Carrageenan, Schmarrageenan

The other day my husband and I stopped at Starbucks for his usual (mocha frap, no whip) and I tried an earl gray tea latte, which was surprisingly tasty. In fact, I'd have lattes, tea or coffee, more often if they weren't so flipping expensive. If only Starbucks carried some sort of soy creamer, then I could have a simple coffee for much less than a latte and be satisfied (as I take my coffee - or used to anyway - with cream).

Was there even such a thing as soy creamer, I wondered? Because then I could enjoy a coffee at home on occasion (I've given it up on a daily basis) and save even more money.

So......

(wait for it....)

I googled. Turns out Silk does make several varieties of soy creamers! But just because it's soy doesn't necessarily mean it's something I want to ingest all of the time, so like a good little vegan I researched the ingredients:

Organic Soymilk (Filtered Water, Whole Organic Soybeans), Palm Oil, Maltodextrin (from Corn), Organic Evaporated Cane Juice, Soy Lecithin, Potassium Phosphate, Sodium Citrate, Tapioca Starch, Natural Flavors...

So far, so good...

Carrageenan.

Huh? What in the world is carrageenan?

Again, I googled. Apparently, carrageenan is a type of seaweed used as a thickening agent in many dairy and dairy-like products such as yogurt and soy milk. Okay, makes sense. Soy isn't naturally all milky. But then I stumbled upon a number of websites whose authors did not approve of carrageenan consumption because of its links to causing cancer.

(*sigh*)

According to Andrew Weil, M.D., there are two types of carrageenan: degraded and undegraded. The degraded carrageenan is the type that can cause cancer. The undegraded version is what is used as a food additive. Yippee! Oh, but wait. Due to various factors such as food preparation or how the food is digested, the undegraded stuff in our food can become degraded as we ingest it.

Oh...come...on.

Here I am, changing my entire diet, eliminating refined sugars and processed foods, eating only whole grains and chucking simple carbs, saying goodbye to all animal products and replacing them with fruits and veggies, and now I'm supposed to say goodbye to my organic soy milk because it contains carrageenan? I know, I know. Not all soy milks contain carrageenan. Well, all the ones at my grocery store do. And I really like this brand of soy milk.

So too damn bad! If I'm going to the measures of veganism for a healthy lifestyle and the Good Lord is going to take me of intestinal cancer from the carrageenan in my soy milk, He must really want me with Him. I'm not fighting that battle.

Milk: It Does a Body - Hey, wait...

We went to the mall this weekend and found a new discount Christian Bookstore. The books I'm reading these days tend to fall more into the health and wellness category, so I wasn't really excited about browsing the store. But they did have a small Christian health section, so I checked it out. As it happened, I found a book that broke down various passages of scripture relating to food and then explained how these scriptures instruct us to eat today. Hm. Interesting. So I thumbed through the book and found a chapter on milk.

I have read a lot from the vegan camp about how we are the only species that drinks the milk of another animal and how our bodies aren't meant to process milk as adults. We don't need milk to get the nutrients it provides, so we're better off without it. Initially I latched right on to that mindset. But because I am so fabulously open-minded, I decided to see what this book had to say about our need for milk.

Bottom line: We absolutely need milk for all the calcium it provides so that we can have strong bones.

Okay. Prove it.

I skimmed the chapter for the author's sources: none.

I skimmed the rest of the book for sources and/or citations of studies or other medical professionals: none that I could find.

Now, folks, this is why, at the beginning of my blog, I asked for you to provide sources for any information you may provide. I figure if there has been a non-biased extensive study done that can support your theory, or if several non-biased medical experts have drawn conclusions about your theory based on scientific research, your theory has merit and I will deem it worthy for induction into my arsenal of information.

Golly. Last resort, I went to the back of the book for the list of resources. Ahhhh. There it was. But hold on... 95% of the author's resources were cookbooks. The two resources that weren't cookbooks were resources published by the FDA, which, if you've read any vegan literature, you know the theory about the FDA's marriage to the meat and dairy industry. Now, I'm not saying for sure that there's governmental food conspiracy going on, but at least the vegans have plenty of evidence to back up their claims. I was livid. How dare you publish something, call it a nutritional guide, and then just expect us to follow your advice blindly because you're you and you're important enough to have had a book published so you must be right? I have no objection to drawing lines between the Bible and eating habits. In fact, I think it's kind of a cool concept. But don't include scientific information as a part of your book unless you can tell me where you got your facts. Amen and amen.

