A peek at my plate (day #4)

Breakfast: Oatmeal with two bananas and 1/2 cup blackberries

Lunch: 5 steamed potatoes with ketchup

Dinner: Jeff Novick-inspired curried vegetables with quinoa

My formula for morning oatmeal...

1. Mash bananas well and mix in frozen (or even better - fresh!) berries

2.Cook oatmeal with water

3. Mix hot oatmeal with fruit. Cinnamon too, if you please. Enjoy!

Recipe Recommendation: Megan Elizabeth's Mango Mayo

Good morning everyone! I've been wanting to share this recipe with everyone, and let me tell ya h-what - it's a damn good one. So Megan Elizabeth is a leader in the 80/10/10 raw movement, which has a very similar macronutrient ratio to the McDougall plan. Check out her website here. And spend some time looking around, because her recipes are awesome, low fat raw vegan deliciousness. :-)

So let's cut to the chase. Over the summer, I was trying my hardest to stay raw whilst getting my pound of greens in. This "mango mayo" made it an absolute joy to chomp away at a bowl of salad, and it became one of my biggest cravings. I still drool whenever I think of this dressing...it's just way too good.

Megan Elizabeth's Amazing Mango Mayo 

(Which, in my opinion, makes a phenomenal salad dressing!)

1. 1 cup mango (if frozen, add 1 date for sweetness)
2. 1 tsp chopped chives or scallions
3. 2 big leaves of basil
4. 1 big leaf of sage
5. 1 medjool date
6. (optional) 1 tablespoon tahini

Blend away 'til smooth and creamy!

Watch her video below to find out how to incorporate it into a raw collard wrap.

A peek at my plate (day #3)

So I've kind of slacked on this blog for the last couple weeks, in preparation for midterms and as a result of an increasing number of work hours. Anyway, I've been trying to follow the Maximum Weight Loss plan as much as possible, in addition to cutting down on my salt intake (somewhat reluctantly, because salt-free canned tomatoes are at least double the price of the "regular" ones). Oh well, gotta pay the price for less bloat right?

My efforts have been paying off because I'm down a few pounds from last week. Yay!

I've been using my slow cooker quite heavily in the last few days to make variations of Jeff Novick's curried cauliflower dish. The first time I followed it nearly exactly, except I accidentally added twice the amount of frozen veggies and had to make some adjustments. I've since made it without the cauliflower, instead incorporating spaghetti squash as a thickener and the more generic broccoli, carrot, and green bean veggie mix. I mix it in with loads of quinoa and add some chili garlic paste for extra flavor. I could eat it every meal of the day and be satisfied.

Here's my food log for the day:
Breakfast: curried vegetables with quinoa and chili garlic paste
Lunch: black bean, tomato, and swiss chard stew
Snack: banana, minneola tangelo, and one boiled potato
Dinner: same as breakfast, and another tangelo

Also, I tried some Cocoa Spice tea today in class and it was TO DIE FOR. I had about six mugs while we were working on our potato-cooking lab. I'd highly recommend this for anyone wanting to cut down on their chocolate intake while still enjoying its intoxicating flavors.

In other news, I'm craving fruit so badly...I trolled around 30bad.com and fantasized about mono-mealing on either (a) red grapes, (b) papayas, or (c) tangelos. I definitely need to buy a case of fruit and a gigantic bag of potatoes (to have boiled & plain) when I get paid next and mix things up for a bit.

A peek at my plate (day #2)

breakfast
oatmeal (1 cup uncooked with 2 bananas to sweeten)

lunch

1 lb. steamed broccoli and cauliflower with brown rice (1/2 cup uncooked)

snack

smoothie (two oranges, pineapple juice, 1 banana, two handfuls spinach)

soup (kidney beans, brown rice, sweet potato, carrot, onion, zucchini, celery, tomatoes)

dinner

more soup (yum!)

