I'm not a cook, I'm a recipe follower. T. Any of you chefs out there *cough* stirfry *cough* have an idea of how I can turn this vegan? .
Hi Mike
I am not a chef either, but I think that the butter can easily be replaced with a small amount of whatever you normally saute in - I've not water sauteed like stir fry suggests but a tiny bit of oil for that should do.
The cheese on top - turf it.
The cream is in there to make it richer - I have made plenty of potato cakes and never included creme fresh.
I think the important ingredient needing a substitute is the egg - it binds the cake together and I don't know a savory replacement for egg. Egg white would do the job, but that isn't vegan.
I'm sure stirfry or Anne know the answer - this looks yummy.
Stirfry, AWESOME cooking/kitchen tips, thanks for sharing. I take the time to pre-cut and store veggies when I buy them too but so far I've been putting them in Ziploc bags instead of water. And for making broth! These days I can't make enough veggie broth to keep up with the demand. You're chock full of great veg*n wisdom.
i'm going to add your two recipes to the Tastebook if you don't mind.
(And the photos are lovely!)
We go through lots of broth here, too when I get a chunk of time to make a good brew of one specifically to freeze, I use the ziploc baggies to freeze individual portions, stuffed into a larger ziploc baggie to discourage burn. Then to defrost, it's as easy as soaking the ziploc in a cup or bowl of hot/boiling water for a few minutes while I get the other ingredients ready and going. I usually just throw it into the pot half thawed if I'm in a hurry.
Another good storage is to reuse the old spaghetti sauce jars for homemade broth. We always have some ready to go in the fridge!
Please do add the recipes ~ I'm hopeful that someone on the fence will see that not every meal has to be involved and gourmet lol.
This looks perfectly warming on a chilly winter's night. The name of that book sounded familiar so I went digging around my bookshelf. sure enough I have it! In fact, I have two of it one of them doesn't even have the spine broken yet I must have forgotten about it. (Bad impulse buyer here) If anyone wants a free copy, just PM me with your address and I'll gladly send it your way.
Any of you chefs out there *cough* stirfry *cough* have an idea of how I can turn this vegan? Or am I barking up the wrong tree?
That sounds delicious, Mike. I don't eat a lot of potatoes but seeing these two potato recipes has me antsy for some tonight!
Reading the recipe, I think Ann is spot on re: the butter. For step 2 I'd sub a water saute ~ just bear in mind that you'll need to pay closer attention and stir more frequently than you would if you were using butter or oil. For step 5 I would probably use a tsp or so of oil just to brown, and then water saute as needed (probably won't be needed but I always keep some on the side just in case). I keep some Earth balance on hand, too, which is a vegan buttery spread sold in stores. I always halve the amount in any recipe with great success.
Regarding the egg in step 3, that's an easy one. If you remember nothing else, remember the following substitution because you'll use it A LOT it works well in baked goods, too, but is especially good for frying when you need that "egg-y" consistency: 1 egg = 1 Tbsp flax meal + 3 Tbsp water (stir, done). It's that easy, either grind up your own flax seeds OR find the meal sold in packages. It's one of those things that is really easy to find these days, even my eensy-weensy town grocer carries it. It's best nutritionally to grind your own, but with little kids in the house and the frequency with which I personally use it, I just buy the flax meal for convenience.
For the cream, I don't normally cook meals that call for it - my people were fishermen lol . However for New Year's my kids wanted a chocolate fondue party so I'll tell you what I used for that recipe (it turned out fine and nobody complained). I took a block of tofu (soft) and crumbled it up, liquified it in the blender, and then added rice milk (any milk will work) until I had a creamy consistency. It took some playing to get it right, and ended up being about 1 part tofu to 2 parts rice milk for me. In hindsight I'd use only 1/2 block of tofu because an entire block was simply too big a quantity for that single recipe. In something like your recipe I might also add a pinch of lemon juice, or maybe even a hint of vinegar just to give it that subtle BITE that milk has that contributes to the overall flavor of a dish.
In a pinch you might also try soy yogurt (less healthful overall, but more convenient) as a substitute for the heavy cream.
For a vegan substitute for the cheese topping, well ... that's ONE frontier vegans have yet to conquer IMO. There's just nothin' like the real thing (yet). I sometimes sprinkle some nutritional yeast on top for a cheesy flavor, and you could try blending some yeast with water for a more liquidy consistency that could be poured on top of the cakes and half-"melted" for flavor - though it won't look as pretty!
