I'm new at this!

I really enjoy eating nutratarian-ish! I'm finding it easier each day. My new motto is "I may not be plant perfect, but I can be plant strong!" Thanksgiving dinner was a great success, although only 3 of us at dinner, we all loved it. Our favorite was the Vegan stuffing stuffed pumpkin and FRESH cranberry relish, (I picked the cranberries myself) a family recipe from Mary.

Waste

I did great through the long Thanksgiving weekend taking part in traditions but keeping mostly to my commitment to healthy eating.  Now I'm trying to clean out some cupboards making room for some of the appliances I use more often like a rice cooker for all kinds of grains, blender for smoothies, food processor for cutting veggies and pureeing legumes for dips, sauces, dressing (think hummus).  For some reason I'm finding it difficult to throw away the things I have around that I no longer include in my diet, like cake mix.  Should I give the stuff away and contribute to someone else's unhealthy ways (I would NEVER buy cigarettes for a friend!)? Or should I toss it all?  I "baked" a "cup of cake" with a small amount of cake mix in the microwave.  It was a familiar flavor but strangely sweet and artificial tasting.  That, I should have tossed.  What about the things that really aren't JUNK but not on the nutritarian list either.  I guess it's a case by case decision making process.  Anybody want some Lipton Noodles or 12 packages of Jello???

                                                                             

I seem to remember Weight Watcher's having some kind of clever position on this subject...something comparing "wasting" food to the size of one's "waist"...anybody remember this?

Thanksgiving - Then and Now

As I wrote out my Thanksgiving menu for a party of ten I marveled at the differences between this menu and what it would have been just a few years ago.  I'm still compromising for the sake of my (Standard American Diet) company but here are a few notable examples of changes for the better:

                                                                 

                                 I'd like to add  one more veg dish, either fresh steamed Brussels sprouts with a flax meal and grainy mustard dip, or roasted root veggies like beets, carrots and parsnips.  I didn't address dessert here because other people are providing them...but I have ideas!

Stuffed Squash With a Shortcut and Some Questions

Stuffed Acorn Squash

This squash was stuffed with Vigo's Red Beans and Rice which I cooked on the stove top (without adding the butter!)while the squash was baking.  I added a medium bunch of kale, cut up, halfway through the 20 minute cooking time.  If I were making it for company I would probably sprinkle some nuts or grated cheese on top and bake it to brown the top but since I was cooking for myself I just spooned the rice mix into the half acorn squash when it finished baking and ate it with a salad.  It was very tasty, hearty and satisfying.  I added no additional seasoning since the rice package comes fully seasoned. 

 This is an easy dish and looks nice to serve to others but I do have one concern.  When I looked up the nutritional information online it said, "totally fat free" and "0 calories from fat"; however, the label says one serving contains 1 gram of fat, 0 grams sat. fat.  So where are the 9 calories from the 1 gram of fat?  Also, the Ingredients list includes "Partially Hydrogenated Cottonseed and Soybean Oil".  What?  Is there a minimum amount required before it has to be listed as part of the Nutrition Facts or Calories?  Now I feel like I've lost one of my favorite quick foods.  I'm going to work on a good combination of seasonings for my beans and rice dishes that does not include hydrogenated oil and all those other additives.

Glazed Acorn Squash for Priscilla

Christmas is to children as the honeymoon is to newlyweds as harvest season is to a vegetarian!

Erich and I cooked dinner for Priscilla's 92nd birthday tonight and I know she loves squash so I made this simple but impressive looking version.

Glazed Acorn Squash

                                                             

Slice the squash in half lengthwise.  Scoop out the seeds and slice into eight wedges.  Spray with oil spray and bake on a cookie sheet covered with non-stick aluminum foil at 400 for about 45 minutes.  Drizzle with a little maple syrup (don't even THINK about using "pancake syrup!) and bake another 15 minutes.
Note:  I ran out of time and ended up microwaving the squash for about 6 minutes thereby reducing the baking time by about 30 minutes.

It looks like Priscilla enjoyed her birthday dinner!
(And it looks like I need to de-clutter my frig door)

                                                                                

Seasonal Soup

This recipe started out with butter, heavy cream, and oil...why would you ever need all three?  After making healthy changes I think it tastes so much better.  If you're going to make squash soup shouldn't you taste squash?  And some tasty freshly grated spices...

 Butternut Squash Soup

Bake (or boil) 4# butternut squash, 1 very large or 2 medium

Sautee 1 large chopped onion in veg. broth with 2 bay leaves.

