I've gotten some emails asking exactly what kinds of things I've been eating during my "Great Food Reboot Experiment" where I'm going gluten-free vegan for 7 days to see if it has any impact on some of the health issues I've been having lately. So, let me share some of the tasty things I've been chowing on.
Oh, but before I go on to the list, I have to point out that finding sources of protein has been the biggest challenge for me because one, I am avoiding soy as much as possible because it's really not that healthy for daily consumption and two, I also have a Type II allergy to beans in the Kidney, Lima, and Pinto families which is pretty much most beans that are found in restaurants and packaged foods. Beans is where many vegans get a large source of protein from so if you have an allergy to it and you're 100% vegan than you pretty much have to do more cooking at home with legumes like Aduki beans, Black-eyed peas, and Mung beans.
Here's some of the foods I've been enjoying this week:
Lots of salad from the Whole Foods Salad Bar because it's fast and easy. Besides the mixed greens, and spinach, I've gone to the produce aisle and added arugala to my green salads. Arugala is on the bitter side, but I love it and when mixed with other greens and sweeter veggies, it's a nice twist. I'm very lucky that I live within a 10-15 mile radius of 3 Whole Foods stores, as each store has something different. The store closest to me has a Raw section in the bar which is really cool.
- Raw-ish mock vegan salmon pate that I made. I've been throwing a scoop on my green salads and it adds a nice substance to the salad like a tuna salad would.
- Dolmas. I've eaten many of those because they are one of my faves.
- I've made several smoothies this week. Like this rice milk strawberry, banana, coconut number and this Chocolate chiller with raw cocoa nibs, chocolate chili protein in chocolate hemp milk. At Whole Foods, I tried finding gluten-free vegan cookies or cakes, and could find none except raw cookies. Raw cookies are nice and chewy but I wanted something that resembled a traditional chocolate chip cookie and couldn't find one in the store. I'd have to bake some myself. They do have gluten-free or vegan cookies and muffins, but not gluten-free and vegan together.
- For snacks, I've been noshing on nuts & dried fruits like figs & filberts, dried pineapples, pecans, macadamias, prunes, cashews, and these candied ginger pepitas I made. Also, I've been enjoying mochi brown rice cakes topped with peanut butter and this organic apricot cherry jam I got at the farmer's market.
- I've been drinking fresh squeezed juices like this one I made using carrots, red pepper, cucumber, and pear.
- For dinners, I've had a lentil soup with white rice that I got from WFs. I got a couple Indian dishes like the Vegan Burger with Rice shown in the pic above. It's made out of soy protein which I made an exception for because it was "meat like". I also enjoyed this Kale Quinoa Salad. During this experiment, I've been missing the sink-your-teeth-into feeling like when biting into chicken or meatloaf. There was also a Spinach Panir with garbanzo bean and rice dish that was pretty tasty. I've also had the meatless meatballs from Trader Joes one night when I made pasta made from rice flour. Wasn't crazy about the rice pasta as it's kinda mushier than semolina pasta, but it was still tasty.
This week, I have done more cooking at home than I have in ages, but it's been great fun and learning. The only thing I've minded is the clean up of dishes and counters. What I'm really craving right now is a turkey sandwich with Gouda on wheat. The food I have been missing the most is the meats mostly because off the protein. I thought I would miss the gluten flour made foods the most, but I really am liking not having that heavy feeling the bready, doughy stuff gives me which also typically triggers food binges for me.
I've got two days left in my experiment, and one of those days will be Mother's Day, so that will be the biggest test because I have a typical Catholic Filipino mom who is amazing at cooking, and will pester me to no un-end if I tell her specifically that I can only eat gluten-free vegan food on Mom's day. Somehow, I'll have to be covert <wink>.
