My husband's coworker recently told us he was inspired by us to incorporate more plant-based meals and cut down on his meat consumption, which was great to hear, and he'd been enjoying one of Isa Chandra Moskowitz's cookbooks. Prior to this, he had been sort of staunchly against plant based so it's awesome to hear when people become optimistic about it on their own. :)
I had my sister try vegan chili and she immediately had major gas and couldn't finish a two-cup bowl of it. I forgot that this was a problem for people who are just starting out plant-based or just haven't had a lot of legumes in their diet, or a lot of fiber in general. My husband and I used to have this problem when we started out, so just wanted to point this out to anyone who may be thinking of trying plant-based foods. Rest assured that the discomfort should lessen within a couple weeks time frame, after regularly, slowly ramping up the legumes/cruciferous vegetables intake so that the necessary microbiome will proliferate, helping your body to adjust and feel more comfortable when you do consume them. :) I hardly get gassy anymore from legumes. Take care of your microbiome! Buy dry legumes and soak them beforehand at least 6 hours, not just to reduce the overall cook time but to reduce the oligosaccharides and phytic acid (which is actually still beneficial in other ways) that can contribute to the bloating. I like to soak them for 48 hours personally, swapping out the water at least once. However, I do not soak lentils and feel like I fare fine just simmering them for the normal 15-20 minutes.
I have been logging my daily meals into Cronometer (if you don't know what this is, I highly recommend it – it's a food tracking app that is more useful than most because in addition to giving you data on your macronutrients, you'll also get information of how much of other micronutrients you still need to get in the day; Daily Dozen is another good checklist type of app to check out) this week and have been 'killing it' in getting all the nutrients. Daily protein intake generally ranges between 50 and 77 grams (without protein shakes, just whole foods!). And they say plant-based eaters are deficient in a lot of things. :) I've been averaging 1600 calories this week. For the B12, I supplement and/or use nutritional yeast and may occasionally use fortified plant-based milk, though lately I haven't been using plant-based milk at all and have been opting for tea instead. I also take one 10,000 IU of Vitamin D due to last year's lab tests showing they are low. I have not needed to supplement for other nutrients. This week, since the sun has been out I have been trying to purposefully expose my limbs without sunscreen for a limited time to help manufacture some naturally. Still using a hat and sunscreen for the face, though. ;)
A typical day this week has included:
- 2-3 medjool dates (for the deliciousness factor; also good for B vitamins, magnesium, and potassium. I recommended these to my sister who is trying to increase her fiber intake because 2 of them = about 14% of the RDI of fiber)
- 1/4 cup (30 grams) walnuts (for the omega 3/healthy fat) + 1 brazil nut (for the selenium)
- raw leafy green salad (usually massaged lacinato kale with butter leaf lettuce) with sliced red onions and at least 1/2 chickpeas and 2-3 tablespoons of hemp hearts (omega 3/healthy fat + protein, magnesium, iron, zinc)
- vegan chili with different kinds of beans and a bit of quinoa and farro. A new staple.
- chickpea 'curry' with coconut milk and 100-200 grams of spinach, and brown rice.
- tacos, generally with lentils
- stir fry with veggies and rice (like brown rice with firm tofu cubes, green beans, etc.)
- miso using a mix of white and red miso paste, plus tofu and wakame.
- 'clear' vegetable soup using vegetables and mushroom + rice
- plantains (great source of magnesium among other things)
My biggest problem though is salt reduction. :/ It's just so hard. I am trying to be more conscientious lately of oil usage so we have stopped using it so far. For salad dressing, I skipped the oil and just used a lot of lemon juice to compensate and used whole olives and nuts for the 'healthy fats' part, and it still tasted great. I know some people make salad dressing with nuts to get the healthy fat part, so I might try that, but I generally do not like creamy salad dressings or creamy anything. We found brussel sprouts for cheap yesterday and we usually like roasting, but I think I will try steaming them to avoid oil use and seasoning them in lemon juice, herbs, and spices. My only issue is that I've been trying out roasted plantains and they come out dry, so I'm really tempted to brush oil on them or something, but I'll continue to experiment with them and see how they turn out. Maybe try steaming them or something, too. Plantains are really good if you haven't tried them yet. They have an essence of raspberry to them. The blacker the peel, the sweeter. If you do try them, note that unripe plantains are starchy, much like potatoes, or unripe persimmons, though not as unpleasant as an unripe persimmon.