Add the squash and the rest of the can of veg. broth

Add:  4t brown sugar

           1-2 T  fresh ginger, grated

            1-2t  cinnamon

           1/4t  fresh grated nutmeg

            1/4t  fresh ground allspice

            1-2 t salt, pepper to taste

Blend with hand blender until creamy but a little chunky

Add 1 cup almond milk, more if you prefer a thinner or creamier soup

Serve with a drizzle of pumpkin seed oil 

A plate of julienned veggies added crunch and more nutrients.
The beets were from the farm market and sooo good and sweet!

                                      

Welcome, Dawn!!

The title, "Welcome, Dawn!!" sounds like new beginnings, a new day, right?  It also expresses my happiness at introducing my very good friend Dawn to this blog.  She has recently adopted the Nutritarian style of eating and  I asked her if she would help with the blog.  She's a great cook and artist so we intend to have fun with this!

Dawn was visiting this weekend and our breakfast this morning was a simple combination of bulgur wheat and quinoa cooked in a rice cooker together.  I chopped up an apple and heated it up with some fresh (or frozen) whole cranberries and a pinch of fresh grated nutmeg, cinnamon, and brown sugar.  This made a great topping for the grains.  Next time I'll probably add walnut pieces and almond milk.  Yummy and quick!

Cranberry Apple cereal topping

         Tip:  make more grains than you need for one meal and use the leftovers for another.  Save 15-20 min.

Quick Mushroom Potato Soup

I had a few potatoes left from Robin's garden, Baby Bellas were on sale and this is what they became:
Quick Mushroom Potato Soup


Sautee in 1T oil:  1 large onion, chopped
                             3 cloves garlic, minced
                             8 oz baby portabella mushrooms, sliced
Add:  1 can vegetable broth
          3 small potatos, cubed
Season to taste with Oregano, Basil, Thyme, S&P

Blend with a hand blender until creamy and a little chunky.
Add 1c almond or soy milk (plain).  Serve.

Travel Eating

 Being a nutritarian or vegetarian in Austria would be a major challenge.  After three weeks spent living as the locals live I narrowed it down to the top three challenges.


1. The most common Früschtük (breakfast) is cold cuts and cheese with white bread.  When I tried to explain to someone that I don't eat much meat at home she looked at me in astonishment and said, "Then what do you eat for breakfast?!"
     Solution: in a word, Müsli (muesli, like granola)


2. After repeated attempts I could not get a salad with just veggies and dressing on the side.  The closest I got was this salad with eggs and cheese.  The creamy dressing was on the side all right but the greens were tossed in a generous serving of oil.  Once I even ordered a "lean gourmet salad" or Schlankschlemmersalat and received the same fare.  By the way, I did order it myself and handled the pronunciation amazingly well to the accolades of my fellow diners!
Solution:  I would keep trying.  Maybe if I asked for a salad without dressing rather than "on the side"?


3. Snacks.  They always involve meat, usually processed, fatty, and organ meats like liverwurst, and cheese and eggs.  These offerings look quite beautiful esthetically but you can see what I mean.

Thick chunks of cheese and meat, sausage and smoked bacon

A variety of cold cuts, bacon, eggs

Liverwurst, assorted pates of liver, fish and cheese

Then there are the comfort foods served by wonderful friends and family...

Weisswurst, (white sausage) and
fresh baked pretzels with beer at
Erika and Wolfgang's house

Wiener Schnitzel
 (traditional fried pork cutlet dish from Vienna)
lovingly made by Hermi Weitschegger

Solution:  eat all the veggies and sample the rest in very small portions and eat slowly sipping the wine and enjoying the lively Austrian music and conversation!


P.S. I chose not to address the dessert issue here....  

Chocolate Sachertorte, 
a popular torte originating in Vienna

frittierte Krapfen

Fresh home baked apple streudel!
That's me and Hermi

Apfelstrudel

Thirsty

A couple of months ago I realized I've been drinking less water.
 I was never an "eight glasses a day no matter what" person
 but I  often drank water if I felt tired, thirsty or hungry and it adds
 up over the day.  I may have figured out why I've been
 drinking less the past several months.



First, I'm consuming very little in the way of prepared foods including canned soups, frozen dinners or restaurant fare.  These all have a lot of salt.  Second, when so much of my diet comes from fresh produce I get a lot of fluids naturally from the food.   Does that sound like a reasonable explanation to you?