Can't wait to see how it turns out
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BaldyRegistered Users, Super ModeratorsPosts: 2,853moderator
Motivation isn't the problem, timing is. Though with enough motivation that goes away as well.
I know many people who've said that exercise makes you young. And my great-great aunt is a great example. She walked at least 2 miles a day until she hurt her leg at the age of 101. Now she just walks as much as she can. She'll be turning 104 in March.
Whew, Anne's return means a serious kick in the pants with updating the TasteBook. But I'm not complaining, not at all. I love all the vegan goodness in there, yum yum! I have so much to learn about cooking and baking with veggies but I'm enjoying every single bite of it.
It's updated here for you ETL-ers to browse. I have a lot of culinary experiments waiting on the back burner (no pun really intended) to throw in, too, but it's going to take a while. Also, Big props to David for getting his hands dirty in the kitchen testing and creating new dishes for this collection, as you can see. :ivar
One very interesting thing I have noticed is that my feline allergies, which were pretty severe for the duration of my life, have virtually disappeared since I've changed my diet 6 weeks ago. I never thought such a thing was possible but I can actually sit in a house full of cats with one (or two) snuggled in my lap and not suffer a sniffle. Excellent!
One very interesting thing I have noticed is that my feline allergies, which were pretty severe for the duration of my life, have virtually disappeared since I've changed my diet 6 weeks ago. I never thought such a thing was possible but I can actually sit in a house full of cats with one (or two) snuggled in my lap and not suffer a sniffle. Excellent!
I've been really slow to talk about that because it sounds too good to be true. I've had very bad hay fever forever and had to carry an inhaler to triathlons to tuck in my wetsuit, but for the last two years since I've been on this diet.....not an itch or a sneeze.
Maybe we've just had two mild seasons? Or maybe I haven't been in high-pollen areas on race days?
Cool. Congratulations. It seems to me there is a definite benefit to the immune system from the whole food approach. Allergies, achey joints, benefits for diabetes, good stuff.
I've been really slow to talk about that because it sounds too good to be true. I've had very bad hay fever forever and had to carry an inhaler to triathlons to tuck in my wetsuit, but for the last two years since I've been on this diet.....not an itch or a sneeze.
Maybe we've just had two mild seasons? Or maybe I haven't been in high-pollen areas on race days?
I agree, I haven't really said much about it because I was very skeptical too. Previously I would start to sniffle in under 5 minutes if a cat was even in the same room as me. Now I have found that the last 4 times I have visited my in-laws (which puts me in an extreme situation because they breed cats: we're talking a single house that contains somewhere around 20 cats and kittens) I wasn't experiencing any of my typical reactions. It wasn't just those particular cats either, if maybe their particular breed was a factor or I had somehow grown tolerant to them. I have visited with several friends with felines and similarly had no trouble petting them and getting acquainted.
This might not be typical, of course, and maybe there are other unknown factors at work. But since this thread showed recent evidence of less-than-expected cholesterol results with the lifestyle change, I'm happy to see some improvements in other areas.
My only other big problem are, like you, seasonal allergies from pollen. In a couple of months we'll find out how that goes.
Ann I definitely am enjoying the immune system benefits here! I feel fortunate that it's happened so quickly for me. I too hope that your joints are continuing to reap the rewards of all these delicious, wholesome nutrients.
I've been really slow to talk about that because it sounds too good to be true. I've had very bad hay fever forever and had to carry an inhaler to triathlons to tuck in my wetsuit, but for the last two years since I've been on this diet.....not an itch or a sneeze.
Maybe we've just had two mild seasons? Or maybe I haven't been in high-pollen areas on race days?
I'm a believer that there is a correlation between allergies and diet.
I haven't joined in on the discussion until now, but my wife and I have been doing ETL for a year now (vegan + occasional wild fish). It was Baldy and Andy who turned me onto The China Study and several other books.
I've seen many benefits of the new diet (lost 25 pounds, for example), but before I started this, I had a chronic skin allergy that had bothered me for more than 10 years. I was tested and found to be allergic to tons of things. We could never actually figure out what was causing my specific reaction. In the end, I just needed prescription medication to treat the symptoms when it got bad because it would even keep me from sleeping.
