Fun with Tempeh! #glutenfree #Kosher #tempehBEATStofu #proteinpacked #foodISmedicine #eattolose #VeganProtein

Tempeh and mixed veggies

     There are days when I plan a meal based on targeted shopping, rational thought and established recipes. While I find that serves the purpose with consistency, the flavor of creativity is lacking. Where's the fun in that? It is so much more satisfying to gather, chop, season, cook and eat an original dish ala MacGyver. You can feed, amuse and amaze yourself all at the same time!

     Here is what I had to work with:

Tempeh, Swiss Chard, a jalapeno pepper, broccoli, onion, garlic, celery, carrots, sweet red and yellow peppers, nutritional yeast, low sodium soy sauce, smoked paprika, basil and fresh parsley.  

     Here is what I did:

I don't measure anything. I just add things until it looks and tastes right to me. (feel free to substitute different veggies) 

     Cut the Tempeh into bite size pieces and marinate it for about an hour in the soy sauce and basil.

Slice up the onion and caramelize it in a pan. I don't use any oil so I just use a non stick ceramic pan and stir constantly with a wooden spoon until it browns. Slice up one leaf of the chard including the stem and the rest of the veggies and add them to the pan with a cup of boiling water (I love the sound). Stir in 1/4 teaspoon of smoked paprika, chopped parsley and the other vegetables all sliced up. Add soy sauce (an/or salt), season to taste, stir and cook until the vegetables soften. 

     Strain the veggies and save the broth. Put the broth, Tempeh and nutritional yeast back in the pan and cook until the liquid is gone. Add more water and soy sauce if you want to cook it longer.

Put the veggies on a bed of Swiss Chard and top with the Tempeh.

Here is the truly amazing part. I ate about half the plate, came back later and finished it off. I weighed myself the next day and I lost 1/2 a pound. Full and lighter. Counterintuitive and delicious!

Enjoy!

So Good!!!

28 Months A Vegan! #eatcleanandgreen #plantstrong #foodismedicine #eatmoreweighless

  The journey continues. It's already 28 months since I've eaten any animal products. No beef, lamb, veal, pork, chicken, turkey, fish, shellfish, seafood, milk, yogurt, cottage cheese, butter, eggs, very little if any oil of any kind and I've never felt more healthy in my life! I used to eat ALL those things. Often many of those things at the same time.
     While commuting from one office to another it was not unusual for me to stop at a fast food place for fries or chicken nuggets to munch for the drive. When filling my car I would get a bag of chips and soda pop and/or a candy bar with a frozen Coke. Does any of this sound familiar to you? Judging by the line at the cash register, these habits were not unique to me.
     According to the Harvard School of Public Health, obesity related diseases add an extra $190,000,000,000.00 per year to the cost of health care in the United States. That's 190 BILLION dollars that we all pay for through rising insurance premiums, government insurance programs and out of pocket expenses. By comparison, the estimated cost of fixing all of the crumbling roads in Michigan per year is 1.8 Billion dollars. This is money that could be funneled into our financially strapped public schools or used to replace the pipes that leach lead into the drinking water of Flint and so many other US cities. That's PER YEAR!!!
     The number $190 billion is just a number. It is far beyond my ability to comprehend anything that enormous. In perspective, at a cost of $71,000.00 for heart bypass surgery with no complications, that is enough to pay for 2,676,056 operations. (In the U.S. 500,000 bypasses are done per year)
    An interesting fact about heart bypass is that 4 percent of these patients do not survive the operation. That is 20,000 deaths per year that need not happen. It need not happen because heart disease  is essentially a foodborne illness. We can choose to not fall victim to it by improving our food choices.
Cardiovascular disease including stroke is responsible for 787,000 deaths per year in the U.S. alone and 17,300,000 globally.  Again, numbers too large to understand. What I do understand is that almost 50% of the time the first symptom of Cardiovascular Disease is sudden death. Do not try to take comfort in the notion that you can eat and drink whatever you like and when it eventually causes heart problems a pill and bypass surgery will be the answer.  You are flipping a coin where one side is risky and the other is sudden death.
  "Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food".  A quote from Hippocrates 2400 years ago. Take the time to learn about healthy eating. Find out about the simple changes you can make now to avoid heart disease. This is not a new concept.
     There are so many free places that will help you get started. I mentioned a number of websites in a previous article. Click the highlighted link to find out more.  I've lost 96 lbs by changing my ways.
Are you ready?