Garden Goodies

A co-worker brought some fresh produce from her garden into the office and I took full advantage.  I went home with three green peppers and 3 large zucchinis.  I grated two of the zukes and measured 2c portions into Ziploc bags for baking zucchini bread this winter.

I used the rest  of the veggies for Stuffed Peppers with Tomato Sauce.  The stuffing was shredded zucchini, carrots and baby bella mushrooms with brown rice, a few whole wheat bread crumbs and McCormick Perfect Pinch Mediterranean Herb seasoning.  I stuffed halved peppers and covered them with a sauce made with Progresso Hearty Tomato Soup.  I topped it with a sprinkle of grated Romano cheese and baked til bubbly.  I can think of lots of ways to vary this recipe with other grains, veggies and sauces but this was a great place to start!

Delicious Vegetarian Stuffed Peppers

Spinach Onion Tart

This was supposed to be kale but I used spinach.  The recipe was from one of McDougall's books which are usually good but this was really blah!  I should have followed my instincts and used more herbs and garlic in the veggies.  I would use my whole wheat pizza crust recipe next time, too.  This crust was made from scratch with whole wheat flour and yeast but no seasoning at all and  by the time it  browned was way too dried out.  It has potential so I'll try again some time.

Quick Main Dish

With fresh green beans and some leftover quinoa I set out to make some soup and thought this one came out pretty good.

Bring to a boil in a 2qt saucepan:
 4c cut up fresh green beans, 1/2 c cut up celery, a large chopped onion and 3-4c water

Lower heat, add seasonings and simmer 30 minutes:
 2T Tamari, 1tsp dried basil, 1 clove garlic, 1/2 tsp celery seed, fresh ground black pepper

Add 1c. cooked quinoa

Enjoy.

Baba Ganoush

I want to do some more experimenting with interesting combinations of nutritious foods but for now something simple...here's the lunch I packed for work tomorrow.  A baba ganoush spread on dark rye with shredded carrot and fresh spinach.

Baba Ganoush

Slice an eggplant in half lengthwise and roast on a cookie sheet at 400 degrees for about 30 min.  Or put on the grill whole or sliced until soft.

Place the eggplant, 2 cloves garlic, juice of 1-2 lemons, 1T tahini, and sea salt to taste in a food processor until smooth.  The original recipe calls for 1/4 c olive oil(!) but I skip the oil.  Good as a dip or a spread with raw veggies or pita bread.

Nutrient Sparse

Back to work today after a week off.  The table in the staff lounge was full of "treats".  Bagels, a (not a whole grain in sight), coffee cake with frosting, and scones.  The scones were made with whole wheat pastry flour, blueberries, and oranges but I'm sure the sugar and fat content were up there.  It feels like I'm the only one in the world trying to eat the nutritarian way.  I brought a banana, melon and leftover stir fry with brown rice for lunch.  But I had a half a scone, too.  It was good.

Silk Surprise

It's my day off.  I didn't want the same old hurried oatmeal or tea and toast I have on many work days.  I wanted a smoothie for breakfast and I was thinking decadent but nutritarian.  This is what I ended up with:

Combine in a blender:

12 oz Lite Chocolate Silk (soy milk)
1/2 c. cooked quinoa
1/2 c. blueberries
1/2 c. ice
I was resigned to eating it whether it was good or not and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was delicious!  I sipped it as I read my emails this morning and fully enjoyed my breakfast.





While I'm on the subject of Silk Lite Chocolate here's a favorite late night treat:  Mexican hot chocolate: 
 Start with Silk Lite chocolate soy milk and add some cinnamon, vanilla, and a tiny bit of cayenne pepper.  Heat in a mug in the microwave.  Yumm.

Quinoa Apple Smoothie

Photo M Wild Hansen
The color comes from cinnamon and red apple peel.  Yumm!

I really just wanted to publish this smoothie idea but felt I needed to give credit to Paulina Vásquez from Bolivia and call attention to her circumstances as well.
  From the NYTimes article:

" Paulina Vásquez, 52, a housekeeper and mother of three children in their 20s who live with her in a poor district on a steep mountainside of La Paz, sows the crop each year on her family’s land outside the city. The packaged quinoa found in supermarkets is beyond what her family can afford.

quinoa preparation process

Instead, they harvest their own, store it and then prepare it by hand, a painstaking process that includes washing away the resinlike saponin coating that protects the seeds. Sra. Vásquez regularly prepares a sweet drink of quinoa, apple, cinnamon and sugar for her family for breakfast.

