"Are you a..um...healthy vegan?"
I was recently asked this question by my surgeon during my initial appointment with her.It is a good question. Fortunately, I could answer "Yes! I am a whole foods vegan." However, I know that just because one is vegan doesn't mean one eats healthily. I mean, Oreo cookies are vegan ( and no, I don't eat them)! It did get me to thinking though so hang on tight, here we go...
Slowly, ever so slowly, I am climbing back into blogging. It has been a challenging past few months. I have posted some of the details on my art blog so will not go into them here. I will just say that I am here and I am on the road to healing body and heart.
I have a bit of downtime on my healing journey and am re-evaluating several aspects of my life. One of those aspects is my eating. I do pretty well in the food department but, there is always room for improvement. I have decided to get a bit radical and cut out nearly all, if not all, processed or packaged food. Funny how that is a radical act these days, not so in the past when a household produced and made nearly all of their food.So, what does cutting out package/process foods look like? It sounds so simple, just don't buy it! I suspect it will be more difficult than it sounds. I have to admit, I don't really have too far to go so it will not be a huge leap for me but, that last little bit might be challenging. The only processed food I currently eat is a handful of condiments, store bought tofu, organic brown rice cakes and rice noodles, and the occasional bit of chocolate.
I keep organic canned beans on hand for emergency/disaster preparedness. They are occasionally cycled into food prep to keep them up to date. We live in a rugged area on the Northern Oregon Coast and our town is big on being prepared for the inevitability of being cut off.
I don't have my own garden yet. We currently rent and the yard is landscaped. I do have a few containers of herbs and veggies. I would like to find a way to grow more.
Living in a somewhat isolated area, much of my food is purchased in bulk at a food co-op about an hours drive away or by mail-order. A few things are purchased from our town's natural food store and veggies are purchased in the summer from a farmer's market and CSA.
So, I am going to be blogging about this journey. I am really not sure what it will look like yet but I am sure there will be surprises along the way. The first step will be to take an honest survey on what I currently use and have on hand and what I will need to make myself. That will be in my next post.
In the meantime, I have three vegan nut cheeses in the process of being made. I am using the Artisan Vegan Cheese cookbook as my guide. I have made some of these before and really loved them. I don't really like the packaged vegan cheeses available in the stores, they don't seem to agree with my digestion. I made a quinoa rejuvelac as a culturing agent. Here are the fermenting cheeses:
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| Top cheese, sharp cheddar, bottom right, gruyere, bottom left, cashew chevre. |
There still are a few steps to make to complete the cheeses once they have fermented but they won't take long. I have made the cheddar and chevre before. This is my first try with the gruyere. All are made with a cashew nut base. I will show the finished cheeses when they are done.
I have a shopping trip planned for Monday so I will need to get that pantry survey done tomorrow. I would be interested in hearing from any of you who have taken steps, no matter how tiny, toward reducing your processed and packaged food intake.
To your health!
-Renee