Last summer, after being on the diet for 6 months, I realized that I had had zero skin allergies whatsoever in a long while. Three more months went by, still no issues. I had one flareup in December (still not sure why), but now it's gone again. So, in a year, I've had only one occurrence of something that I dealt with all the time for 10-15 years. There's definitely some correlation between eating healthy and my allergy. I even tried to do some internet research on a link between these two and I couldn't find anything substantive written about it, but I'm a believer in a correlation.
I saw Baldy discussing this somewhere on his motorcycle forum a few weeks ago. I hadn't heard of it, but was intrigued with the way he described his diet/lifestyle. I couldn't find it again to see the book he was talking about. He pointed me to this thread after I emailed him. I've only lurked here before.
After reading through this thread and the various links, I am definitely going to read The China Study. I have always benefitted from a hummingbird's metabolism up until the past few years. Now suddenly my having literally lived off of fast food and sodas and rarely ever eating a vegetable is rapidly catching up to me.
I've already had to make a bunch of changes in the way I did things the past few years, so this is just another good change I'm making. I haven't drank in years and I quit smoking last June, for instance. But the damage has finally started showing up.
Fortunately my SO has been a vegetarian for half her life, though much of the time she could be what Stirfry called a "junkfood Veg*n" a few dozen pages back, mostly from being around me for the past few years, I'd imagine.
She'll probably end up on here, too...being that I was at least catching the photography bug from her
Thanks for all the info and recipes you all have put up here!
I'm a believer that there is a correlation between allergies and diet.
That's very impressive, John.
I've been keeping track of who's doing this and prodding for results (weight lost, blood lipids, etc.), but I didn't remember you were on the bus.
But uh ohs. You're tempting me to talk more about the things that sound like I must be making them up... One is I suffered terribly from restless legs. I tried all the cures but when they got restless at night, as they did almost every night, I'd have to get up. And be tired the next day.
They were gone in 30 days, starting two years ago when I went down this road. They've come back once for a few days, but it was when my diet left something to be desired (I ate engineered foods during a long race I entered). It's still strange for me to fall asleep like a baby without any restless legs.
I've got several things like that. I heard the most fascinating talk the other night by Milton Mills, a doctor who trained at Stanford. He asks, "Are humans designed to eat meat?" It's mostly about the physiology of carnivores and herbivores.
He started by asking, "Is it coincidence that the very same diet that reverses heart disease also reduces inflammation, reverses diabetes, and reduces the incidence of cancer, allergies, and a host of other chronic diseases?"
John, I have his talk on DVD and you seem like the kind of guy who'd be fascinated by it. My wife and JT were completely engrossed. You live close by. Wanna borrow it?
I've been keeping track of who's doing this and prodding for results (weight lost, blood lipids, etc.), but I didn't remember you were on the bus.
But uh ohs. You're tempting me to talk more about the things that sound like I must be making them up... One is I suffered terribly from restless legs. I tried all the cures but when they got restless at night, as they did almost every night, I'd have to get up. And be tired the next day.
They were gone in 30 days, starting two years ago when I went down this road. They've come back once for a few days, but it was when my diet left something to be desired (I ate engineered foods during a long race I entered). It's still strange for me to fall asleep like a baby without any restless legs.
I've got several things like that. I heard the most fascinating talk the other night by Milton Mills, a doctor who trained at Stanford. He asks, "Are humans designed to eat meat?" It's mostly about the physiology of carnivores and herbivores.
He started by asking, "Is it coincidence that the very same diet that reverses heart disease also reduces inflammation, reverses diabetes, and reduces the incidence of cancer, allergies, and a host of other chronic diseases?"
John, I have his talk on DVD and you seem like the kind of guy who'd be fascinated by it. My wife and JT were completely engrossed. You live close by. Wanna borrow it?
Wow, that's amazing about the legs. I guess there are just all sorts of ways our body rebels when we put the wrong things in it.
I'd love to see the talk on DVD. Thanks. Shall I swing by your office some time to pick it up?
I think you may not have known I was on the bus because I don't think I've talked about it. My wife joined me on the diet and my 13 yr old son is probably 70% there. He now eats all sorts of vegetables that he never did before and is now very aware of eating healthy. My choosy-eater 10 year old daughter still hasn't latched on yet, but she is at least eating a lot more fruit than before.
I was interested in sharing the work from The China Study with other family members so I wrote a "cliff notes" for the book. It's a collection of what I considered the highlights from the book, particularly the scientific results in the first half of the book that I found so compelling. I've shared a first draft with several family members so far and I'm hoping to finish it up soon and share more widely with my extended family.
