Nutritional Yeast

I realized I have not yet let you in on a fabulous little thing called nutritional yeast.

Nutritional yeast is a flaky substance
 
You can sprinkle it on top of popcorn and it really tastes good.  I air pop my popcorn and then sprinkle this on top.  It looks like you can use it in a lot of things.  I have yet to explore other things, but it sure is good on popcorn.  The thing about popcorn is that it qualifies as a healthy whole grain; but if you add oil, salt and butter, it negates the nutritional quality.  Try it out!

I made more of the soup today as I was working from home this afternoon.  I made it and then ate a bunch which might not be good for me later on.  It just tastes so good!  It is my new food addiction, so I suppose that is better than Hostess cupcakes!

I was working from home because I had my doctors appointment to take wider margins from my arm.  As if it is not weird enough to have a heart attack, now this is weirder.  Turns out the pathology made its way all the way to the Mayo Clinic for the last reading which conveniently says: "This is an unusual vascular proliferation.  Although this may be a benign vascular proliferation with reactive changes, it is difficult to completely exclude a low-grade vascular neoplasm.  Complete re-excision of the lesion is recommended as well as clinical follow up."  What this basically means is they have no idea what it is and that I am just weird!

On the subject of weird, I love the weird characters in this show:


If you don't know what show this is, you should check it out.  Completely hysterical--The Big Bang Theory.  I love Sheldon!

It is not bitter cold this weekend and the youngest kids in our clan are at their dad's house.  I think tomorrow night will be food shopping and food day on Saturday.

Odds and Ends

Since I am new to the whole blogging thing, I have spent a little time on my page tonight.  I have an about me page, a page that links to all the blogs I follow and a recipe page.  Feel free to share your recipes.  Remember, if you expect me to try them, they have to be simple enough that I don't kill myself in the kitchen trying them!  

A word to the wise about the soup I made the other day.  It was awesome and I am proudly displaying my self given kitchen Grammy for that one:)  The problem is when you combine cooked cabbage, the other veggies and Tabasco sauce, it acts as a diuretic.  Beware of eating too much of it!

Back to the doc tomorrow to have wider margins removed off the spot on my arm.  They don't know exactly what it is after several pathologists, so this is just to be on the safe side.  You can bet that I will not be discussing nutrition with him!

I continue to get unsolicited advice about the fact that being vegan is going to kill me.  If I hadn't had the heart attack, I would not have chosen this.  Fact is, they need to get over it.  This is the decision I have made.  It is what is driving this blog. I figured this was a good place to share because if you are reading you want to follow.  If you think I will kill myself my not eating meat, then don't read.  This is the place to follow along with my triumphs and failures if you want.  The triumph of the great, diuretic soup and the failure of still drinking soda.

Yes, I am still drinking soda.  It is my only vice left.  It is like an addiction.  I have been able to stop coffee, the chronic over eating, I don't drink alcohol hardly ever, I just drink soda.  Again, tomorrow we will see.  I think I will lose weight faster if I stop drinking the soda.  It is about a six week countdown to my ACM trip to Vegas with my girlfriends, so bring on the motivation!  After all, who wants to have the skinny bitch hiding if you were to accidentally bump into some country music stars!

Great Day in the Kitchen

WooooHoooo!!  Success in the kitchen today.  That is so rare for me that I deserve a kitchen Grammy on Grammy Awards day.  Back when I was a carnivore,  I made a great vegetable beef soup that my kids loved too.  I put a roast in the crock pot, covered it with a can of tomato juice and added potatoes, carrots and cabbage.  After it cooked all day, I shredded the roast and boiled some egg noodles to put in it.  My secret ingredient was just enough Tabasco sauce to give it a little kick.

