Being Vegan in a Hostile Environment

For those of you outside the United States you have to understand that when I talk about the South I mean Florida, Georgia, The Carolinas, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia . I grew up in the South. At age 11 I decided to become a vegetarian. My parents were supportive, although I'm sure they thought it was just a phase and it was probably a pain in the ass for them to figure out meals.  

The interesting thing about growing up in the South is that there is literally meat products in EVERYTHING. I mean traditional southern cooking involves vegetables being cooked in pork fat! So as you can imagine being a vegetarian posed some problems. There have been times when I have been unable to eat at a restaurant because even though they had vegetables on the menu, they weren't vegetarian vegetables.

The fact that I even had to write the phrase "vegetarian vegetables" kind of epitomizes the idea of a hostile environment to a vegan diet. When you have to question the green beans at a restaurant, you really do have to wonder how the hell you can keep a animal product free diet.

There are two ways to go about handling this. One is to question everything, and I mean literally everything. You will be a royal pain in the ass, but you also will only have to ask the questions once. If you don't want to ask at a restaurant then call ahead and ask. We live in a wonderful age where we have the Internet in the palm of our hands. Usually you can look up a menu and a phone number within a few minutes, and take care of your dietary needs even before you walk through the door. It's a lot easier than what I had to do growing up, and you can feel safe in knowing that you actually talked to someone who knows, versus the waiter, who depending on their mood may lie to your face (I've had that happen).

The second way to handle it is to just not go out to eat. Pack your food and bring it with you. I'm pretty sure I could live for two days with the food I have at my desk at work, and not necessarily in a totally unhealthy way! I have a fruit bowl, soups, protein powders, soy milk, raw vegan meal replacement bars, and cereal. My work bag always has a vegan meal replacement bar in it, as does my workout bag.

Bottom line, like everything about living a healthy lifestyle, you have to plan ahead a little bit. Know what you are getting into, where you are going, and think of your needs. Don't be afraid to be a pain in the ass, and don't be afraid to say no. It's your life and your health, choose what's important to you!

Using Protein Powders in Recipes

If you are like me, you like to give in to temptation sometimes and eat something delightfully decadent, and yet not good for you waist line. You may also have children (like me) who are vegetarian and yet you do not feel they are getting sufficient protein. I submit the following solution! Substitute some protein powder for flour in some of your baking recipes!

I know this sounds too good to be true, but I promise you it works amazingly. Doing this I have actually made some pretty tasty waffles, pancakes, donut holes, cakes, cookies, breads, and muffins! My current personal preference is to use Pea or Rice Protein. It's quite easy to do, just substitute part of the flour that you are going to put in the recipe with an equal part of one of the above proteins. If you are making something sweet I recommend the Vanilla flavor. If it's something savory I recommend the unflavored. That's all there is to it!

Now you can go out and make some delicious treats for yourself (maybe your kids too. If they're good :-) ) and feel somewhat good about it knowing that you are adding some protein to the recipe, you know, for health! Heck you can even enjoy a protein cookie after a hard workout!

I posted my Pancake and Waffle recipes!

Where do you get your protein?

A question that I get asked a lot when I tell people that I am vegan, is where do you get your protein? The truth is it really isn't that hard. Generally I don't eat crap food, and the crap food I do eat is usually some kind of protein bar.

So first of all lets focus on what it is that we do need. According to this study by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academics, a grown adult only needs about .4 grams of protein per pound of body weight to basically keep breaking down muscle mass. So lets add .1 for good measure for the following calculation. As a 160 lb man, I would need 80 grams of protein per day!

So then how do we get to the magic number of 80 grams a day. Well for me, I always like to start my day with a protein shake. It was something I started when I began to focus on the nutrition aspect of weight loss, and I've just kind of kept up with it. I vary which one I use on a regular basis, but I usually rotate through the Vega One Nutritional Shake-Berry, Vega Sport Performance Protein Vanilla, Vega One Nutritional Shake-French Vanilla, Garden of Life Raw Organic Meal - Vanilla, Sunwarrior Warrior Blend Powder - Vanilla, and some other Hemp, Pea, and Rice proteins that I come across. So that's usually good for about 20 grams of protein in the morning. Hey look at that I'm already a quarter of the way to my daily protein intake and I haven't even chewed yet!

Now where do I get my protein when chewing? Well this part is easy. I eat food, mostly plants. That means I don't eat that prepackaged frozen food. and I really don't eat much pasta or bread! So lets look at some nutritional facts.

1 cup of spinach has a 1 gram of protein.
1 cup of kale has 3 grams of protein.
1 cup of chopped broccoli has 2.6 grams of protein
1 cup of chopped carrots has 1.5 grams of protein
1 cup of shredded cabbage has 1 gram of protein
1 cup of shredded onion has 1 gram of protein
a cucumber has 2 grams of protein
a tomato has 1 grams of protein
1/2 cup of corn has 8 grams of protein

HOLY CRAP IS THAT A 20 GRAM OF PROTEIN SALAD BEFORE DRESSING!?!  Now add some black beans (21 grams for 1/2 a cup!), or lentils (25 grams for 1/2 a cup), or even on the lighter side some sunflower seeds (7.25 grams for a 1/4 cup), and you have just made some protein awesomeness!

 But for the sake of this article lets not add beans to the salad because guess what were having for dinner! That's right, lentils and quinoa! If you've never tried it, its awesome and as easy to cook as brown rice. Give it a try its awesome. Anyway a cup of quinoa and a 1/2 cup of lentils, and boom! 49 grams of protein.

So lets add that up shall we? 20 grams from the morning shake, 20 grams from my awesome lunch salad, and 49 grams from dinner! Look at that I'm over my requirement! I'm not even taking into account the fact that I put soy milk into my coffee, or that I have a protein shake after I workout, or that I sometimes have a shake or a Cliff Builder Bar or ProBar Core Bar if I get hungry during the afternoon! I've also been known to eat an apple and almond butter as a snack! Trust me I get WAY more than 80 grams of protein a day and I don't even try!

That leads me to the athletics side of things. I've read in a few places that you should aim to get 1 - 1.5 grams of protein per pound of body weight if you are "an athlete", and that consequently that's why its so hard to be a vegan athlete... I submit the above as testimonial, that in reality its not that hard. It does however require planning and forethought. Now one other thing to mention is the fact that vegetable sources of protein don't have the "essential amino acids". These are the ones the body can't produce. But there's a simple solution to this! You eat a variety of plants, which each have different amino acids, and presto you can ensure that you get the variety of amino acids that your body needs! Well hell our salad was a good mix! In fact I don't think we had any protein from the same source all day today! So bottom line is that it can be done. So eat vegan and thrive!