Thanks - this internet thing just gets better all the time....and/or I get stupider!
Ann,
I was kind of busy at work when I replied earlier. I wanted to add that I'm glad you found it interesting.
I found it fascinating. Not just from a Ripley's-Believe-It-Or-Not perpsective, but also: I will never be morbidly obese, I know that about myself. But I still learned from these people who are suffering so greatly. I saw where they are in denial, where they are a product of their own actions and attitudes, and I saw how hard they fight this demon that's killing them. Obviously, something is missing in that fight, often, and it looks like they've surrendered to complete hedonism, stuffing as much food as they can into their faces. But there comes a point where just living is a battle for them. Just rolling over. I don't know, I guess I just learned from them, and I feel a lot of compassion for them. What a horrible space to be trapped in.
I was interested in sharing the work from The China Study with other family members so I wrote a "cliff notes" for the book. It's a collection of what I considered the highlights from the book, particularly the scientific results in the first half of the book that I found so compelling. I've shared a first draft with several family members so far and I'm hoping to finish it up soon and share more widely with my extended family.
Okay, I changed my mind about loaning you my DVD. You need your own, so I bought one and had it sent to you. It actually has 13 talks on it. I've watched 3 that I loved, two didn't hold my interest, and I dunno about the rest.
Speaking of Cliff notes, this little handbook from Dr. Fuhrman is a jewel:
It's a short little thing with a little plastic card to stick in your wallet. I bought a half dozen and gave them all away so now I'm getting another dozen.
His message is greatly simplified to its essence:
1. To get healthy, you have to eat the highest nutrient density foods.
2. When you eat high nutrient density, you lose your cravings and naturally eat fewer calories.
3. You learn to love the foods in your new diet and dislike the foods you used to love.
One very interesting thing I have noticed is that my feline allergies, which were pretty severe for the duration of my life, have virtually disappeared since I've changed my diet 6 weeks ago. I never thought such a thing was possible but I can actually sit in a house full of cats with one (or two) snuggled in my lap and not suffer a sniffle. Excellent!
This is really interesting. I haven't checked into this thread for a few days and now find that others are experiencing the one thing I have noticed the most..........almost a total lack of allergies. In fact, when it rains - or even threatens to rain - my allergies kick up. We have had a lot of rain this month and not a trace of an allergic reaction! I do remember reading that if you have allergies to different sources, say cats, wheat and pollen, the more you are exposed to at one time the more likely you are to react. So maybe we have all had food allergies we were never really aware of. Take away the food allergy and other allergies get a chance to calm down perhaps. It's definitely an unexpected bonus! Plus I'm not having to take over-the-counter medication for it either.
BTW, I did try your chili in the crockpot and it was a HUGE success. The only difference was I switched out the canned beans for dried beans and it worked a treat after 8 hours on 'Low.'
Now that I'm considering doing this myself, I have to wonder... you didn't add any extra liquid?
EDIT: And for that matter, did you go with 1/2 as much dried beans as the recipe called for canned?
Winter Vegetables
To use up winter veggies here, I made some colcannon-ish kale, leek and potato mash, and a brown rice butternut squash and mushroom risotto last night to eat over the next few days. Does anyone have any good ideas for something to bring to a super bowl party? I'm brewing up some bean-dip-related ideas, but anyone have ideas to get me going on a different vein? Perhaps using up some of these winter veggies?
Now that I'm considering doing this myself, I have to wonder... you didn't add any extra liquid?
EDIT: And for that matter, did you go with 1/2 as much dried beans as the recipe called for canned?
-Anne
Anne, I have to say I didn't measure the water/broth, oops! I put in enough to cover the ingredients, which is what I do by habit when using the crock pot.
For beans, I threw in one bag of kidney beans, I think. Volume-wise, isn't that close to 2 15-oz cans? The second time we tried it I put in one bag of kidney, one bag of navy, a little extra bulgur and it ended a little thick. I am a rather haphazard cook...
If we figure out a conversion between wet/dry beans, i'll edit the TB
Speaking of Cliff notes, this little handbook from Dr. Fuhrman is a jewel:
I agree. I got the ebook version, what's on the card?