Day 6 of Vegan Passover! #MovingMatzo #LeavingTheLeavening

Here we are at day 6 of Passover already. How much Matzo is left in YOUR house? I'm down to 2 boxes. Hopefully exactly the right amount to run out on Saturday night.

A plate full of mostly Matzo!!!

It's quite the versatile building block! Even the kitchen frog took valuable time away from being a plague to express his amazement! 

That thing on the bottom that looks like a potato with slices of tomato and topped with cracked pepper is not Matzo, but everything else is.

When stacked and layered with cooked vegetables and "cheezy" sauce that has been firmed up in the fridge overnight, the excess moisture softens the Matzo. I also microwaved it for about 2 minutes to soften everything up and squish it down. It needed squishing. 

This made 2 hearty portions. 

You can guess what those yellow things in the middle are. That's right. Matzo mixed with the yellow cheezy sauce and shaped by hand into curls. Salt and pepper added made it taste like a whole new holiday!

This whole foods plant based Matzo infused week has been challenging but absolutely delicious! 

What's that old saying? Necessity is the Matzo of invention! Accept the challenge. 

Choose health. Go Vegan! 

Vegan Passover, day 5. Keeping things moving! #PottyAllTheTime #foodismedicine #eatToLose

Matzo-roni and "cheese"

 One thing you can depend upon during Passover; The 11th Plague.
It insidiously crept up on us shortly after the Hebrews fled Egypt in such a rush they didn't even wait an hour for the bread dough to rise.
The effect of the resulting Matzo on the lower intestines added a second dimension to:
Let My People Go!

Having converted to a Whole Foods Plant Based diet, constipation is not an issue. Matzo or no Matzo, everything else I eat is so high in fiber that the digestive issues are eliminated. (pun intended)

Keeping the faith and and the lifestyle!

No oil! Green Beans, Red Bell Pepper, Pineapple, Onion Flakes,
Fresh Grated Garlic and Ginger with salt and pepper to taste
Stir cooked in a ceramic pan with water

Passover and Vegan! Like I need more dietary restrictions #funWithMatzo #eatandlose #ChametzFree

Passover food gets old fast unless you get your creative hat on. This is my 3rd Vegan Passover. Truth be told, I'm ready to go Chametz-ing and leaven something in the oven. I plan on making it to the end of this holiday on sundown this Saturday. As long as I'm fed, I'm good! This year for our Seder, we had quite the crowd at my niece's house. To ensure that there would be something for me to eat, I made spicy "Zoodles" baked in a "cheezy" sauce and topped with Matzo Farfel. It was a hit! Drastically different from 2 Passover's ago when I was a beginner. Now I'm seasoned, as was my casserole...with a Habanero pepper blended in. Did I mention spicy? 

Matzo

Goodies over the Matzo, baked

Five minutes under the broiler

 I may have left out a few steps. It doesn't matter since it all got eaten!

Today I needed a lunch and I had some of that spicy "Cheezy" sauce left. I made a Matzo sandwich. It spreads easily and tastes like a party in my mouth. I even added parsley - the bitter herb!

 It didn't even break the Matzo!
So no excuses. I filled my tummy, used no animal products and no oil with no Chametz!
It's a Passover miracle!!!  The fun continues...

Pictures of ME over a 2 year period!! #crazyvegan #eattolose #foodismedicine #eatlikeagorilla

So you aren't sure if a plant based whole foods diet would work?
You haven't been paying attention!
So here it is in pictures for you:

Me September 2013 - 274 lbs

September 7, 2015 - 180 lbs

      

Me 2/1/2016 - 178 lbs.

