Health

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Are M&M’s Petroleum-Based Food Dyes Really “The Finest Ingredients”?

February 22, 2014 at 9:38 pm , by 

2 Comments Posted on food reviews, Health, parenting, vegan

No-Bake Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls… Jealous Much?

February 7, 2014 at 9:56 pm , by 

3 years, 2 months.

Dear Jack,

I think I might be over cakes, cupcakes, and cookies, now that Mommy has introduced our family to “no-bake vegan chocolate chip cookie dough balls.”

She found them on a website called, Gluten-Free-Vegan-Girl, which is apparently orchestrated by an 18 year-old girl from Norway.

(That’s the country where your great-grandfather on Mommy’s side was adopted from, by the way.)

So, it’s official: These no-bake vegan chocolate chip cookie dough balls are awesome!

Not only are they pretty easy to make, considering you don’t even cook them, but they taste so good that they are extremely addictive.

However, the ingredients are healthy and simple:

  • 1 cup raw cashews
  • 3/4 cup dates
  • 1 tsp vanilla essence
  • a pinch of maldon salt
  • 1/4 cup chopped 70+% dark vegan chocolate (or use vegan chocolate chips)

So I kind of think these might be our new family favorite treat.

They’re mainly sweetened from the dates and “fattened” by the cashews; which provide less than 1% of the daily recommended amount of cholesterol.

Remember my theory on consuming more than 0% but less than 1% cholesterol?

“Being a vegan means your cholesterol intake is more than 0% (from good fats, like avocados, cashews, coconuts, sunflower seeds, chia seeds, etc.) but less than 1% (because of no animal fats). I think part of the reason vegans feel so much better after nixing animals products is because they are no longer experiencing another living (at one time) animal’s cholesterol and fat running through their veins.”

Like most food that Mommy and I approve of for our family, these no-bake vegan chocolate chip cookie dough balls are better when made by us… not bought pre-made and packaged from a store.

Having a fun (and delicious!) recipe like this makes it even more fun and special to be a plant-based family. Like I’ve said before, it’s not about what we can’t eat, but about what we can!

We get to enjoy this secret dessert snack recipe that hardly anybody else knows about. It’s not the kind of thing a person would normally think to make or eat, but when you rule out animal products from your diet, you (are forced to) discover new foods that you actually like better than what you were eating before.

I’m contrasting this recipe against any token grocery store cake, or boxed cake mix, made with food dye from petroleum and/or bugs, along with a whole paragraph of unpronounceable ingredients.

Yeah, that’s not food.

This is!

I’ll take no-bake vegan chocolate chip cookie dough balls anyday! But, shhhh… we’re adopting them as a secret family recipe now- thanks to an 18 year-old girl in Norway named Solveig Berg Vollan!

 

 

Love,

Daddy

 

P.S. Click right here for the full recipe featured on Gluten-Free-Vegan-Girl!

Or check out other vegan recipe reviews I have written

2 Comments Posted on food reviews, Health, parenting, vegan

The Benefits Of Quitting Dairy

February 1, 2014 at 2:36 pm , by 

3 years, 2 months.

Dear Jack,

Now that I haven’t consumed any dairy products in the past eleven months, it’s simply common knowledge in my mind that the consumption of dairy products led to my former sinus congestion, abundant mucus production, and allergies.

I imagine that other vegans and “non-dairy consumers” already know this as common knowledge too, but unless you’re actually living it, how else would you know?

Granted, I’m no doctor.(That’s a major understatement, by the way!)

However, I did suffer through 22 years straight of, everyday, feeling like I had to blow my nose, but nothing would come out.

I endured 22 years of a couple times each year, getting a sinus infection. Plus, I was extremely allergic to cats.

Then, after only one weekend of cutting out dairy, my sinus problems and allergies cleared up.  Not one time since then has it felt like I needed to blow my nose but nothing would come out.

Also, I no longer itch or sneeze while in the presence of cats- no matter how much I pet them.

I remember how for a week following that fateful weekend where I experimented with giving up dairy, this weird yellow plasma started draining from my nose.