My only reservation about this book is that I think it could be misleading for anyone new to this. People are so accustomed to diets counting calories, or points, or whatever, I worry that people will think they have to use this thing every day to count their Nutrient Density Scores. I got it because I was interested in the scores, but I think the last thing anyone eating like this should do is to obsess on these numbers. Eat a well balanced diet of fruits and vegetables, mostly vegetables, and mostly green, and you'll be fine. Oh, and you need nuts and seeds for fats, too, and they score low on the Nutrient Density Scores.
But, the first few chapters are a great distillation of ETL, and it's a handy little book, for sure.
BTW, if you're like me and have no idea how much a stone is, it's 14 pounds, so 76 stone is 1,064 pounds!
I watched the whole documentary (thanks for the link). What struck me was that near the end of the movie after he'd lost nearly 500 pounds (and still needed to lose another 300), they were asking him if he'd changed his diet much. He said "no". He still eats the same things, just smaller quantities (as he was munching on some sort of processed food in a bag) because his stomach has been stapled to be a fraction of it's original size.
I thought to myself, wow after all he's been through and he still doesn't understand that he needs to eat healthy foods and that it would make a huge difference in his health. He doesn't understand that quantity isn't the only thing that matters and, in fact, eating healthy will help a lot with the quantity problem too. I wonder if someone involved in all of his medical care tried to teach him this and he just didn't grok it or if his medical care just never really tried that direction?
I watched the whole documentary (thanks for the link). What struck me was that near the end of the movie after he'd lost nearly 500 pounds (and still needed to lose another 300), they were asking him if he'd changed his diet much. He said "no". He still eats the same things, just smaller quantities (as he was munching on some sort of processed food in a bag) because his stomach has been stapled to be a fraction of it's original size.
I thought to myself, wow after all he's been through and he still doesn't understand that he needs to eat healthy foods and that it would make a huge difference in his health. He doesn't understand that quantity isn't the only thing that matters and, in fact, eating healthy will help a lot with the quantity problem too. I wonder if someone involved in all of his medical care tried to teach him this and he just didn't grok it or if his medical care just never really tried that direction?
Denial is a very powerful motivator. It's interesting that the first inclination of the doctor was for a gastric bypass. Though, you don't get to be 1000 lbs without some serious effort and reading The China Study and Eat to Live isn't likely going to change much for him. I saw a british documentary about the fattest man in Britain who is 800 lbs. They tracked all of his calories on a given day. The guy basically never stopped eating unless he was sleeping. The grand total for his daily caloric intake? 36,000 calories.
Yes. Thirty-six-thousand calories a day. Every day. I'll try to find that on the net somewhere.
Y'all don't want to hear me, you just want to dance.
I also felt sympathy for those people. And shock that, at the hospital facility, there were others in the same situation. My sympathy comes from my belief that addictions are disease and extremely, extremely difficult to overcome. I watch my mother as she deteriorates rapidly with emphysema. She has smoked since she was very young. For the last 30 years, maybe more, there has certainly been enough information and enough resources available to her to stop smoking. She hasn't. And at 65, I am sure she knows that she has a short time left. And, unlike the half tonne man, stopping now, changing her habit, will not help her. And so she still smokes.
I think that the doctor only chose the stomach staple procedure to keep Patrick from over-consuming when he left hospital. I am also shocked that the weight reduction was enough to buy him several more years of life. And actually, I am shocked that he could survive as he had. It is staggering to see people (more than one) that are immobilized by their weight!
On a different but related note, my grandparents generation had really good longevity - and generally did so despite terrible lifestyle habits such as too much alcohol and/or cigarette smoking. Their progeny are not living as long. I listened to a great podcast by a British researcher discussing the correlation between longevity and the 'economic' (as it pertains to food supply) conditions of the parental generation during the years leading up to reproduction. There is a traceable connection between higher longevity and good economic conditions of the previous generation. So as this relates to my parents generation, well they were all born around the time of either WWI or WWII. But I also think that a hugely significant difference between my mom and her sibs and cousins, and their parents, was farm raised foods vs. store bought/processed foods as well as a decrease in actual physical activity by the younger generation. They were 'so much better off' and the first to really have a 'life of conveniences'.
I will also tell you that I expect to get off my buttocks and start exercising regularly - I want this to be by walking and doing outside things - I need to conquer my absolute disdain of winter - but I can't do so at -20C. I will at -10C, I promise!
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Hi Mike
I am not a chef either, but I think that the butter can easily be replaced with a small amount of whatever you normally saute in - I've not water sauteed like stir fry suggests but a tiny bit of oil for that should do.
