Living Without Meat

Some runners seem to get obsessed with drinking neon-colored, salty, sugary liquids packed with extra electrolytes. I am interested running not only for a personal fitness challenge but because I care about my health, and I don’t want to have to sacrifice my nutrition for my fitness. So I am looking for natural, healthier options for rehydrating.

Browsing the shelves of Giant, I found Liv Organic Sports Drink, an additive- and high fructose corn syrup-free drink that promises a longer lasting, less spastic energy boost and a much better flavor. It comes in four flavors - lemon, berry, orange, and citrus passion. I tried the citrus passion and it had a very refreshing, light texture and taste.

The other natural option that I have tried is coconut water, the liquid that comes out when you crack open a coconut. It comes packaged in single serving juice box-style containers and has the same electrolyte makeup as our body. I am not crazy about it plain, but it makes for a great smoothie base.

There are also other options available that I haven’t tried yet …

Nature’s Flavors’ REBOOST Organic Isotonic Energy Drink is natural and organic. It comes as a powder, with ten different fruit flavors including cherry, kiwi strawberry, and pina colada, that you mix into water for an energy- and electrolyte-filled drink.

Recharge is made of absolutely 100 percent natural fruit juices that “replenish the fluids and electrolytes your body needs after working out without adding sugar or unnatural flavors and colors.”

Then, if you really want to get natural and avoid pre-packaged drinks all together, you could also try making your own. Check out Kitchen Table Medicine for a recipe to make yourself a homemade sports drink.

I am studying to become a certified group fitness instructor. At this point, I am reading through Fitness: Theory & Practice, the Aerobics and Fitness Association of America’s (AFAA) text book. As I was reading chapter 2, “Energy Production During Exercise,” I came across something very exciting to me as a vegan.

The book was explaining how there are three main things that your body can use to make energy: carbs, fats and protein. There were several pages about the body’s breaking down of carbs into energy, and another few about the process of breaking down fat. Then it came to the section on protein. There was only one paragraph, and here is how it started:

“Finally, a brief word about the use of protein as fuel is in order. Protein usually does not provide more than 10 to 15 percent of the total energy requirement of an activity. As such, protein does not play as significant role as carbohydrate or fat as a fuel for exercise. … It is obviously not advantageous to use this source for fuel during exercise.”

The paragraph goes on the put the difference between the three components into perspective. It says that one unit of carbohydrate can produce 38 units used for energy; one unit of fat, 147 units; and one unit of protein, a measly 15 units.

That’s one point for vegans and vegetarians in the great protein debate.

Unfortunately, I did not get out to the pool yet. Being an independent contractor, I do not necessarily get holidays off - only if I can rework my week’s schedule to get 40 hours another way. So today, as everyone else was sleeping in and lounging around the pool, I started my morning bright and early with some online animal advocacy work.

I did, however, still enjoy some relaxing time this afternoon: My roommate and I traveled to my favorite grocery store (a Giant with a huge organic, vegan, and gluten free section) for a mega food stock up. We have several meals planned for the next week now, and even came home and cooked a delicious Asian stir-fry.

We sauteed onions, red peppers, snow peas, and baby corn in a little oil. After a few minutes we added some Iron Chef General Tso’s Sauce - one of the few premade Asian sauces without any high fructose corn syrup - covered the wok with a lid and finished steaming the veggies. We also heated up some It’s All Good Veggie Beef Skewers. Served as shown here with the chopsticks that roommate bought me for Christmas, it was a delightful dinner!

After dinner we went out to enjoy the evening, me running and her biking, and both of us stretching, meditating, and showering to cool down.

For dessert, I whipped up one of my famous smoothies using frozen strawberries, Nasoya’s new Silken Creations in dark chocolate, and Bolthouse Farms’ soy protein chai drink. You’re supposed to garnish with flavors that the taster can expect to taste, but I didn’t have any fresh strawberries so raspberries had to do, with a touch of chocolate sprinkles.

And of course, I ended my day with more work. But, if nothing else, it was a very delicious, vegan Memorial Day.

It’s destined to be another veg-tastic weekend for me … and a very busy one!

I spent most of my working day Friday hand writing and addressing personal thank you cards to people who attend the Humane Leagues’s walkathon on May 2. After work, I had dinner with a number of friends as we welcomed Jon Camp of Vegan Outreach into town. We ate at Govinda’s, an all-veg restaurant. I shared a chicken cheese steak, french fries, and ice cream with my roommate.

Tomorrow, Saturday, I am headed back to the Seventh-day Adventist church that I recently discovered for their Sabbath service and a potluck lunch.