At the very least, this book did get me thinking...am I really getting enough calcium? So I googled. (Actually, I made my husband google because he was at the computer.) Turns out the vegetable with the most calcium is spinach. Hazzah! I love spinach salads! I had a spinach salad right away for lunch.

Then I went to write this blog and decided that I needed to do a little more research on calcium before I spouted off a bunch of half-right information. I was really hoping to find some information that said something scandelous, like the dairy industry lies about how much calcium is in milk, or that although there's tons of calcium in milk, none of it gets absorbed. I didn't get my scandal, but here's how it actually works itself out:

Milk does have TONS of calcium. It actually has 3 times the calcium of turnips, which is the veggie with the highest calcium content. However, the issue is with how much of that calcium will be absorbed by the body. Anti-milk vegans point out that milk's absorption rate is only 32%, whereas many vegetables have a calcium absorption rate of over 50%, with several approaching 70% (www.dairygoodness.ca).

Food (1/2 cup / 125 ml serving unless otherwise stated)	Serving size (g)	Calcium content (mg)	Estimated absorption (%)	Calcium absorbed (mg)	Servings to equal 1 cup/ (250 ml) of milk
Milk (1 cup)	260	315	32	101	1.0
Turnip greens boiled	76	104	52	54	1.8
Kale boiled	69	95	59	56	1.8
Cabbage (Pak-choi) boiled	90	84	54	45	2.2
Almonds , dry roasted unblanched	73	206	21	43	2.3
Mustard greens boiled	74	55	58	32	3.2
Rutabaga boiled	90	43	61	26	3.9
Brocoli boiled	100	46	53	24	4.1
Brussels sprouts boiled	83	30	64	19	5.3
Sesame seed kernels, toasted, shelled	68	89	21	19	5.3
Cabbage, green boiled	79	25	65	16	6.2
Watercress raw	18	22	67	15	6.6
Kohlrabi boiled	87	22	67	15	6.7
Beans, white boiled	95	85	17	14	7.1
Radish raw	61	15	74	11	9.2
Cauliflower boiled	66	10	69	7	14
Beans, pinto boiled	90	42	17	7	14.4
Spinach boiled	95	129	5	6	16.8
Beans red boiled	94	26	17	4	25.3

Here's the thing: even though milk's absorption rate is so much lower, it contains so much more calcium than vegetables that you'd still end up absorbing almost twice as much as you would with turnips in a serving size of each.

Uh oh. Dairy - 1. Vegans - 0.

But wait! Take a closer look at the chart. Not all serving sizes are equal. In fact, they've made the veggie servings quite a bit smaller. In fairness, these are probably standard serving sizes, but still...

Hm. I think each team may have enough artillery to defend their positions for calcium. So then, why NOT dairy?

According to www.organichealthandbeauty.com, the following are all common side effects of drinking milk:

"Gastro-intestinal- canker sores, vomiting, colic, stomach cramps, abdominal distention, intestinal obstruction, bloody stools, colitis, mal-absorption, loss of appetite, growth retardation, diarrhea, constipation, painful defecation, irritation of tongue, lips, and mouth.

"Respiratory- nasal stuffiness, runny nose, otidis media (inner ear trouble), sinusitis, asthma, pulmonary infiltrates.

"Skin- rashes, atopic dermatitis, eczema, seborrhea, hives

"Behavioral- irritability, restlessness, hyperactivity, headache, lethargy, fatigue, allergic-tension fatigue syndrome, muscle pain, mental depression, enuresis (bed wetting, often caused when the bladder tissues become swollen and insensitive to the feeling of fullness).

"Blood- abnormal blood clotting, IRON DEFICIENCY ANEMIA (dairy products are the cause of at least 50% of childhood iron deficiency anemia and an unknown percentage of anemia found in adults; this condition results from bleeding of the small intestine caused by dairy proteins and is not responsive to iron therapy until milk and other dairy products are eliminated), low-serum proteins, thrombocytopenia (low platelets), and eosinophilia (allergic-related blood cells).