Whatever it was, it was what was keeping my sinus pressure and infections going. It was fed by the intake of dairy products.

And get this- my mucus has only been clear in color since I gave up dairy nearly a year ago; it’s never white or yellow like it used to be- just clear…

Interesting, right?

Not only am I not a doctor, but I’m also not a scientist or animal biologist; yet still, I want to point out a theory I have about dairy products, and I want full credit for it if it ends up being legit…

Milk is a secretion produced by the exocrine system, which also produces mucus. I’ve noticed that sneezing creates mucus, which helps flush outforeign objects from the human body.

So what happens if you consume the secretions (like milk) of the exocrine system of another species?

In my case, the human body tried to reject it- by producing more of its own mucus (frommy exocrine system) to flush out the foreign secretions from the exocrine system of another species.

For me specifically, not only did my body produce a lot more mucus to flush out the milk and cheese and butter I was consuming, but it also went into defense mode by attempting to sort of “lock out” further consumption of dairy products, by producing constant sinus pressure as a warning system to my brain.

It’s like my body knew what my brain didn’t.

Finally, after 22 years of suffering, I watched the right documentaries on Netflix (Forks Over Knives, Hungry For Change, Vegucated, The Beautiful Truth, Dying To Have Known, Supersize Me, and Food, Inc.) and realized that my body is hostile to the secretions of the exocrine system of other species of animals.

And the thing is, I don’t even miss dairy at all. Now that I really know what it is, I’m actually disgusted by it.

As for the nutrients that animals’ milk provides, for the past eleven months, I’ve easily gotten them from plants-  “the Big 6” (vegetables, fruits, grains, beans, nuts, and seeds), to be exact.

Plus, we use Earth Balance butter (made from olives) instead of dairy butter. And when Mommy makes cookies, she uses almond milk and/or applesauce instead of eggs.

Fortunately, you’re not a huge fan of milk anyway. You like “chocolate covered milk,” which is dark chocolate almond milk. (No, you don’t even mind if you have to drink it out of your cousin Calla’s pink princess cup.)

I hope you don’t end up with the same sinus and allergy problems I’ve suffered with for most of my life; up until last year, of course.

However, I believe that avoiding dairy is the key. As you grow older and experience a higher consumption of dairy products, if you choose to, your body will serve as a science project.

Either I will be very right, or very wrong, about my theory of the consumption of dairy products (secretions from the exocrine system of another species).

I just don’t want you to have to suffer like I did. We didn’t have the Internet orNetflix to tell us any different, back when I was growing up.

I was brainwashed to believe that milk actually does a body good. Turns out, it actually did my body worse.

With all that said, decide for yourself.

 

Love,

Daddy

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Daddy, Is Ice Cream Healthy? And Cookies, Too?

January 15, 2014 at 9:40 pm , by 

3 years, 1 month.

Dear Jack,

Last week your teacher at school introduced you and your classmates to a new concept: that not all food is healthy.

Since then, you have been asking me if every single food item you can think of is healthy or not.

“Is ice cream healthy, Daddy?” you genuinely asked me.

The same happened about cookies, too.

You later asked me about cheesy crackers, though you didn’t bother to ask about cake. However, for some reason, you’ve yet to ask me if vegetables, like broccoli and carrots, are healthy.

I snapped a few shots of your health-related project at school.

You had to decide which pictures, cut out from magazines, best resembled the kinds of foods we regularly buy each week when we get groceries, by placing the cut-outs in a paper sack.

I had to laugh at yours, compared to your friends.

Yours was so… politically correct, as the token vegetarian kid of the class:

Bell peppers, blueberries, tomatoes, and apples. That’s it and that’s all.

What I learned from this is that you are definitely paying attention when Mommy and I pick out the fruits and veggies at Whole Foods. Beyond that? Not so much.

You didn’t choose pasta, bread, beans, or rice, which are all staples in your diet. Just bell peppers, blueberries, tomatoes, and apples.

I’m pretty sure you were the only kid to not include meat in your brown grocery sack.

But with your selection, you made it look like our family is a bunch offruitarians.