But she says many in the younger generation have moved away from it. “People my age and older are eating quinoa,” Ms. Vásquez said. “The young people don’t want it. If there is a pot of noodles everyone is there, as if noodles were nutritious. Even my children are that way.”

For the recipe:
 I used 1/2 c. cooked quinoa, 2 small cored red apples, 1 t. cinnamon, 1/2t. nutmeg
 Blend into a smoothie with a little soy milk 
 I thought it was delicious without sweetening but you could add a little maple syrup.

 Also see Quinoa Quandary

Quinoa Quandary

women weighing quinoa at a market in Bolivia 

The irony of it all.  Bolivians and other Andes South Americans have been thriving on quinoa for centuries(dating back to the Incas) but now that it's becoming a popular food worldwide for it's complete set of amino acids (complete protein) as well as many other vital nutrients it has become unaffordable to many of those same Andean people.

a chinopod (like beets and spinach), quinoa is a seed, not a grain

I first heard of quinoa about five years ago and used it mainly as a side dish or breakfast cereal until a few months ago when I "went nutritarian" and saw its value as a complete protein in main dishes.  It turned up in the United States decades ago when NASA found it was an ideal food for long term space missions.  Until recently I could only find it in health food stores but now it's available in my supermarket.  With this increase in demand many of the farmers' incomes have risen but they either can't afford quinoa at the new prices or their children prefer noodles or rice.   While quinoa prices tripled in the last five years Bolivia's consumption of it declined almost 35% in the same time period.  What a quandary - local farmers earn more but fewer Bolivians reap quinoa's nutritional benefits!  

Read the NYTimes.com article on this topic.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

TVP instead of ground beef in Spaghetti sauce?  Great!

Vegetable dippers instead of corn or potato chips?  Great!

Grilled seasoned portabella instead of a hamburger?  Great!

Hummus instead of chocolate chip cookie dough?  I DON'T THINK SO!

I actually enjoy coming up with new ideas for eating nutritarian and have found lots of great ideas for substitutes for old favorites but this one did not work for me.  The photo looks just like cookie dough,  does it not?  Very deceiving.  I suppose if I added more sugar, salt, nut butter, chocolate chips....but then I might as well just have the real deal.  I'll stick to fruit for my sweets for now.  In case you don't believe me here's the recipe; you can try it for yourself.

My Irish Eyes are Smiling

St. Patrick's Day is the perfect time to celebrate GREEN food!    I made a few snacks to treat everyone at the office today.

- Cream of Broccoli Spinach Soup with quinoa, made with soy milk

- Kale Chips

- Zucchini Bread made with whole wheat flour, walnuts, and reduced sugar.  Applesauce and flax meal were used instead of oil.

P.S. It was all gone at the end of the day!

Quick Spanish Rice Salad

What can I do with 1/2 can leftover refried beans....

Quick Spanish Rice Salad

1/2 can vegetarian refried beans

1c of 5 minute brown rice

1 can diced tomatoes

1 red pepper, 1 onion chopped and sauteed 

Add chili powder and hot sauce or chopped chilies

Mix everything together and serve on a bed of chopped lettuce.  Top with thawed frozen corn.

If they don't ask, don't tell

I have found that the less I say about my eating style the easier it is to cook for people.  I suppose that should be obvious but it worked well yesterday.  My 91 yr. old lunch guest yesterday thoroughly enjoyed the Pea Soup I made without knowing that I did not start with a ham bone or add bacon and there were tons of other vegetables in it, including spinach.  She doesn't cook anymore but wanted to contribute so we stopped at an artisan bakery for a whole grain seeded loaf of bread.  I served it with a fruit salad (strawberries, blueberries, and grapes) but I could have incorporated the spinach by serving a green salad as an alternative.

Photo M Wild Hansen

Split Pea and Lentil Soup

Sautee` chopped onion, carrots, and celery in 2T white wine and as much vegetable broth as necessary.  Add the fresh spinach toward the end and as many other veggies as you can get away with or as you desire.

Cook split green peas and lentils in veggie broth and water about 30 min.   Season with Italian herbs (oregano, basil, parsley, bay...) and maybe some celery seed, black pepper and limited natural sea salt with minerals.  When the peas are tender add the veggies and smooth the mixture with a hand blender in the pot.  I like to leave a little texture to it so you can still see the carrots and celery.  Serve hot.

Note* I just saw a recipe online for pea soup with quinoa...intriguing.