"Other- anaphylatic shock and death, sudden infant death syndrome (crib or cot death)

And guess what...If you actually go to the page you'll see the 9 different sources they list to back up all of these claims.

I know that this may all come off as very extremist, and maybe it is. But I think I'll stay off the milk for a while. I mean, do you ever wonder how much of our occasional physical discomfort (headaches, cramps, joint pain, fatigue, etc.) could actually be remedied by just making better food choices? I think I'll see where this no-dairy thing takes me.

By the way, as it turns out, spinach is the one leafy green veggie that has a really crappy calcium absorption rate. The moral of the story? Eat broccoli, kids.

Chew Your Food, Y'all

I know at this point you guys are going to think I'm obsessed with poo since I've seemed to mention it at least every other blog, but I'm not. I mean, I do find it a little fascinating from a nutritional standpoint, but beyond that, I'm really not about the poo.

But this weekend I was watching the BBC (because that's what you watch when you're not into televised sports...British television) and they had a little mini-marathon of "You Are What You Eat," a show where a well known nutritionist visits extremely obese people and drastically clears out their cabinets of all processed food and shows them how to eat right. Along with this stripping down of their daily menus, the overweight individuals also receive a current health assessment, including a poo analysis. In one person's poo analysis, the doctor remarked that she found whole chunks of food, indicating that this person needed to chew his food much more thoroughly.

Hm. This got me to thinking about how I eat. I always have been a slow eater, but how well do I really chew my food?

I admit that, since watching these episodes, the last couple of times I sneaked a little longer peek at my poo. Sadly, I found that I do not chew my food as thoroughly as I should. ('nuff said.)

So what? What's the big deal? So a couple of culinary items come out whole. Is it really an issue? Well, I've found out that, holy cow, yes it is. And here's why: With larger food particles, your stomach acid has to work so much harder, which isn't good, but not nearly as bad as this next thing. Did you know that chunks of food can actually poke themselves through your gut walls and go straight to the bloodstream?!? Eeeeeaaaaggghhhhh...I can't IMAGINE little rices and corns just taking a shortcut through my internal organs. And then, because the blood doesn't recognize these larger pieces, it thinks they're diseases and sends your immune system after them. THEN you end up getting all kinds of funky side effects like headaches, joint aches, muscle aches, and bloating. (All this info can be found at www.bottomlinesecrets.com, from expert Trent Nichols, MD.)

Now, what makes your stomach and intestines more permeable is non-steroidal anti-inflamatory drugs. AKA aspirin and ibuprofen. (I'd like to take this opportunity to throw out a "neener" to those in my family who think I'm neurotic for not taking ibuprofen for minor ailments such as headaches and muscle aches.) Golly, let's examine this...food particles are in my blood stream. This gives me a headache. I take an aspirin. This causes my digestive organ walls to thin out. So another chunkie gets into my blood stream. This gives me a headache. I take an aspirin...Yeah. I don't begrudge y'all your meds, but I think I'll brave my next headache au natural.

See? You can learn a lot from your poo.

Lentils and Super Sauce

The first time I had lentils a few weeks ago, I was less than excited about discovering yet another new and exciting bean on my vegan quest. I had boiled them with sweet potatoes and onions.

Ew.

I wasn't really excited about trying lentils again, but because I'm all open minded now, I decided to give them another chance. Good thing I did. This time I had them with brown rice. Soooooo much better. I think that since boiled sweet potatoes are a little mushy, I thought the lentils had been mushy, too. But they're actually more of the texture of the rice. This, however, isn't the reason for this blog.

I discovered a tasty, healthy sauce to put on veggies! I'm no chef, so maybe this isn't all that original, but regardless, it's really good:

I used olive oil, soy sauce, white vinegar, and natural peanut butter (just crushed up nuts and salt). I didn't do any measurements, so you'll just have to start with a little of everything and keep adding to taste. Now, depending on how strict you are wanting to be about being organic and how much sodium you ingest, this may not be for you. But it was extremely delicious and, best of all, different. I don't know if it works on all veggies, but I strongly recommend it for lentils.