Today it is bitter cold in Kansas and we are expecting snow tonight.  I am secretly hoping for enough snow that the kids have a snow day so I can justify working from home tomorrow and not driving 45 minutes or better on very slick roads in the morning!  Anyway, today was food day--usually I do Saturday, but I took pics of 5 different kids yesterday, so that makes today food day.  I was really, really craving my vegetable beef soup.  So, I had some low sodium tomato juice in the cabinet and I decided to go for it without the beef.  I poured the can of tomato juice (large can, not the soda sized cans) and added about 2 cups of water into a big pot, chunked up the head of red cabbage I had, cut up some carrots and potatoes and threw in a bag of frozen corn.  For spices I used cumin, garlic cloves, low sodium vegetable bullion, dried onion (only because I don't like onion pieces in my soup--weird I know) and quite a bit of Tabasco sauce to give it just the kick I love.  I discovered kale this week so I put some kale in for its mega vitamin and mineral boost.  I will have to admit, when I was ready to eat the soup, I fished the kale back out because it looks disgusting cooked.  The soup could not have turned out better--it totally hit the spot and  tasted just like the old soup without the meat and noodles.  That makes a great kitchen Grammy day!

On the subject of kale, I have found in all my reading and research that this seems to be a kill many birds with one stone veggie; tons of vitamins and minerals ( I'll bet my family doc would never eat it--Mr. nutrition king!).  I got it to put in my leafy green salads.  It has a flavor that I really like.  I try to keep challenging myself to try new veggies and fruits that I have always thought sounded gross.  I am pleasantly surprised that I have liked some of them so far.  Just as I found I love pomegranates, it seems they are no longer in season--sucks!  I liked bok choy.  I bought a couple artichokes and cooked them today.  They smelled bad while they were cooking and I didn't like them.  I bought them because I like artichoke hearts on my salad but they all seemed to be jarred in oil.  The actual artichoke has very little artichoke heart and I didn't like the rest of it.  I did try it even though I felt stupid because I had to look up online how to eat it.  I just didn't care for it--I'll never be able to get past the smell.

As the new lifestyle continues, I surprise even myself with the ease at which I have taken to it.  Yay!

Fat Free Vegan

I found this great blog and this entry sums up what I am doing:

Fat Free Vegan

It has some great recipes and I can get lost reading all of them!

My Family Doc

I waited until this week to write about my doctors visit until I let my conversation with him sink in a little.  I needed some time to mull it over.  Last week I went to the doc to have an ugly spot taken off my arm.  A couple of gals my age that I know have had skin cancer removed.  We were the last generation that soaked in the sun in baby oil.  So, when I see a spot that looks odd, I have it checked out.  Tuesday morning I missed my every Tuesday managers meeting to go meet with the doc.  I showed him the spot and he agreed that it looked really ugly.  He set me up on Wednesday to remove it.  He couldn't do it Tuesday because he needed to schedule more time because I take Plavix and aspirin --both blood thinners.  He warned me it was going to be an ugly mess to cut me open.  They did remove it Wednesday and the first pathologist couldn't tell what it is, so I await the results from a second level pathologist (I had no idea there were different levels of pathologists!). 

So, while he was looking at my skin I mention that my psoriasis is gone.  He asked what I was doing different because psoriasis is an auto immune disease and it never just goes away.  I am all proud of myself as I tell him about going to a plant based, whole grain diet.  What does he do?  He turns his nose up at the thought that my diet made my psoriasis clear up.  He starts trying to pin it back to taking blood thinners saying that now I have better circulation and it could be tied to that.  Really???  Although I am no doctor, having struggled with psoriasis for 13 years I have done a lot of research on it; nowhere does it say psoriasis is a circulatory disease.  I have tried every over the counter and prescription cream there is to no avail.  All of my research pointed at a list of foods that could make it worse and I ate all of them.  When I stopped eating them for heart health, this was a very pleasant side effect.