A peek at my plate (day #1)

Breakfast
Bowl of oatmeal

• approximately 1 cup dry, cooked in water with about 2 bananas for added sweetness and cinnamon for comfort and warmth <3

Note: Bananas are a big comfort food for me. I remember begging my mom for "mushed bananas" all the time when I was a little girl, and I vaguely recall looking through the cabinets secretively for Gerber banana baby food way past the age when eating it would be viewed as acceptable.

Snack
Smoothie

• frozen bananas & blueberries, pineapple juice, and a big handful of spinach

Lunch
Mung bean and kale stew over brown rice with salsa

Dinner
2 squares of "taco pizza"

• refried black beans with cilantro, onion, salsa, and tomatoes on an unfortunately non-whole-wheat dough....still delicious, but not as delicious as the whole wheat pizza dough from Happy Herbivore Abroad

FIN

There you have it, folks! My day of excellent and filling plant-based food. :) Stay tuned for more. 

An Introduction to Me

Hi everybody! My name is Lulu and I'm a 23-year-old student living in the Northwest (and all the meanwhile wishing I was somewhere warmer). I'm starting this blog because I'm absolutely obsessed with plant-based nutrition - a field I'm educating myself in both during school hours and when I should be out partying. Anyway, let me tell you a little bit about how I got interested in health before I really get this blog started.

I initially entered my first year of college with the goal of majoring in the field of physics. It was my ultimate dream to end up at a research facility, exploring and helping to unravel the mysteries of the universe. For two years, I made my way through several physics and calculus-based programs. My interest in the field of health education began, rather unexpectedly, after a nightmarish float down a nearby river in the summer of 2011. My friends and I were expecting a relaxed four-hour float down the river. Eight hours later the sun had set, the river was jammed and the water too low to carry us. There was no sign of our destination, so we dragged our rafts into the darkness of the woods, setting off in the direction of a distant railroad lamp. We eventually arrived at our parked cars, scratched, bruised, and suffering the effects of our journey through multiple patches of stinging nettle. Sleep that night was a welcome visitor, providing some relief from the endless tingling and burning. I clambered out of bed the next morning, some weakness in my left leg. Within a week I couldn't climb out of bed at all.

It was four emergency room visits and two months later before I had a diagnosis: a herniated disc. Conventional medicine provided me only with high doses of pharmaceuticals, and words selected to inspire fear. “This is hands-down one of the most severely herniated discs I've seen. Surgery is looking like your only option.” The physical therapy was a mere aside; it was supposed to keep pain levels manageable, but I was made to feel that my life would never return to normal unless I got surgery. Since the medical establishment I was dealing with couldn't provide me with what I needed, I had to turn elsewhere – from the friends and family I'd call on in the middle of the night for months on end when the pain would only allow me to sleep for an hour or two, to the shared experiences I stumbled upon online that made me feel not so alone in that world of unimaginable chronic pain. Frustrated by my slow progress, I redesigned my life around the twin goals of pain management and improved health, incorporating a healthier diet and strengthening and flexibility exercises. Eventually I did recover from my herniated disc, and all without the surgical intervention the doctors told me I needed.

If there's one thing crisis is good for, it's for showing us what's most important in our lives. My experience with a herniated disc not only made me grateful for every ounce of good health I possess, but thrust light upon the fiery passion I have for understanding the body's healing capabilities. During my back-pain-related struggles, I was made to view my own body as the enemy – as something I needed to placate with drugs, that had no knowledge to heal itself, and that could only be fixed by needles and metal instruments. Now I'm endlessly interested in the human body and how our environments shape our physical and emotional selves. One aspect I'm especially drawn to is the way in which nutrition affects the human body, and how the chemical structure of such food affects its healing properties. For example, I've personally experimented with low fat, plant-based diets, both 80/10/10 and McDougall in nature. I'm currently following the McDougall program and there are so many facets of this lifestyle that I'm eager to explore on a scientific level.

I'm graduating with my undergraduate degree this spring and I will be working toward additional prerequisites for graduate school for some time after. Meanwhile, I'll be blogging about my thoughts, favorite recipes, newly-found resources, and so on for all interested readers! I'm off to class now so I'll catch you later!