Mmmm.....Strawberries

I once tried strawberries as a kid and decided that I didn't like them. I remember thinking they were like grapefruit, where they were too sour to eat without adding sugar, at which point I was like, "what's the point? I don't eat fruit for fun. I eat it to be healthy. So if I have to add sugar, I'll just have chocolate." (I still kind of feel that way about grapefruit.) But now that I'm being all open minded, and since strawberries are in season, I decided to give them another try.

Oh....my....gosh. I have been depriving myself of this heavenly gift of nature for 20 years. Now, it's like my new fruit crack. In the last week-and-a-half I have been through three 16 oz. crates and one 32 oz. crate all by my lonesome, PLUS some strawberries that I had last night at our friends' house.

After experiencing my first crate of strawberries, it occurred to me that strawberries are supposed to bring out the flavor in some kind of wine or champagne, aren't they? So when I went to stock up on my next round of berries, I bought a bottle of white zin to go with.

Ew.

I should have googled first. I must have just gotten the wrong kind of wine. It was kind of like when you brush your teeth and then have a grape. Not complimentary at all. Well, as it turns out, that whole champagne/strawberries thing is actually nothing but a mind game:

Food & Wine Pairing: Strawberries & Champagne -- powered by ExpertVillage.com

(Sorry about the video not really fitting the blog right. And sorry that she's kind of creepy.)

I was really happy to have found this advice, though, because I only really like a couple of wines, and muscato happens to be my very favorite type of wine!!! (Except "Dave." Kickapoo Creek Winery in Peoria, IL. Go. Buy. Drink.)

Ingesting all of these strawberries got me to thinking...what are the health benefits of strawberries? Can a person have too much?

Here's what the internets has to say: not really. Basically, yes, they are loaded with vitamin C, and too much of that will give you runnipoo. But when that happens you'll know that it's time to stop eating them. In fact, strawberries carry with them all kinds of fabulous health benefits:

According to www.whfoods.com, "strawberries topped a list of eight foods most linked to lower rates of cancer deaths among a group of over 1,000 elderly people. Those eating the most strawberries were three times less likely to develop cancer compared to those eating few or no strawberries." Also, because they're so high in vitamin C, strawberries can be a great tool to prevent rhumatoid arthritis.

Here's the catch...strawberries made the top twelve list of foods on which pesticides are most frequently found. Doh! So if you really want to rid yourself of any gluttony guilt, buy organic. AND strawberries can limit your body's ability to absorb calcium a teeny tiny bit. But, according to whfods, the health benefits far outweigh this drawback.

So, off I go to finish the crate of strawberries in the fridge! Maybe today my husband and I can visit an orchard to get some super fresh ones. I've only had store bought ones, and I hear orchard ones are SOOOO much better.

Happy Strawberry Season, everyone!

Disaster!

I have proven in one day that it is possible to be completely self-loathing in your menu choices without actually straying outside the confines of veganism. I'll elaborate:

8:00 a.m.: strawberries and orange juice. Not so bad, right?

1:00 p.m.: almonds. Still healthy and legal. Moving on.

2:00 p.m.: Worked out. Never should have done it. Here's where it all fell apart. How? Well...when I decided to be a healthy vegan, I also decided to start working out regularly. It's normally great! Except there are a couple of times a month when my hormone levels are elevated (hm, wonder why.....) and exercise seems to induce extreme mood swings for me. I don't know if it releases more of a certain hormone or if it just causes the current hormones in my body to flow more swiftly, but whatever it is, during these times of the month, when I'm done exercising (or sometimes in the middle of exercising) I just want to cry.

I've read in several articles that many people experience this, not because of hormones necessarily, but because of low blood sugar. Also, because so many of us carry our stress in our muscles, often when we move those muscles and loosen up, the emotions that we keep tied up in those muscles comes pouring out. But I haven't seen anything yet on the relationship of PMS to exercise. If anyone finds something, let me know.

Anywho, as I said, from there it went down hill.

2:25 p.m.: Had to stop exercising. My old football injury flared up (I played the drums in my high school marching band and now have what I believe to be tendonitis of the knees from basically crab-walking with a 20 lb. snare strapped to my shoulders). This aggravated me. Wanted to cry.

2:35 p.m.: Went to Publix looking for a quick, healthy lunch like salad or something.