Now that I know that my family doc thinks the plant based diet is goofy, I will still see him for other things because I like him but my diet will not be open for discussion with him.  I think he knows diddly about nutrition!  He said about the same thing as the folks I want to punch about needing to eat meat.  Now, what I know from my research is that your body produces all of the cholesterol it needs all on its own.  The problem with eating the meat and dairy is that animals create cholesterol.  So, where do you get all the extra cholesterol in your diet?  Meat and dairy=added cholesterol =bad cholesterol=much increased likelihood of heart attack. Having had a heart attack, I think I'll avoid the added cholesterol--thank your medical degree very much.  I have less tolerance this week than last week for those that think I need meat.  They don't know how good I feel these days!

In the end, the fact that my psoriasis is gone is a good enough benefit for me to continue with this lifestyle.  I also know though that the benefits will be far reaching beyond just the psoriasis.

I am still drinking a very little bit of soda--tomorrow is another day.  The other hurdle--start exercising.  That will start this weekend.

I put on a size smaller jeans this morning:)

Nine in 10 U.S. adults get too much sodium every day

Here is another article on sodium.  I like that Kraft is reducing the sodium in their foods, but by 10%???  Give me a break!  The sodium in prepackaged food and in cheese is already so high that 10% barely begins to help anyone.  If Kraft reduced it by 90%, they would be on to something.  Of course, if they did that they would lose market share--the average American would not think it tasted good.   I thought that when I first started this journey.  The fact is, I have gotten used to much, much less salt and I am still living:)

Super Bowl Sunday

This weekend consisted of to going to Walmart.  I now shop mainly the produce section.  I shop the canned vegetable aisle too because I much prefer canned beans to the ones you soak.  This is because I don't do salt, so the canned ones make up the majority of where I get my sodium.   One thing I have learned is that I love pomegranates.  They are really a pain to eat, but worth it.  They are very sweet, so they tend to satisfy my sweet tooth.

I took my no oil tortillas and cut them up and put them in the dehydrator--they make tortilla chips. It satisfies my chips and salsa craving. The only thing missing is rotel dip.  If there is one thing that I really miss with this new lifestyle, it is cheese.  In specific, nacho cheese dip.  In my previous life, this was a food group all by itself.  There is nothing that can take its place.  I making peace with it though--I am down 12 pounds after 5 weeks and on my way to heart health.  I can't remember a previous super bowl Sunday that there was not rotel dip in my house.  This year, there is no rotel dip.

Maybe or maybe not on the subject of nutrition, best half-time show in recent history.  At 53, Madonna is one fabulous skinny bitch.  She was awesome!  I don't care who wins today, but she was worth watching.  Over on FB, it seems folks either loved or hated the show and I so loved it!  So, since I don't care who wins, if you do--may your team win:)

Go Red For Women Day

Today is the national Go Red For Women Day to promote heart health for women and to raise awareness that heart disease is the number one killer of women in our country.

Go check out the short film:
Facebook Go Red Film

Office Food Day and Being Young

Today was office food day.  My good friend made fabulous ribs.  Of course, I am not eating them.  I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to get enjoyment just from smelling them.  The Mr. Goodcents sandwiches looked good too--oh yes and all the cheese and crackers and chips.  Then there was one veggie offering from another vegetarian in the office.  I, of course, brought the veggie tray. I also brought my lunch of baked potato with veggie chili to go on it. I really was surprised that it all smelled good, but I didn't have the desire to eat it. I have found that through all of my research, what I have learned really just killed my desire for all of that.  No desire for anything but the soda...yes, I am still struggling with soda.  Tomorrow is another day and I will try it again.  I have been having some caffeine headaches since I put away the coffee pot.  This too shall pass--eventually I will conquer it.

I have never felt so young as I currently feel.  The real upside to being 43 and having had a heart attack?? Every time I get in the I've had a heart attack conversation, I get to hear "but you're so young!!"  Why yes, yes I am:).  My 25th high school reunion this year and I know a couple others that I went to school with battling illnesses that you think are reserved for later in life.  Yet, here we all are--but we're so young!  Even though it is health related, it never hurts a lady for everyone to tell her she is so young:)