Some of the Food I’ve Been Eating, Epilogue: Other Things I Fill my Belly With

Days 73 and 74

Here are some more bits and pieces of what I am eating. Again, this is not everything I eat, just the ones that appear on my grocery list the most often.

Bragg Liquid Aminos has a salty soy flavor and goes great on salads, bean dishes and etc. It’s a superb way to get those aminos in and add flavor to bland or repetitive meals at the same time.


Of course, veggie burgers are something a meatless diet has to encounter sooner or later. Slap one between whole grain bread or a roll and you’ve got a meal!

Oatmeal is good for more whole grain goodness and is great for your heart. I avoid getting any of the brands that are pre-flavored. It’s much healthier (and more fun) to add fresh fruit or cinnamon to it at home. That reminds me; tomorrow morning I should have cinnamon apple oatmeal! Why not?

I have gone meatless but the world will have to pry my daily fix of coffee from my cold, dead hands. My friend Audra suggested the above amino condiment as well as unsulphured blackstrap molasses, the latter of which I put in my coffee everyday. It is a great source of iron, magnesium and potassium and along with milk substitutes such as Rice Dream, Soy Slender and Almond Breeze; my coffee is an extra special treat to drink in the morning. Here’s a crafty coffee tip: brew some coffee the night before, add some chocolate soy milk, chill it in the fridge and in the morning you’ve got an even sweeter and cup of coffee.

Also, for days when I don’t want to have an extremely difficult time getting to bed at night, I drink green tea instead of coffee. I find the taste of regular green tea okay, but not especially flavorful. That’s why I jumped for genuine joy when I saw flavored green teas at my local supermarket—and on sale no less! I picked up green tea flavors blueberry, lemon, mango, mint, peach and, of course, pomegranate. Green tea has less caffeine than coffee and is full of antioxidants. If you want a healthy alternative to sodas or sugar-loaded juices then try some green tea!

Talk to you soon!
meatlessman@yahoo.com
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Some of the Food I’ve Been Eating, Part 3: Dairy (or Dairy Substitutes)

Day 69

So, dairy. Uh, yeah...dairy.

What can I possibly say about how I fulfill my daily dairy dosage? As longtime readers know, when I originally went meatless in November, it was just cutting out beef, pork, poultry, fish/seafood and whole eggs. On New Year’s Day I started to leave out dairy products too. If you want more details on this new wrinkle in my diet go here and here.

Before I cut true dairy out of my diet, I mainly got my share of it from 2% milk and the Chobani brand of Greek yogurt. Of course pomegranate was my favorite flavor of the Chobani. Whenever I bought some I tried to get as much of the pomegranate flavor as I could. Not an easy feat because some stores in my area didn’t always stock the pomegranate kind, so whenever I saw that particular variation of the brand on the shelf I bought every one in sight. Yeah, I know, “Jason, leave some pomegranate Chobani for the rest of us!” Sorry, but it is really (BLEEP)n’ good yogurt and I make no apologies whatsoever for hoarding this tantalizing treat.

So there.



When I told my family I was giving up dairy for the year they groaned. My brother-in-law told me I was going to get sick. Not so. As with meat, you can find plenty of good stand-in foods that give you the same vitamins and nutrients as the real deal.

So, on New Year’s Day I began to get my fill of dairy via substitutes such as Rice Dream, an enriched milk substitute fortified with Vitamins A, D, B12 and calcium, and calcium supplements themselves. The Rice Dream goes great in my coffee at home and whenever I buy some java in the outside world I first see if they have any non-dairy creamer. If not, then I just take it black.



There, that wasn’t so difficult, now was it?

Talk to you soon!
meatlessman@yahoo.com
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Some of the Food I’ve Been Eating, Part 1: Fruits

Day 67

(I dedicate the “Some of the Food I’ve Been Eating” series to my friend Sunny who has been eagerly awaiting it.)

Many of you have asked what foods I’ve been devouring ever since I went meatless back on November 2nd. This entry is the first of a four part series and each part will focus on a different food group; fruits, meats/proteins, dairy (which I was still consuming before I cut that group out on New Year’s), and, of course, vegetables. These entries will not cover all the foods that have been in my diet these past eight weeks, just the ones I eat most often that have become my staples in this eating experiment.

Whenever I prepare my meals I like to include a serving of fruit. They are great for giving you the energy you need to function throughout the day and they have antioxidants. I prefer to eat them in their whole form as opposed to guzzling fruit juices that have less fiber and are usually loaded with sugars. Go with fruit in its whole form; it just feels better. Trust me on this one folks.

I purchased my first pomegranate a few weeks ago and cut it in half as soon as I got home. I am a sucker for products that are flavored with pomegranate (even artificially) such as grenadine, pomegranate teas, chocolate with pomegranate flavoring and etc. I was always curious as to what the fruit would look like halved and how the insides of a real pomegranate would taste.

The interior of the pomegranate I brought home looked like it contained all these tiny rubies with seeds inside of them that are surrounded by fibrous matter that looks like white latex. I removed all the “tiny rubies” or arils, as they are properly referred to, from the white matter and filled a good size tupperware (I refuse to capitalize tupperware no matter what my spell checker says) container with them and put the container in the fridge. Over the course of the next few days I kept on going back to the container to have some of the arils with my meals. They are very tasty but pomegranates are expensive, $2.50 for just one of them. Pomegranates are not something I can afford to consume on a weekly basis no matter how much you can get out of one.

Bananas have always been something I have loved but I find that they most often don’t make it through the week, no matter how early in their life cycle I purchase them. I love them but when they start turning brown I leave them be.

Apples are the fruit I munch on most often. If I get the organic ones from Trader Joe’s I find they are bigger, fresher, crisper, firmer and even tastier than anywhere else. The real kicker is that the Trader Joe’s apples are better priced than anywhere else and have a longer shelf life too. I pay 49 to 69 cents each for Gala and Granny Smith apples at Trader Joe’s. I bought two the other day from a mainstream supermarket and paid $1.97 for them. They were a higher price at lower quality. Go figure.

One last thing about fruits, beware of the “superfoods” label. This is a label I believe the produce industry has put on some particular fruits and veggies claiming that they are even healthier than less expensive fruits such as apples or strawberries. Pomegranates, coconuts and other more exotic fruits have been slapped with this label but many fruits that are not considered “superfoods” can be just as packed with vitamins and minerals as the so called “superfoods”. A 49 cent apple a day is just as effective at keeping a doctor away as a pomegranate that is $2.50 a pop.

Talk to you soon!
meatlessman@yahoo.com
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