2:50 p.m.: Went through the check-out with 3 items - Sweet potato chips, pint of Purely Decadent Non-Dairy Cookies and Cream Soy Ice Cream, plastic spoons.

2:55-3:10: Ate half the pint of soy cream before arriving at church for my directory picture.

4:00 - 4:15: Ate half the bag of sweet potato chips on the way home from church.

4:15: Decided "to hell with it" and ate dinner - 3 pieces of pizza (whole wheat crust, no cheese, w/ mushroom & onion) and the rest of the pint of soy cream.

Why do I admit to all of this? Because I am finding that changing your diet is one thing, but changing your habits is completely another. I know we all need our cruddy food days, and, thankfully, as a vegan my cruddy food days aren't nearly as bad as they used to be. But the whole point of being a vegan (for me) is not just finding loopholes to the rules. It's about actually getting to a point where I'd rather follow the rules than just squeeze by. I won't beat myself up for today. Cruddy food days happen. But now that I've had a little over a month to warm up to the change in diet, I think I'll focus now on incorporating some habit changes. I may only get to them one at a time, but every little one changed will be a step toward being THAT much healthier. (At least, that's the plan...)

...The More You Eat, The More You...

Alright. We need to have a serious discussion. I know I'm not the only one experiencing this. I thought that after a month or so of eating primarily vegetables my body would adjust and function normally, but no such luck. Vegetarians and vegans of the world, you know what I'm talking about:

Gas.

And not just your regular run-of-the-mill girl gas. Used to be that, on the occasion that I did have to toot, it would be small, odorless, and infrequent (most of the time). Now I'm creating enough natural gas to power a small metropolis, and I'll admit, it's quite offensive.

I've Googled the matter, and here's what I've found: (BTW, I appologize if this grosses some of you out, but I find this extremely interesting. Our poo is one of the best indicators of how our digestive system is working.) This comes from a thread on www.caloriecount.about.com.

supersized (user name)
Jul 13 2006 03:31

Here's the explanation we've gotten from my friend (a fecieologist) and confirmed by our local GP.

If you eat a lot of packaged foods and meats consider how your digestive track is working.... meat takes on average 19 days to digest. It slowly sits in your colon... and for all essential purposes rots (it's supposed to), as it decomposes (helped out by the bacteria in your colon) the nutrients are extracted and sent into your blood stream and the rest needs to be broken down and sent ... well... out.... Meat takes a long time to break down.

Now consider veggies.... veggies take a lot less time to break down, and they also contain a lot more gas....

So when the average North American meat and processed/packaged food eater (processed and packaged foods have a lot of stuff in them to make sure they last longer i.e. don't break down easy) starts eating a lot of fresh veggies.... well... there's all this meat sitting in the colon.... and the veggies start breaking down faster and before the meat but they are not first in line... this sends the gas back into the stomach creating bloating....

Also, your colon isn't used to working at this pace.... it may think there is something wrong and try to compensate by flushing it (frequent and runny movements)

The good news is this does go away... give it at least a full month to work itself out in the beginning stages... three months to really be clear.

The amount of bread eaten can also act as an absorber for the veggies as well so you need to figure out how much fiber your body needs... and what constipates you.

What a great explanation! Thank you, supersized.

Now, what's the solution? I have read that many recommend antacids. Well, if that's your path, that's fine and dandy, but part of my contract with myself is to rid my body of artificial chemicals and such. Like, if I wanted to put chemicals into my body to solve the problem, I'd just eat the processed foods and avoid the gas altogether. Then there's Beano, but for those of you who aren't aware, Beano contains fish gelatin which is outside the vegan realm. There is another product called "Say Yes to Beans" which looks pretty promising. You take it like Beano, but it's all natural. If any of you have tried it, lemme know how it's working for you.

My personal favorite is a product called "The Toot Trapper." It's an activated charcoal lined cushion that absorbs the smell for things like car rides and plane rides. (I guess the company actually had to change the name of it to "Flatulence Filter" because too many people thought it was a joke item.) How fabulous! www.gasbgone.com carries a large assortment of odor reducing cushions, underware, and face masks. And at $64/pair of undies, who wouldn't give those fancy pants a try? Three cheers for the good people of Dairiair, LLC!

