Saturday, January 26, 2013

Changing the Vegan Ideal Meal



Since my husband and I have been living together we have been cooking with vegan ingredients.  He was vegan when we met and I have adopted the lifestyle for the most part.  We do use honey in some of our food but more often use agave.  After eating soyburgers and tofu, pasta and processed "cheese" I started to notice I was feeling as though I had less energy, was consuming too many calories and eating foods that weren't nutrient dense.  I revamped our grocery list to have more whole foods and fewer processed foods (with the exception of condiments, which I am not ready to give up - but we check carefully for ingredients containing animals, artificial flavors and coloring, and we do not get anything with corn syrup/high fructose corn syrup)... it looks like this:


Ø  Condiments
Ketchup               Mustard                 Dill Pickles           Curry         Coffee           Seaweed paper
Hot Sauce            Spices                   Tomato Sauce       Vinegar                Soy/Dumpling Sauce
Salsa                     Agave                   Wasabi                 Nutritional Yeast

Ø  “Dairy”
Almond Milk       Coconut Milk      Coconut “Butter”       Almond or coconut Yogurt

Ø  Fruits                                                                                Juice
Apples                  Frozen Berries                                  Orange
Oranges               Grapes/Raisins                                   Apple                   
Bananas              

Ø  Vegetables
Kale                     Cabbage               Carrots                 Squash                 Asparagus
Spinach                Cuke                     Beets                    Mushroom          Zucchini
Broccoli               Onion                   Garlic                    Brussels Sprouts
Avocado              Tomato                Eggplant                Cauliflower           Leeks
Sweet Potato       Yam

Ø  Proteins
Nuts/Seeds         Quinoa                 Tahini                   Nut Butter           Hemp


Ø  Carbohydrates/Starches
Japanese buckwheat noodles       Quinoa Pasta

Ø  Supplements                                                                 Ethnic /cooking styles
Probiotics, Enzymes, Multivitamin                                  Japanese     Mediterranean                 
(B-12, Vitamin C, Iron)                                                                    Indian            Mexican      




I know that we need to eat enough foods that have the 9 amino acids our body does not make... as it turns out it isn't really about proteins but rather the building blocks of a protein- amino acids.  Our body can make only some, the other 9 we need from our diet.  Tofu and quinoa are both great examples of a vegan protein source although high in carbohydrates as well.





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