The cheese on top - turf it.
The cream is in there to make it richer - I have made plenty of potato cakes and never included creme fresh.
I think the important ingredient needing a substitute is the egg - it binds the cake together and I don't know a savory replacement for egg. Egg white would do the job, but that isn't vegan.
I'm sure stirfry or Anne know the answer - this looks yummy.
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We go through lots of broth here, too
Another good storage is to reuse the old spaghetti sauce jars for homemade broth. We always have some ready to go in the fridge!
Please do add the recipes ~ I'm hopeful that someone on the fence will see that not every meal has to be involved and gourmet lol.
That sounds delicious, Mike. I don't eat a lot of potatoes but seeing these two potato recipes has me antsy for some tonight!
Reading the recipe, I think Ann is spot on re: the butter. For step 2 I'd sub a water saute ~ just bear in mind that you'll need to pay closer attention and stir more frequently than you would if you were using butter or oil. For step 5 I would probably use a tsp or so of oil just to brown, and then water saute as needed (probably won't be needed but I always keep some on the side just in case). I keep some Earth balance on hand, too, which is a vegan buttery spread sold in stores. I always halve the amount in any recipe with great success.
Regarding the egg in step 3, that's an easy one. If you remember nothing else, remember the following substitution because you'll use it A LOT
For the cream, I don't normally cook meals that call for it - my people were fishermen lol
In a pinch you might also try soy yogurt (less healthful overall, but more convenient) as a substitute for the heavy cream.
For a vegan substitute for the cheese topping, well ... that's ONE frontier vegans have yet to conquer IMO. There's just nothin' like the real thing (yet). I sometimes sprinkle some nutritional yeast on top for a cheesy flavor, and you could try blending some yeast with water for a more liquidy consistency that could be poured on top of the cakes and half-"melted" for flavor - though it won't look as pretty!
Can't wait to see how it turns out
Motivation isn't the problem, timing is. Though with enough motivation that goes away as well.
I know many people who've said that exercise makes you young. And my great-great aunt is a great example. She walked at least 2 miles a day until she hurt her leg at the age of 101. Now she just walks as much as she can. She'll be turning 104 in March.
It's updated here for you ETL-ers to browse. I have a lot of culinary experiments waiting on the back burner (no pun really intended) to throw in, too, but it's going to take a while. Also, Big props to David for getting his hands dirty in the kitchen testing and creating new dishes for this collection, as you can see. :ivar
One very interesting thing I have noticed is that my feline allergies, which were pretty severe for the duration of my life, have virtually disappeared since I've changed my diet 6 weeks ago. I never thought such a thing was possible but I can actually sit in a house full of cats with one (or two) snuggled in my lap and not suffer a sniffle. Excellent!
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Maybe we've just had two mild seasons? Or maybe I haven't been in high-pollen areas on race days?
Cool. Congratulations. It seems to me there is a definite benefit to the immune system from the whole food approach. Allergies, achey joints, benefits for diabetes, good stuff.
ann
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This might not be typical, of course, and maybe there are other unknown factors at work. But since this thread showed recent evidence of less-than-expected cholesterol results with the lifestyle change, I'm happy to see some improvements in other areas.
My only other big problem are, like you, seasonal allergies from pollen. In a couple of months we'll find out how that goes.
Ann I definitely am enjoying the immune system benefits here! I feel fortunate that it's happened so quickly for me. I too hope that your joints are continuing to reap the rewards of all these delicious, wholesome nutrients.
Photos that don't suck / 365 / Film & Lomography
I'm a believer that there is a correlation between allergies and diet.
I haven't joined in on the discussion until now, but my wife and I have been doing ETL for a year now (vegan + occasional wild fish). It was Baldy and Andy who turned me onto The China Study and several other books.
I've seen many benefits of the new diet (lost 25 pounds, for example), but before I started this, I had a chronic skin allergy that had bothered me for more than 10 years. I was tested and found to be allergic to tons of things. We could never actually figure out what was causing my specific reaction. In the end, I just needed prescription medication to treat the symptoms when it got bad because it would even keep me from sleeping.
Last summer, after being on the diet for 6 months, I realized that I had had zero skin allergies whatsoever in a long while. Three more months went by, still no issues. I had one flareup in December (still not sure why), but now it's gone again. So, in a year, I've had only one occurrence of something that I dealt with all the time for 10-15 years. There's definitely some correlation between eating healthy and my allergy. I even tried to do some internet research on a link between these two and I couldn't find anything substantive written about it, but I'm a believer in a correlation.