Sunday is the biggest day - I will be heading up to New York City for the Veggie Pride Parade!

On top of all this, I have decided that my 5K race was so successful that I am going to start training for a half marathon - that’s 13.1 miles! After reading an awesome book - The Nonrunner’s Marathon Guide for Women: Get Off Your Butt and On with Your Training by Dawn Dais - I started my training today with a 35 minute run around a local, hilly neighborhood. Tomorrow, I am scheduled for another 35 minutes, and Sunday for a rest day.

From there, I will slowly increase the time that I run four days a week, with two rest days and one day for cross training. Eventually, I will start tracking my runs by number of miles. Looking ahead and seeing a six mile run in just ten weeks doesn’t intimidate. Instead, I look at it and think: “In ten weeks I’ll be able to run six miles!”

Have a great weekend; I look forward to telling you all about my many veg-ventures!

Today was not my average Suzy Homemaker Sunday; it took a dose of steroids today.

I woke up just past 5 a.m. to meet up with friends and head out to the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure 5k run in Philadelphia. It was the first run where I ran the whole thing! With a brief pit stop at the one-mile porta-potties, I still came in just at 30 minutes.

In the past, getting up this early and expending this much energy would have required I nap the rest of the day, but not anymore! After a short recoup on the couch, I headed into town with my roommate. A few errands and some grocery shopping later, we ended up tiring of waiting for the bus and walked the mile and a half home … where we made awesome vegan pizza from scratch!

I followed the same pizza dough recipe for my bread maker that I have used in the past, only with a bit of rye flour, garlic powder, and dried oregano mixed in. I rolled it out as flat as I could, covering a rectangular baking sheet, and topped it with pesto, slices of fresh tomato, and sauteed portabello mushrooms.

Once we devoured the pizza, setting aside a few slices for lunch tomorrow, my roommate brought out a locally made shoo fly pie - that just happened to be vegan - that she found at a farmers’ market. Being the weekend between our birthdays, we stuck a few candles in it and sang to ourselves before devouring that, too.

With a belly full of delicious veg food and feet that never want to walk again, I am sure to sleep well tonight!

One of the many illogical responses when the topic turns to the vegetables is, “I used to be vegetarian, but my doctor told me I should stop.”

I always assumed this was bogus and just a case of average medical doctors, with no nutritional training or education, trying to encourage people to conform to the “norm.” I imagine that most docs that profess the veggie diet to be an unhealthy one are just mistaken and ill-informed. I doubt that they have deviously planned intentions to turn all vegetarians back into meat-eaters.

Veggie diets can be healthy or unhealthy, just as meat-based ones can be either. Jack Norris RD recently asked, “Are There Medical Conditions Requiring Animal Foods?“ And he subsequently answered, “there are some conditions which might make it difficult to eat a normal vegan diet, such as having herpes, being allergic or intolerant of soy or wheat, and having trouble absorbing iron.”

So next time someone tells you that they cannot medically be a vegetarian, ask if they are allergic. If not, assume that they have herpes.

“What’s good for the bitch is good for the bastard,” claims Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin about their newest addition - Skinny Bastard: A Kick-in-the-Ass for Real Men Who Want to Stop Being Fat And Start Getting Buff - to the Skinny Bitch empire.

Freedman and Barnouin found that it wasn’t just the ladies that wanted to learn about getting in shape by following a vegan diet. Men, including pro athletes Milwaukee Brewers’ Prince Fielder and the Dallas Mavericks’ Jerry Stackhouse, were caught reading Skinny Bitch and going vegan! The skinny authors set out this time to prove that the “meat and potatoes” diet is anything but manly because “eating well shouldn’t be a ‘girlie’ thing.”

Get yourself - or your man - his own copy when it releases on April 27.

Plenty of “duh!” research study results presented in the medical and vegan news worlds lately.

First up, it has been confirmed that meat and mortality are in fact related. (Let me here the resounding “duh,” my veg friends.) After studying more than half a million people, the medical team determined that “high intakes of red or processed meat may increase the risk of mortality.” Read the full scientific study report by clicking here.

Next we move to the animal realm to learn from Ireland’s Queen’s University that … get ready for this mind-blowing announcement … “crabs not only suffer pain but retain a memory of it.” And again, “duh!” Click here to read the BBC News article.

Even though these results offer no new knowledge to most compassionate people, it is certainly helpful to have scientists backing us up. Now hopefully these studies were all performed without any animal testing.

