RE: inquiring minds

[Guest guest]

I"ve been vegetarian since 1988 and have helped many friends and family along the way to also become veg. However, I too have not been able to go vegan. I've done it for periods at a time but have never been as strict as I want to be for as long as I desire to be.

So please do share!!

"...become the change you envision" Hinds ----Original Message Follows---- Reply-To: VeganMacrobiotics To: VeganMacrobiotics Subject: inquiring minds Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 07:46:22 -0800 (PST) Actually my sweet that is one of the reasons for my asking, I was hoping it would inspire you. Reggie My inquiring mind definitely wants to know! As Reg knows, I've been trying to go from veg (7+ years) to vegan with little success. ===== I never understood the whole signature thing, either people don't read it or they think it's dumb............... __________________________________________________

[Guest guest]

Regarding going vegan from veg: I can't really say. I thought it would be

really hard giving up eggs and cheese, but it hasn't. I hardly think about it.

One thing that helps when cooking - rice cheese. I never could develop a taste

for soy cheese, plus it's highly processed, but rice cheese (available in

mozzarella and cheddar) is really tasty and works well in recipes. It doesn't

quite melt right - it makes an interesting latticework atop my nearly-macro

enchiladas (contains organic salsa which contains TOMATOES), but it's tasty

enough dairy eaters don't notice it's not real cheese.

Regarding tofu:

I've really only used it in recipes (like making ricotta-ish sauce for

Porter's lasagne), but I've used light firm. I've noticed a wide variety of

brands in the store, so I'd go for something that looks really natural (read the

labels) to avoid unnecessary chemicals. But no, I hadn't heard anything about

that. Eating out, I had a really good tofu that was sliced rather thin (about a

quarter-inch) and browned on each side. It was crispy on the outside and very

firm and chewy on the inside (this was at Pei Wei's). The next day at PF

Chang's (same chain as Pei Wei) I had some tofu cubes that were browned, and

they had the unpleasant texture of a fire-roasted marshmallow - they deflated

when you bit into them.

Regarding low carb diets:

Take a look at Harvard's Healthy Eating Pyramid, a new take on the USDA Food

Pyramid we grew up (and out) on.

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/pyramids.html

For those of you who don't know, this now puts whole grains and plant-based oils

at the bottom of the pyramid. Refined grains and starches (white bread, durum

pasta, potatoes) at the top, next to red meat and butter, in the " use sparingly "

section. I'm certainly glad you're losing weight on the low-carb diet, and

that's thanks to ketosis. Bear in mind that programs like Atkin's were never

designed to be used for more than 2 weeks at a time, and long-term health

effects are not known. While I laud the efforts of these plans to wean people

off their addictions to highly-processed grains and sweets, I don't think that

replacing them with huge quantities of meat are the answer. It's interesting

that you mention feeling energetic and " aggressive " eating meat. Michio teaches

that meat is highly yang, yang is the energy of masculinity, of testosterone,

and energetic and aggressive are certainly how I think of hyper-masculine

people. I'm glad you aren't continuing on this diet for years, as some people

do. I think that once you finish your seven weeks and start eating more

balanced, you're going to find your health improving while your waistline stays

tiny!

I like this group. You guys are cool!

Zoe