First up are the Probiotics. Probiotics have gotten a lot of press due to the success of the numerous probiotic yogurts out there. Thank you Jamie Lee Curtis! An even bigger thank you to Kristin Wiig for her amazing parody of these commercials. Kristin Wiig SNL Skit video Who has not heard about probiotics by now? I think we all know these good bacteria are essential to keep your gut flora in check. Where can you find these bacteria if you're not eating yogurt like Jamie Lee since we're eating vegan and that means no dairy? Pickled vegetables are teaming with probiotics. Here's a list of food sources for probiotics from Ani's book, pg. 35 :
- Fermented Soy products:
- Miso
- Soy sauce
- Fermented drinks:
- Kombucha
- Kefir
- Fermented vegetables
- Kimchee
- Pickles
- Sauerkraut
- Capers
- Other:
- Apple cider vinegar (raw)
- Nutritional yeat
- CHOCOLATE!!! I am looking forward to the day we explore these recipes!
We wake up this morning to our first drink called Ginger Mango Shake. After yesterday's discussion about coconut oil and its benefits as well as the very, very helpful comments and suggestions from a few readers that have done these 15 days before I went ahead and added the oil to the mango, ginger and almonds in this shake. The suggestion to really warm up the oil and only stir it in at the end just prior to drinking, I think made a huge difference in how it tastes. I still felt an oily sensation in my mouth later but it was not the gloppy feel as before. The most disappointing part about this shake is the sad state of mangoes available in Southern California. Nearly the entire time MSB and I were in West Africa last year we were able to eat huge, juicy, ripe mangoes every day. The taste was beyond belief making the sad little mango I used today not worthy of the name. Nevertheless - it's not the mangoes fault it had to travel half a world away in an unripened state - so I will give this a solid B rating. Next up we had a very different mid morning snack in the form of some fresh grapefruit. I don't think I need to describe this unless I have extraterrestrial readers or anyone else suffering from scurvy for whatever reason.
At lunch we have our long awaited Easy Being Green Salad. Yes - there was actual chewing going on at my house today. It was awesome. Also awesome is Ani's idea for an oil-free, very low fat salad "dressing". For this mixed greens salad she had us chop up and basically smush a ripe avocado into the greens of the salad. It does give it a slight coating and resembles a typical dressing but there's nothing pooled in the bottom of the bowl. After all the mushing we add some capers, tomatoes and of all things sauerkraut. Remember the probiotic list above? No wonder she decided to throw this in. No matter - it's probably my Wisconsin roots but I LOVE sauerkraut and haven't had it in years. I don't eat hot dogs and where else do you ever see someone offering kraut these days? I was ready to break into a polka dance any minute (I can't resist - Click here for a slice of my childhood ) I was so happy to be crunching an honest to goodness salad. There was plenty of crunching since this is an enormous salad! Very, very filling. I think I'll give it a B
So filling that I nearly forgot to have my afternoon snack smoothie. This concoction is called the Strawberry Mint Smoothie. Putting this together I was really looking forward to something amazing since the strawberries were ripe and gorgeous, the fresh mint smelled divine and we have another avocado to make everything smooth and thick and for health's sake there was kale. I was pleased that my preprocessing the kale before adding the rest of the ingredients worked again and I didn't experience icky bits in the teeth. The first thing that came to mind when I poured it into the glass is she could have named this "Looks Green, Smells Red". The strawberries are very pungent and inviting. The second thing that came to mind after my first sip was "Meh". Huh? I was really thinking this would be an all time winner. Maybe there was too much mint for my preference but giving the rating rules as set forth yesterday the die has been cast. The shake gets a C. For dinner we have Red Pepper Soup. Although I was still pretty full from the giant salad at lunch and would probably not have had anything to eat but because I'm trying to be a faithful scribe by adhering as well as I can to this diet plan I went ahead and made the soup. I am so glad that I did because this soup is a real winner. In addition to red pepper she has us adding our favorite soup ingredient, miso as well as some fresh basil. A splash of lemon juice adds some zing. Surprisingly, I enjoyed this soup so much I drank it straight down. I certainly didn't expect to be able to finish this soup so quickly. This soup deserves an A and could even stand to have some more pepper included as it was pretty subtle with just one pepper in the soup.
I hope everyone has the day off tomorrow for our Labor Day Holiday. For those of you that do not - specifically those of you reading this on the Africa Mercy, including MSB, thank you for your service and all of your hard work. You are in our prayers for a day of safety. See you all back here tomorrow. Many, many thanks to all of you that posted comments and sent me private e-mails yesterday. Your suggestions and ideas for how Ani's program worked for you are very much appreciated. Here's the chart for today's meals. I'm starting a new chart for the next several days since we're now in a new phase of the program.
| Recipes | ||||||
| Column1 | Column2 | Column3 | Column4 | Column5 | Column6 | Column7 |
| Name | Category | Diet | Day | Page number | Column1 | Rating |
| Ginger Mango Shake | Shake | Fat Blast | four | 118 | B | |
| Easy Being Green Salad | Salad | Fat Blast | four | 133 | B | |
| Strawberry Mint Shake | Shake | Fat Blast | four | 126 | B | |
| Red Pepper Soup | Soup | Fat Blast | four | 148 | A |
No comments:
Post a Comment