I am embarrassed to confess that I just watched some of E!’s 101 Celebrity Slimdowns, but I have to admit that in order to share some of the awesome things that the comedians and fitness pros said.

At least two people included on the list - Alicia Silverstone and Tobey Maguire - had veganism connected to their weight change (I am proud to say that I did not watch all 101 weighty stories). Alicia went from average girl skinny to celebrity woman skinny when she became vegan. On the flip side of the scale, Tobey’s story was about how he muscled up for his role as Spider-Man.

It’s more accepted by the general public (read: non-veg folks) that vegans are skinny than that vegans can be ripped. So I was certainly pleased when the commentators response was fairly positive.

Two male comedians commented went for the easy target, tofu, but did so in a very animal rights-ish way: Tofu is nasty. I mean, not as nasty as killing, plucking, cooking, and eating an animal, but it’s pretty nasty (quote paraphrased from memory).

Aussie speaker, trainer, and nutritionist Susan Powter pointed out that it is harder, but not impossible to gain muscle mass on a purely plant-based diet: People think you can’t bulk up and can’t get protein from a vegan diet, but they’re wrong (again, paraphrased from instant recall).

If you still don’t believe that you can lose fat and gain muscle on a strict vegan diet, check out these pages:

* VeganFitness.net
* Vegan Bodybuilding blog and Vegan Bodybuilding Web site
* The Vegan Fitness Team

When I was a child, my mom offered tea as the end all solution to any ailment, but I failed to buy into her warm, comforting, herbal remedy. Now, however, I drink at least two or three large mugs of tea each day - green tea in the a.m. and chamomile for the p.m. I’m not sure where it comes from, but there is a definite connection between being vegetarian and being addicted to hot tea. So if you, like most of veg heads that I know, live for a mug of tea check out the online tea-themed articles by Vegetarian Times magazine. You’ll never believe how much interesting stuff there is to read about tea!

* Health’s In the Tea Bag

* Chamomile Tea with Cranberry and Ginger

* Foods and News That Fight Colds and Flu

* What’s Brewing … recipes that incorporate tea!

To keep up with Veg Times online features, sign up for the free My Vegetarian Times newsletter.

For the first time ever, the government wants to know how many children are vegetarian. The recent federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study on kids that choose not to consume meat estimated that about 367,000, or 1 in 200, American children follow a meat-free diet. Other surveys suggest that those numbers may be even higher among teens and older children that have more control over what they eat. Previous surveys have found that vegetarians are most often female, from higher-income families, and living on the East or West coasts.

The CDC’s method included asking about 9,000 parents and other adults speaking on the behalf of those under 18 about their children’s eating habits.

Nicole Nightingale, 14, says she went online to read about chicken, but instead came across a video showing chickens being slaughtered. From there she visited PETA.org, and then decided to become vegan.

The Associated Press speculates that “adolescent vegetarianism seems to be rising, thanks in part to YouTube animal slaughter videos that shock the developing sensibilities of many U.S. children.”

“Compassion for animals is the major, major reason,” said Richard Schwartz, president of Jewish Vegetarians of North America, an organization with a newsletter mailing list of about 800. “When kids find out the things they are eating are living animals — and if they have a pet….”

The AP wrote up a great article about veggie kids which provided the information for this post: First U.S. Count Finds 1 in 200 Kids are Vegetarian. Here’s my favorite excerpt:

Eating vegetarian can be very healthy — nutritionists often push kids to eat more fruits and vegetables, of course. For growing children, however, it’s important to get sufficient amounts of protein, vitamins B12 and D, iron, calcium and other important nutrients that most people get from meat, eggs and dairy.

Also, vegetarian diets are not necessarily slimming. Some vegetarian kids cut out meat but fill up on doughnuts, french fries, soda or potato chips, experts said.

“Is a vegan diet healthy?” is a common question, particularly amongst people contemplating a change. Here are answers from four popular, non-vegan, Q&A Web sites, columns, and health resources.

CNN diet and fitness expert Dr. Melina Jampolis says:
“Overall, vegan diets (diets containing no animal products) can be very healthy. They are generally much lower in saturated fat and cholesterol than animal-based diets, which include meat, eggs and dairy. Research suggests that replacing a percentage of the saturated fat in your diet with plant-based proteins such as beans, tofu, and nuts can significantly reduce a number of heart disease risk factors including high blood pressure and high cholesterol. In addition, several studies have found that very low meat consumption is associated with a significantly lower risk of death. …”

The Mayo Clinic says:
“A well-planned vegetarian diet is a healthy way to meet your nutritional needs. … Adopting a healthy vegetarian diet isn’t as simple as scraping meat off your plate and eating what’s left. You need to take extra steps to ensure you’re meeting your daily nutritional needs. …”

Healthline says:
“… A well-planned vegan diet can be nutritionally adequate, even for children and pregnant and lactating women. However, it is important that wise food selections are made. …”

And USASearch.gov, the search engine for all governmental departments, says:
“Did you mean began diet”?