Color me happy!
Any questions?  ;-)

26 Months A Vegan!! #wholefoodsplantbased #foodismedicine #eattolose

Me with Dr. T. Colin Campbell

     I have always said that the destination is not my favorite part of the trip. It's the journey. Along the way you get to meet the most interesting people. A few weeks ago I was asked by Paul Chatlin from PBNSG.org to pick up Nelson Campbell at Detroit's airport and drive him to East Lansing, Michigan where he and his father, Dr. T. Colin Campbell (The China Study), were scheduled to speak at Michigan State University's medical school. The drive took 3 hours. Normally it is less than 90 minutes, but this day happened to include 10 inches of fresh snow. The extra time gave us an opportunity to discuss Nelson's movie, Plant Pure Nation (now on Netflix) and to get acquainted. Nelson is a friendly, unassuming man who shares his father's passion of spreading the message regarding the health benefits of a Whole Foods Plant Based diet.

     Whether you are looking to lose weight and keep it off, lower your cholesterol without medication, protect your heart, brain and kidneys by lowering your blood pressure naturally, prevent or eliminate the need to take medication for type 2 Diabetes or you are just a compassionate person and curious about a plant based lifestyle this really, truly works and works remarkably fast; generally within 2 weeks! If you are currently on medication for any of the above conditions, ask your Doctor if you can try this for 2 weeks! You AND your doctor will be shocked!

     Try the 21 Day Kickstart Diet advocated by the Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine. This is free, online guidance and also connects you with free reading material. To be clear, the Whole Foods Plant Based Diet is a Vegan diet, but all Vegan diets are not necessarily Whole Foods Plant Based. For example, here is the label on a box of corn flakes:

Nutrition Facts Serving Size 1 OZ Calories 102     Calories from Fat 2 *Percent Daily Values (DV)  are based on a 2,000  calorie diet. Amount/Serving %DV* Amount/Serving %DV* Total Fat 0.2g 0% Tot. Carb. 24.7g 8%   Sat. Fat 0g 0%   Dietary Fiber 0.7g 3%   Trans Fat - - - g   Sugars 3g Cholesterol 0mg 0% Protein 1.9g Sodium 205mg 9% Vitamin C   10% Calcium   0% Vitamin C   10% Iron   55%

ALLERGENS:  Gluten

INGREDIENTS:  Corn Flakes (Milled Corn, Sugar, Malt Flavoring, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Salt, Iron, Niacinamide, Sodium Ascorbate And Ascorbic Acid, (Vitamin C), Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B6), Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Thiamin Hydrochloride (Vitamin B1), Vitamin A Palmitate, Folic Acid, Vitamin B12, And Vitamin D. To Maintain Quality, BHT Has Been Added To The Packaging.) As you can see, this is a highly processed food with lots of additives. Most of the things on the above list are relatively innocuous with the exception of BHT.      BHT stands for butylated hydroxytoluene, a hormone disruptor. It is not allowed to be used as a food additive in Europe, yet it is commonly used as a preservative in the U.S.A. I would not include this highly processed food as part of a Whole Foods Plant Based Diet. Reading the label on your food is important. If you see something on the label of ingredients that you don't understand or can't pronounce, don't eat it!      In contrast, take a look at the label on a package of oatmeal:      The only thing in there is Rolled Oats! Take a look at the nutritional values. Compare the above 2 products for fiber, Sodium, sugar and protein. The 2 labels tell the story. Both are Vegan, but Oatmeal is a whole food and is plant based. You can add fruit, milled flax seed, dates, raisins, dried cherries, blueberries, strawberries, a banana along with almond, soy, rice, oat, coconut or cashew milk and a little maple syrup and you stay within the guidelines of whole foods plant based.      This really isn't that hard. Once you get past the 1st four weeks and over your food addictions, it becomes second nature. In order to lose weight, which was my main goal, you will learn to cook without any type of oil and to limit your intake of nuts and seeds. Start thinking about the last thing you ate instead of thinking about what you are going to eat next. In doing that, I find that I'm not really hungry.      Whatever is motivating you to change your ways, it's time to get started! You can do this. I am the only person in my family that is on a whole foods plant based diet. I work full time, spend time with my family, eat at restaurants, travel and have been maintaining this diet for 26 months.     No more excuses! Get started!!!!