I realized I’ve posted more times this month than I did all of last year (it was a doozy of a year, that’s for sure)!
I was serious when I said there were going to be changes to this blog, and I meant it.
Speaking of which, my new site should be launching sometime in the next few weeks. Believe me, I’m as sick as you are of staring at the glaring blue background. Soon it shall be replaced with a much more gentle and eye-pleasing design and color.
You know that post I did on weird food combos where I throw some black beans into my blueberry oatmeal, thinking that I was unique in eating sweetened beans? I must live in a cave. Forgive me for my isolation. How did I not know that Filipino cuisine has been combining sweet & beans for ages?
Poking around Twitter, I stumbled upon this delightful post about a traditional Filipino dish, minatamis na mongoo, or sweetened adzuki beans. Turns out, according to Jun Belen, the blogger for Jun-Blog, I’m not the only one who likes sweet beans. He writes (via Twitter): “You are not alone with your taste for ‘dessert beans.’ Filipinos love sweetened garbanzo, kidney, and mung beans.” Isn’t that fantastic?!
Also, I’ve received some uplifting emails of late, which have really made my day. May I share?
This morning, April sent me one such email. Here are some snippets. She writes:
I have to let you know how much I’ve enjoyed your blog. About three or four weeks ago I read the entire blog from beginning to end. I think I started reading your blog a few months before your fourth was born so I hadn’t followed from the beginning.I was so inspired and felt so educated by what you have posted about food and vegan eating. Although I truly don’t think I will ever be vegan or even vegetarian, I do agree with the health benefits of a vegan diet 100% […] (Personally I think there is still room for meat and eggs and dairy in a diet.)Anyway, long story short, after reading you blog, I was inspired to eat more whole foods and veggies. I also started cutting way back on my dairy (went from maybe 4 servings a day to probably less than 1). I feel SO GOOD! I have always been very healthy and trim. I’m 5’3″ and weigh 127 so I’m well within a healthy range. I recently had my third child nine months ago. I have wanted to lose 5lbs from her birth and haven’t been able to get it off. My weight never fluctuates more than one pound and despite trying to lose weight the past nine months I have never been able to get the scale to go lower than 127.Since starting to eat more whole foods, the scale has been consistently at 126 for 2 weeks and now the past 2 weeks at 125! This is a big deal for me, who never loses weight, only maintains it! In addition, I feel so much less bloated (which i didn’t realize I WAS bloated ’til I started feeling less bloated) and my stomach looks SO much trimmer! Finally, I am nursing and my daughter spits up a TON. I have noticed that since cutting back on dairy she has been spitting up much less. This is great news for her because she was a preemie and quite small.All in all, I am so happy with how I have been eating lately and I have you to thank. So thank you for making a difference in my life-it might seem small but feeling better and looking better makes me a happier person and that means a better wife and mother. So thank you.
Wow, thank YOU April, and you are quite welcome. I can’t believe you read my entire blog (!). Kinda blushing about that. It’s been what seems like long ago since I wrote some of my older posts. I’m sure I’d want to edit the heck out some of those posts if I went back and read them.
But I digress. I’m impressed with people who make the changes they know they need to make, and nothing makes me happier than hearing people’s success stories. Note how April just had a few pounds to lose, and was only able to do so once she focused on eating more whole foods. The science is fairly simple. In doing so, she ate more calorie-dilute foods, crowding out the higher calorie foods and created the calorie deficit needed to lose those last stubborn pounds (we all know what those are!).
I think it is significant that April pointed out she is not vegan, or even vegetarian. It is not necessary to be vegan or vegetarian to be your healthiest possible self. What is necessary is to pay attention to what you are eating. Is it mostly processed food products? Or did it come from a tree, bush, or other plant? Do the foods you eat contain naturally occurring fiber and water? And do these foods make up the majority of what you eat every day? If so, you’re on the right track.
Onto another happy email.
This one comes from Melissa. She’s been reading the blog since it’s beginning back in ’09, but only until recently has decided to make some drastic changes to her diet.
She participated in the Let’s Eat Greens! week challenge a few weeks ago.