(Yes, that’s a real thing! And yes, technically, bell peppers and tomatoes are considered fruits, depending on who you ask.)

One day you’ll fully understand what meat is. All you know is that the other kids at school eat it but you don’t- you either get soy butter or veggie patties instead- which you love, by the way.

You always think I’m joking when I try to explain what the butchered meat is at Whole Foods. You ask me each week, ‘Daddy, what’s that red stuff?”

But hey… as long as we’ve got bell peppers, blueberries, tomatoes, and apples, though; that’s apparently all we need anyway.

 

Love,

Daddy

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Leave a comment Posted on Health, parenting, vegan

The Difference Between Vegan And Plant-Based, Part 2

January 4, 2014 at 7:08 pm , by 

3 years, 1 month.

Dear Jack,

What you didn’t hear me talk about in the first half of this letter was animal rights.

A true vegan, from what I understand, would be more fixated on that factor of it. If I was a vegan by the classic definition of the term, I wouldn’t wear leather or take you to the zoo.

That’s because I’m what is being referenced to as a “new wave vegan,” a phrase I learned from Mike Thelin, the co–founder of Feast Portland, when he spoke to Forbes:

 “The new wave of veganism is more about health than animal welfare. For better or worse, this is why it will have more staying power.”

I jumped on board (with the help of documentaries on Netflix and YouTube including Forks Over Knives, Hungry For Change, Vegucated, The Beautiful Truth, Dying To Have Known, Supersize Me, and Food, Inc.) for health reasons alone, not animal rights.

Another way of labeling me is to say I eat a plant-based diet.

However, I don’t like the word “diet” because it could be construed that I am trying to lose weight or get other people to.

Weight loss is a natural side effect of being a new wave vegan, but by no means has it ever been my motivation.

Granted, I did lose over 35 pounds (from 178 to around 142) and 3 pants sizes (from 34 to 31). Actually, that part of it for me was sort of annoying and expensive because I had to buy a new wardrobe.

Another thing I do differently than a traditional vegan is that I’m not simply not eating animal products; I’m also not eating non-food products, as well.

One example is cellulose, which is actually wood pulp that is non-digestble by human beings. It can be found in bread, cheese, powdered drinks, spice mixes, and maple syrup, and a lot of fast food items; just to name a few sources.

And of course, there are artificial food dyes like Yellow 5 and Red 40, which are made from petroleum (when they’re not made from parasitic bugs, like Crimson Lake) which I run from too.

In other words, I eat nutritious plants from the earth, “the Big 6” (vegetables, fruits, grains, beans, nuts, and seeds), but not petroleum or sand or trees. I don’t know if an “animal rights vegan” would care so much about those things, like I do.

That helps explain why new wave vegans, especially, are so passionate about avoiding GMOs. If a food is genetically modified, in my eyes, it’s not real food and therefore, I don’t trust it.

Kudos to General Mills this week for announcing they’ve stopped using GMOs in their Original Cheerios. That’s pretty cool of them, actually.

And if food is not organic, either, I’m led to believe it contains traces and effects of pesticides, which are not plant-based food sources either.

I think something else that sets apart a true vegan from a person who is plant-based (or a new wave vegan, like me) is that while I am happy to explain my lifestyle to those who curiously ask about it, I have no desire to convert the free world.

By no means do I think I’m better than anyone else because of what I do or do not eat. Therefore, I’m very deliberate in attempting to not sound condescending when I talk about this.

Honestly, I don’t think a person like me could get the approval of PETA. I mean, sure I care about animals’ rights, but I care more about human rights.

I care about humans having the right to know the truth about avoiding cancer and disease, but only if they ask me about it or are curious to read an entire article I write about it.

Or at least watch any or all of the following documentaries on Netflix: Forks Over Knives, Hungry For Change, Vegucated, The Beautiful Truth, Dying To Have Known, Supersize Me, and Food, Inc.

 

Love,

Daddy

P.S. The pinto quinoa burger (in picture above) recipe Nonna used is from a blog called Goodness Green: Plant-Based Recipes And Wellness.