Thursday, June 26, 2008

Healthy Veganning

Not every vegan vegans alike. There are plenty of foods that are vegan but also junky/fatty/sugary, etc. It would be so easy to live on vegan cupcakes, So Delicious frozen desserts, and entrees laden with oils. Of course doing that would also lead to being a fat vegan and an unhealthy one to boot.

Using The China Study and Eat to Live as our guides, we've shifted to consuming most of our calories from fresh fruits and veggies. We load up on salads, soups, steamed vegetables. Healthy fats come from nuts rather than oils (though a small amount of olive oil with a larger proportion of balsamic vinegar can go with our salads). We have beans and legumes, tofu, and some whole grains, such as barley, quinoa, or brown rice. The idea is to have the most nutritionally dense foods--namely produce. Most people don't realize that veggies are a high-protein food. In terms of caloric composition, many veggies are more than half protein. But it's necessary to eat them in large enough quantities to get a substantial amount of these nutrients.

Eating copious amounts of nutrient-poor food leaves the body looking for those nutrients--hence becoming hungry again and again. Conversely, we're finding ourselves less hungry even with fewer overall calories consumed. I've dropped 13 pounds since last month. Everything's fitting more loosely and best of all, I feel great! Dkat is also having similar results. We can hardly believe how energetic we feel. I know my running is improving.

But doesn't it figure I bought Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World? I didn't even get around to baking any of the cupcakes before we banned the flour and sugar from our lives. Maybe for Boykat's birthday next year, I'll make an exception.