Best Stir Fry

Photo M Wild Hansen

Bok Choy absolutely makes a stir fry.  It's my favorite ingredient so if I don't have anything but that I'll make it work.  Last night's stir fry was good.  Bok choy, onion, purple cabbage, carrots, portabella mushrooms, served over brown rice.  I sauteed the veggies in white wine and vegetable broth and added some black bean sauce from a jar.  It's fairly high in sodium but I only used a little and it adds mega flavor!

Beans, Beans, The Magical Fruit

I've always looked at beans as a good weight control food because they're so filling, high in fiber and low in fat but today's newsletter from Dr. Fuhrman's website extolls their virtues even more....

March 10, 2011

Dear Mary, Beans protect against colon cancer Colon cancer is the 3rd most common cancer in the United States, and it is the 2nd most deadly cancer.1 Proper nutrition can dramatically cut colon cancer risk. Numerous studies have found beans to significantly decrease the risk of colon cancer.2,3,4 A six year study tracking over 32,000 individuals found that those who ate beans, peas, or lentils only twice a week decreased their risk of colon cancer by 50%. If they cut their chance of colon cancer in half by eating beans twice a week, imagine the benefit of eating beans daily!  Beans' unique composition makes them a dietary wonder. Beans are rich in fiber and resistant starch and are not easily broken down by enzymes in the small intestine. They pass into the large intestine where bacteria ferment them into short chain fatty acids such as butyrate.6 Butyrate protects against colon cancer in many different ways:  • Butyrate halts cancer cell growth and causes cancer cell death.7 • Butyrate increases the expression of detoxifying enzymes and limits DNA damage due to oxidative stress.8 • Butyrate inhibits tumors from acquiring a blood supply.7 • Butyrate has anti-inflammatory affects.7 For more information go to Dr. Fuhrman's website here

Nutritarian Grocery Shopping

Grocery shopping is actually more enjoyable since I've been eating Nutritarian.  I spend the bulk of my time in the produce section, head over to the baking isle where I can find TVP, soy flour, 10-grain flour, flaxseed meal and whole wheat flour.  Then it's the canned goods and grains like various organic beans, canned tomatoes, quinoa, and whole grain pasta.  I get tofu and non-dairy milk in the dairy section, then breads like whole grain wraps and pita.  I find that the results of my modern day foraging is quite colorful and beautiful, so much so I actually took a picture today.   So eat colorful food!

"Compromise in Percentages"

Hummus with veggies

A weekend with company.  I cooked the first night and made veggie lasagna with whole wheat noodles, fat free sauce, mushrooms, tofu, other veggies.  I added fat free ricotta between the noodles and a
 low fat mozzarella on top.  Served with huge colorful salad and
 home baked multi-grain bread.  Snacks consisted of veggies,
 pita crisps, and baked corn chips dipped in black bean dip,
 hummus, and fresh salsa.
So far so good.  The second night Erich made one of his hometown specialties, and he makes it so well.  Wiener Schnitzel and risotto.   Wiener Schnitzel is an Austrian dish,  pork cutlets dipped in milk, flour, eggs, breadcrumbs and grated cheese and fried in oil.  The risotto was

Wiener Schnitzel

 made with oil and cheese.
Therein lies my dilemma.  I will not dine with my family and refuse
 to eat a beautiful meal made with love in order to be 100%  nutritarian.
There has to be a compromise. Can I do this 80% / 20%?
 Or 90% / 10%?   I think I'm going to have to.  Maybe the answer is
to join in but keep my portions small and fill up on salad.  I know vegans
who take their own food to dinner parties and family gatherings.  That
would have seemed so ant-social bordering on insulting to me not long ago.  What is the answer?  What do most nutritarians do?  Does Dr. Fuhrman dine with SAD proponents?  What does he do?  Take his own food?
Nine weeks and counting.....I'm still learning and adapting.

Eating on the Road

Trans-Canada Hwy 17

My boyfriend lives across an international border almost two and a half hours away so I spend a lot of time on the road.  Sometimes I plan ahead and sometimes I don't.  What do you do when you miss a meal and get hungry on the highway?  Stop at a fast food place?  A gas station?  A convenience store?  Well, believe it or not all of these usually have one of my favorite "on the road" meals - a dry salad.  I just eat it with my fingers like potato chips, no mess, no junk food.  Remember, we're talking Garden Salad here, no meat, no cheese, no dressing, no oily croutons!  Today I also happened to have a few almonds and a couple of really bad muffins-I-like-to-think-of-as-granola-bars with me to round out the lunch.  Not too shabby.  
 For more on the nutritarian muffins.

