. So anyway, I get everything except fruits and veggies at Wal-Mart. Their produce is awful, so I go to Publix for my produce which usually looks pretty good and they've always got stuff on sale.

If I'm really hurting one week I'll go to the flea market for fruits and veggies. Unfortunately, at least at my flea market, their produce is picked right before it gets over-ripe, so they tend to have a very short life-span. Of course, the produce is also dirt cheap, so if you can use it quickly, that could be another option.

Another thing I do to save money and time, in the long run, is to spend Sunday morning cooking dry beans and prepping a few dishes that can be eaten throuhout the week. Veggie chili, hummus, soup, muffins, all keep for a while and can be eaten throughout the week. Heck you can ever make a pot of oatmeal and use it a few times for breakfast.

I definitely have no problems getting enough fruit. For breakfast I usually have a bowl of whole grain cereal with usually 2 types of berries and a banana on the side or a smoothie with two types of frozen fruit, a banana, spinach and soy milk. Then I tend to end lunch and dinner with a piece of fruit.

I also like baking a lot and I make pumpkin muffins (pumpkin's a fruit right? or is it a vegetable?...good for you none the less), or blueberry corn muffins. Also blueberry pancakes are great.

I often wonder if I'm eating too much fruit? I easily exceed my sugar intake everyday, usually 300% of what calorie count recommends. But I've also read that the fiber and pulp in fruit helps metabolize the sugar, unlike fruit juice or refined sugars which are rapidly released.  Plus whole fruits have all those antioxidants and vitamins. Anyone know anything about this?

I'm a vegetarian and I must admit that I do use some leather products. I've gone through varying degrees of vegetarianism, from being a strict vegan to being vary lax. Despite my evolution, animal rights has always been main motivation. I can't say that I'm proud about wearing leather, but I do own leather shoes for work.

Ironically, it's my meat-eating co-workers that have given me the most flak about it. I'll get called hypocrite every now and then, which I fully admit I am, but I also think that way of thinking is an excuse to do nothing at all.

Everyone has varying degrees of comittment to whatever causes they support. Just becuase someone doesn't completely follow through to the logical ends of their causes shouldn't negate the positive changes a person does commit to.

Grape Nuts is a great source of iron. A 1/2 cup serving has 90% RDA. Add some fortified milk substitue and some fruit and you should get your daily requirement in your first meal. There's also several varieties of Total Cereal, which provide 100% RDA of many vitamins and minerals (including iron).

It depends what type of vegetarian you are or want to be. If you regularly include dairy products and eggs in your diet you shouldn't be missing much as long as your daily caloric intake is adequate. Though it would probably still be a good idea to take a multi-vitamin and a DHA supplement.

If you're vegan and have a well-rounded diet, including a good variety of fruits, vegetables, beans, whole grains, nuts and seeds eaten on a daily basis, the main vitamin/minerals you should pay attention to are: vitamin D, vitamin B12, zinc and DHA. Both B12 and (long chain) DHA are absent in a vegan diet. Again this can be met by using fortified foods, a decent multi-vitamin and a DHA supplement. You'll also want to get a daily supply of short chain omega 3's from flax, hemp, walnuts, soy, or canola oil. You should also get 15-20 mins. of sunshine a day to bolster vitamin D production.

That being said, it's never a bad idea to periodically get your blood work done to evalute your nutritional needs....that goes for carnivores and herbivores alike.

I've been on quite a baking kick as of late, especially muffins. Eggs can easily be replaced with a mixture of 1 tbl. spoon ground flax seed and 3 tbls. of warm water. As someone who on occasion eats dairy, I've found both soy milk and hemp milk to be good substitutes. Frankly, I don't think the taste suffers at all.

I usually make a corn meal based muffin, mixed with either whole wheat flour or buckwheat flour. Then I'll add berries or other filings. I made real moist sweet potatoe muffins topped with pumkin seeds, that I modified from the "How it All Vegan" cookbook.