She writes of her experience:
Let’s see, my week went as follows:*Wednesday: broccoli & asparagus (in a shepard’s pie I made)*Thursday: cucumber at lunch, and broccoli at dinner*Friday: spinach and cucumber at dinner*Saturday: honeydew (it’s green right?) and salad with cucumber*Sunday: For lunch, veggie burger with cucumber and Avacado-Lime Sauce and green beans! (Sauce is so good I want to have it’s babies! haha). Cabbage at dinner*Monday: Artichoke (greenish?) and cucumber in quinoa salad for lunch. Zucchini (over beans and rice with cilantro) with more Avocado-Lime Sauce, and some salsa verde for dinner.*Tuesday: Broccoli and cucumber with lunch.The most interesting thing about this week was that I didn’t set out to eat greens, it just naturally happened with each meal. I found that, one way or another, it is pretty easy to eat a green veggie — steamed, raw, blended, sauteed — and some kind of green veggie will fit into any meal.As husband and I start to come down from the over-refined, sugar filled diet we once had, we are forced to experiment more with other vegetables and grains (like artichokes and quinoa). The biggest thing for me is not over-salting it all. So, I have done as you suggested and invested in lime juice, lemon juice, several Tabasco flavors, as well as a wider array of spices (cumin, onion and garlic powders, minced garlic, crushed red pepper, grindable black pepper) to add flavor without adding all that sodium to “cover up” the taste as I choke down my veggies.Best compliment I got from my husband is a tie between “that cucumber bruschetta you made was awesome, can you make more of that?” and “I REALLY liked those green beans you made — they had spicy kick, and I think I tasted some lime! Make those anytime.”Our recent venture into the world of Weight Watchers really kicks things up a notch as far as eating healthier as well, since fruits and veggies (excluding potatoes, corn, peas) are 0 points! Always a great “filler” when you are out of points!Mmm… maybe I’ll finish green week tonight with some “sushi” tonight, with cucumber, avocado, and scallions, wrapped in seaweed!
I got a follow up email from her, about a week and a half after the first one.
“Went to second Weight Watcher’s meeting last night. (Starting out with the disclaimer that I felt my weigh in last week seemed a little high…). I apparently weighed a full 7 1/2 lbs less this week! As of my weigh in last night, I hit a number on the scale I haven’t seen for at least 7 years.”
She goes on to explain the changes she has made so far: more focus on whole plant foods, more sleep, and she recently ran a 5K.
“My cravings for sweets has significantly gone down, but after each meal I have that sense of wanting something sweet.” Don’t we all deal with this? Instead of grabbing something processed or full of sugar after meals, she eats an orange, or banana or a sugar-free popsicle.
Woo-hoo! We are all jumping in front of our computers for you Melissa. This is good, no, excellent, news.
More happy things.
One aspect about my home that I adore is our yard. Whoever lived here before us planted all of these fantastic blooming flowers, of which, I know not their names. But that’s besides the point. They are lovely, and I’m always surprised in the spring to go outside and find that a new one has bloomed. Like today, I found this one. Captivating and cheery, don’t you think?
Something funny happened today. Mali discovered my mascara. I was not aware. When we realized what Mali had been up to, we found her face looking like this:
Isn’t this what makeup is supposed to look like? I mentioned yesterday that I have several recipes just waiting to be posted. This is true. But I think I’ve gone and rambled on, and before this post becomes too long, I will stop myself here and just share one recipe, saving the rest for another day.
I discovered Costco carries this new product (about $10 a bag, for 31 servings):
A mixture of organic sprouted lentils, aduzki, and mung beans. Instead of hours to make beans, I can have them ready in 15 minutes.
The nutrient stats are impressive, too. One serving (about 2/3 c. cooked) is only 160 calories, 11 g protein, and 11, yes 11 grams of fiber!
Great for throwing into salads, like I did with this dish:
Parsley Sprouted Bean Salad with a side of boiled cabbage and potatoes.
This recipe was inspired by the recipe on the back of the package. I changed things up quite a bit, but the package did give me a great deal of inspiration.
Parsely Sprouted Bean Salad
GF, SF, DF
Serves 4
- 1 c. dry sprouted bean mix
- 3 c. water
- 1 c. chopped parsley
- 6-8 stalks celery, chopped
- 1 green bell pepper, chopped
- 1 cucumber, peeled, chopped
- 2 lemons, zest & juice
- 1/2 tsp. cumin
- 2 tsp. Mrs. Dash, original
- 1/2 tsp. salt (optional)
- 1 tsp. sugar
- 1 tsp. cornstarch
- 1/3 c. water
Combine 1 c. bean mix and 3 cups water in medium saucepan. Bring to boil and reduce heat to medium low. Cover and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand, covered, for about 10 minutes. Drain excess water.
Boil 1/4 c. of the water. Stir cornstarch into remaining water (about 2 TBS.). Add cornstarch mixture to boiling water and stir until thickened (should happen in less than a minute). Set aside and let cool while you assemble other ingredients. In large salad bowl, combine parsley, beans, cucumbers, celery, and bell pepper. Zest lemons (use a lemon zester, not a grater, you don’t want to eat the white stuff). Then juice the lemons. Add juice, salt, sugar, and seasonings to cornstarch mixture and mix. Pour this mixture over top of veggies. Add lemon zest. Make sure your hands are clean (of course you’ve already washed your hands, right?), and mix the salad with your hand until the dressing coats the veggies. Add freshly ground pepper and additional salt to taste.
Nutrition info: Makes 4 servings. Per serving: 135 calories, 7 g protein, 8 g fiber, 367 mg sodium (w/ 1/2 tsp. salt. omit salt if you are on a low-sodium diet.)Tomorrow: Workout & Fitness talk. See you then!
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