Did you say GREEN smoothies?

much prettier than my first green smoothie

Ninety nine percent of the people who know me know my favorite food is a chocolate malt.  So when I first heard of green smoothies I said, Nope.  Can't do this.  But I had two bags of fresh baby spinach in my fridge and was packing to go out of town for a long weekend.   Had to use up the spinach.  I put it in the blender with frozen strawberries and blueberries, some flax meal and a little water.  The blueberries must have made it darker because my smoothie was NOT the pretty green you see above.  It was decidedly brown.  In fact it looked so chocolately I added some cocoa powder.  Then of course it was a tad bitter so I added a little honey.  Maybe I reduced the nutrient density of my breakfast with the added honey but what about the antioxidants in the cocoa (fat and sugar free!).  Most importantly, it tasted great!

Statins, you have met the enemy and his name is veggies!

My main reason for trying the nutritarian way of eating is to lower my cholesterol levels enough to lower my heart disease risk and discontinue the statins (cholesterol lowering drugs) I currently take.


"Most people are not aware that scientific studies show that there is only one dietary profile that has ever been shown to lower cholesterol as powerfully as cholesterol lowering drugs; and that is my Eat To Live nutritional program, which gets the majority of it’s calories from high nutrient foods such as vegetables, fruits, beans and nuts and seeds. It is impossible to reduce cholesterol levels to the no risk point with a conventional diet....The known side effects for various statins (the most popular and effective medications to lower cholesterol) include hepatitis, jaundice, gastrointestinal upsets, muscle problems and a variety of blood complications such as reduced platelet levels and anemia." -Dr. Joel Fuhrman
http://drfuhrman.com

I'll never give up dessert!

I don't really miss sweets like I thought I would as I dove head first into nutritarian eating.  But I will never give up dessert altogether.  Not when there are so many nutritious choices.  One of my favorite quick desserts is my Quinoa Maple Pudding.  I recently discovered quinoa flakes at the Grain Train food co-op.  They cook in simmering water in only 90 seconds.  Add a pinch of sea salt and a spoonful of pure maple syrup and you have a two minute dessert with low glycemic carbohydrates, high quality protein, fiber and minerals.  The carb calories are there so I keep the portion small.

Kale Chips

Answer:   36 calories-worth of it contains five grams of fiber, 15 percent of the daily requirement of calcium and vitamin B6, 40 percent of magnesium, 180 percent of vitamin A, 200 percent of vitamin C and 1,020 percent of vitamin K. And that's before we get to the copper, potassium, iron, manganese and phosphorus.
Question:  What would the nutrition label say for KALE?

Kale Chips
Spray kale leaves lightly with oil and dust sparingly with sea salt. (Make sure they're dry so they crisp instead of steam.)  Bake in a 275 degree oven for 20 to 30 minutes.  Try other seasonings if you like.  Great as a snack or appetizer.  Serve pieces in a bowl or whole leaves standing up in a glass. Also good with spinach but bake for a shorter time.

Eating for Health

I just wanted to eat healthier, lose a few pounds and get off my cholesterol lowering drugs.  Little did I know it would turn into a new way of eating with major attitude adjustments and doubts about how far to take this.  The first month, not so bad.  I read Dr. Joel Fuhrman's set of healthy eating guidelines,  Eat for Health books I and II.  I went 80% vegan cutting out most meat and dairy, greatly increased my intake of leafy greens, and greatly decreased my intake of sugar, fat and salt.  The hardest part to get used to is the extreme lack of oil, even the "good" oils I used to use for roasting veggies, sauteing veggies, and making salad dressings.  I take that back - the hardest part is eating with other people.  Whether I'm eating at someone's house or in a restaurant it seems impossible to adhere to the guidelines.  The Standard American Diet, aptly abbreviated SAD in the books, is made up of all the things I try to avoid.

I ordered a veggie wrap and a salad at a restaurant last night.  I asked for the dressing on the side and no onions (raw onions are one of the few foods I really don't like).  I forgot to ask for no cheese so the salad and wrap were both loaded with it.  The dressing was on the side for the wrap but the salad was drenched in oily dressing.    The waitress forgot about the no onions request.  So while my friends were munching on hot wings and fries I tried to pick raw onion and cheese off my food and eat the top of the salad where it wasn't swimming in oil.  Oh, and the wrap was made with white flour.  Failure.

I need someone to tell me how to order in a restaurant without sounding like the "difficult patron" and how to eat at a friend's house without looking like the friend who "went over the edge".