According to our supersized friend above, we need to give it 3 months to be really clear. So the good news is that this isn't a permanent chronic condition. Hallelujah! In the mean time, I'll just have a lot of fun using my personal atomic bombs to incinerate my husband. :)

Beans, Beans, the Magical Fruit

Part of the fascination of this whole vegan thing for me has been trying new foods that I was previously close-minded to. One food that I would never have dared to eat as part of a meal was beans. Any kind of bean. Blech. However, beans are good for me and they make a great substitute for meat in many recipes. Therefore, I decided to "give beans a chance." I've discovered many beans that I enjoy! I haven't necessarily made it as far as eating them naked (not me, the beans). Because my issue with beans has always been more textural than taste, I can only really eat them if I have them with brown rice or something to cut the grittiness. I am finding, though, that I need that buffer food less and less.

So yesterday I was out, and I was hungry. And after much consideration, I decided to brave the one bean that I never dared try, the refried bean.

Remember now, no judgement! Some of you already know where I'm going with this, so just sit tight for a second. I have always known that refried beans were one of the worst items on the Mexican menu from a fat and calories standpoint. But there are quite a few foods that I've discovered recently, including most beans, that are high in fat and calories but are loaded with nutrients, so much so that the nutrients received trumps the fat and calorie intake. I just figured that refried beans were the same way. So I ordered a spinach burrito which came with a side of beans, and a bean taco.

I dove into the bean taco first. OMG. Um, yum...what have I been missing out on all these years? I was so excited to find another bean that I liked. PLUS, it's hard enough to find restaurants that have vegan options, so hallelujah!

As I continued to scoop my side of beans with my chips, loving every minute of it, I started to realize that other beans that I've experienced have not had quite the intensity of flavor that these did. And they looked awefully creamy for being just beans. Uh-oh. Was there milk in there? I ignored the sinking feeling that something was amiss for the next few bites. Maybe they just really knew how to use their spices. Finally, I relented and pulled out the magic iPhone to research the common ingredients of refried beans.

"...Vegetable oil or LARD..."

Lard?!?!?! Well, s***. I knew I was going straight to vegan hell. It could have been vegetable oil and my soul might be saved, but that's not the point. There's enough food out there that a person can be a vegan and still eat like crap. That is not my goal. I want to be healthy, and even vegetable oil is not healthy. I was so sad, until I saw a recipe that used olive oil instead of vegetable oil or (ugh) lard.

Even as a non-vegan I could not reconcile myself to lard. I knew a lady once who had literally hundreds of first place ribbons displayed in her house for her incredible pies. Along with a 5 gallon bucket of lard displayed under her kitchen sink. Her crusts were phenonmenal, but seeing that bucket of grease sitting there ruined it for me.

So (*sigh*) I suppose I can enjoy refried beans any time I want as long as I make them myself with the right ingredients. Golly, that seems to be the trend of most food these days...

The intro...

Welcome to "Crackin' My Veggies Up," the sequel to my original blog "Crackin' My Stuff Up." I will be using this blog to reach out to those individuals who, like me, have recently decided to freshen up their dietary habits and turn to veganism. I don't pretend to be an expert. In fact, that is one of the main reasons I created this blog. I am new to this whole experience, and any help or advice that someone might have would be greatly appreciated! I do ask one thing: If I have posted some information that you believe to be wrong, feel free to correct me, but please reference where you got your information.

I made the decision from the get-go to be as accurate about this as possible. The only thing is, I'm not a nutritionist - not even close - so I'm not perfect at this yet. I might inadvertantly eat something out like noodles and then realize later that eggs or milk was used to make them. Because I am a beginner I am reading and working to further educate myself so that I won't make these kinds of boo-boos, but for now I'm willing to accept these kinds of mistakes and move forward. Thus, there will be no beating anyone up on this blog. This is about creating a community of learning. We're all trying to better ourselves, so how can we be critical of that?

So, even if you aren't a vegan, please read and enjoy! Maybe you'll be inspired to try it, or maybe you'll feel inclined to try a few new foods. Or maybe reading about the whole experience will make you want to beeline to your nearest steakhouse. However you are stirred, just know that no one will judge you. We just want you to be our friend. :)