Most of these, except for the ever helpful government, sum up my thoughts. Simply following vegan guidelines of leaving out animal products will not constitute a healthy, nutritious diet. There are plenty of junk foods that are vegan. But, a healthy vegan diet has been proven to have more health benefits and less related problems than a healthy meat-based one.

To help grasp what constitutes a “healthy” vegan diet, here is a vegan food pyramid from the Vegan Coach.

I don’t mention the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, commonly called PCRM, as much as I should. They are a wonderful, intelligent nonprofit based out of Washington, D.C., whose name accurately explains their mission.

PCRM covers the health and animal rights aspects of veganism, connecting both to medicine: Having a healthy lifestyle is promoted as a form of preventive medicine. Unethical research methods are strongly opposed and alternatives are promoted.

If you sign up for PCRM’s mailing list, you will receive notices about their campaigns, including action alerts through which you can sign and send letters to politicians with a simple click of your mouse. One recent PCRM campaign opposes the cruel use of animals for military training. Here’s an excerpt from an e-mail about this:

In trauma training courses, the military is shooting pigs in the face, repeatedly exposing monkeys to a neurotoxin, and amputating goats’ legs with gardening tools. This animal use violates the Department of Defense’s (DOD) own animal welfare regulation, which states that, “Alternative methods to the use of animals must be considered and used if such alternatives produce scientifically valid or equivalent results to attain the research, education, training, and testing objectives.” Nonanimal methods are widely available and can handle every aspect of military medical training. These methods range from high-tech simulators to commonsense approaches, like the use of military and civilian trauma centers.

Go check out PCRM online now and find several animal-friendly holiday e-cards like the one shown here. Click on the card shown to see and send the other seven e-cards.

When the news hit yesterday that Alicia Silverstone is writing a book about veganism called The Kind Diet, I could not have been more excited. I did not think it was possible for me to be disappointed related to this publishing announcement. However, I am.

While the book sounds phenomenal - read more about the theory and recipe book at Ecorazzi - it is being published by Rodale, which is where my disappointment enters.

I work by day as an editor, and have considered applying for a job at Rodale numerous times. As a job with this healthly lifestyle-based publishing company would mean a move away from the city of Philadelphia, I have not applied (yet). But just think! If I had applied, and they had hired me, I could be working on Alicia Silverstone’s vegan book!

Alas, I must wait with the rest of the world for The Kind Diet to release next fall to catch a glimpse of the knowledge this once Clueless beauty has to offer.

“The book explores the connection between what we put in our bodies and what we’re doing to the planet, and how choosing the right foods in the kitchen can help you feeling lighter, sexier, and more alive than you ever thought possible,” according to Rodale’s press release. “The book will include a three-step diet program and 75 vegan and macrobiotic recipes.”

Rodale has been a strong force in healthy books and magazines. In the past, the company turned out Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth and Eat This, Not That! by David Zinczenko and Matt Goulding. Rodale’s magazines include Men’s Health, Prevention, Women’s Health, Runner’s World, Best Life, Bicycling, Running Times, and Organic Gardening.

Maybe one day, when my current apartment’s lease is nearing an end, I’ll man up and send Rodale my resume and then I too can get a sneak peak editing awesome vegan books.

I went to a chiropractor today in hopes of alleviating some back and neck and hip and … ok, some pain. And for the first time ever a doctor congratulated me on my healty choice to become vegan! He also lent me a raw food book as, although I will probably never eat 100 percent raw, I love learning about nutrition. I’ve only read the first few pages so far, but already I’m learning so much!

Aside from the fascinating enzyme talk (I swear, no sarcasm. Raw foodies’ enzymes theories are truly interesting), I found a good comeback for when non-vegetarians try to argue that eating plants is murder too, because, you know, the plant dies.

By eating plants, you are continuing their life, creating a circle. Most edible plants wilt and fade rather quickly. When you eat them, your body absorbs their enzymes, processes and uses them to aid in digestion. The plants then pass through your body and return to the earth.

Yes, one could argue that eating animals also creates a circle of life. Fruits and vegetables, however, have a significantly different life expectancy, etc. than animals.

More to come!