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I saw Baldy discussing this somewhere on his motorcycle forum a few weeks ago. I hadn't heard of it, but was intrigued with the way he described his diet/lifestyle. I couldn't find it again to see the book he was talking about. He pointed me to this thread after I emailed him. I've only lurked here before.
After reading through this thread and the various links, I am definitely going to read The China Study. I have always benefitted from a hummingbird's metabolism up until the past few years. Now suddenly my having literally lived off of fast food and sodas and rarely ever eating a vegetable is rapidly catching up to me.
I've already had to make a bunch of changes in the way I did things the past few years, so this is just another good change I'm making. I haven't drank in years and I quit smoking last June, for instance. But the damage has finally started showing up.
Fortunately my SO has been a vegetarian for half her life, though much of the time she could be what Stirfry called a "junkfood Veg*n" a few dozen pages back, mostly from being around me for the past few years, I'd imagine.
She'll probably end up on here, too...being that I was at least catching the photography bug from her
Thanks for all the info and recipes you all have put up here!
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I really think that we all underestimate how intertwined genetics, environment, behavior are. We are complex creatures, we really are.
ann
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Thanks - this internet thing just gets better all the time....and/or I get stupider!
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I've been keeping track of who's doing this and prodding for results (weight lost, blood lipids, etc.), but I didn't remember you were on the bus.
But uh ohs. You're tempting me to talk more about the things that sound like I must be making them up... One is I suffered terribly from restless legs. I tried all the cures but when they got restless at night, as they did almost every night, I'd have to get up. And be tired the next day.
They were gone in 30 days, starting two years ago when I went down this road. They've come back once for a few days, but it was when my diet left something to be desired (I ate engineered foods during a long race I entered). It's still strange for me to fall asleep like a baby without any restless legs.
I've got several things like that. I heard the most fascinating talk the other night by Milton Mills, a doctor who trained at Stanford. He asks, "Are humans designed to eat meat?" It's mostly about the physiology of carnivores and herbivores.
He started by asking, "Is it coincidence that the very same diet that reverses heart disease also reduces inflammation, reverses diabetes, and reduces the incidence of cancer, allergies, and a host of other chronic diseases?"
John, I have his talk on DVD and you seem like the kind of guy who'd be fascinated by it. My wife and JT were completely engrossed. You live close by. Wanna borrow it?
Wow, that's amazing about the legs. I guess there are just all sorts of ways our body rebels when we put the wrong things in it.
I'd love to see the talk on DVD. Thanks. Shall I swing by your office some time to pick it up?
I think you may not have known I was on the bus because I don't think I've talked about it. My wife joined me on the diet and my 13 yr old son is probably 70% there. He now eats all sorts of vegetables that he never did before and is now very aware of eating healthy. My choosy-eater 10 year old daughter still hasn't latched on yet, but she is at least eating a lot more fruit than before.
I was interested in sharing the work from The China Study with other family members so I wrote a "cliff notes" for the book. It's a collection of what I considered the highlights from the book, particularly the scientific results in the first half of the book that I found so compelling. I've shared a first draft with several family members so far and I'm hoping to finish it up soon and share more widely with my extended family.
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Ann,
I was kind of busy at work when I replied earlier. I wanted to add that I'm glad you found it interesting.
I found it fascinating. Not just from a Ripley's-Believe-It-Or-Not perpsective, but also: I will never be morbidly obese, I know that about myself. But I still learned from these people who are suffering so greatly. I saw where they are in denial, where they are a product of their own actions and attitudes, and I saw how hard they fight this demon that's killing them. Obviously, something is missing in that fight, often, and it looks like they've surrendered to complete hedonism, stuffing as much food as they can into their faces. But there comes a point where just living is a battle for them. Just rolling over. I don't know, I guess I just learned from them, and I feel a lot of compassion for them. What a horrible space to be trapped in.
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Speaking of Cliff notes, this little handbook from Dr. Fuhrman is a jewel:
It's a short little thing with a little plastic card to stick in your wallet. I bought a half dozen and gave them all away so now I'm getting another dozen.
His message is greatly simplified to its essence:
1. To get healthy, you have to eat the highest nutrient density foods.
2. When you eat high nutrient density, you lose your cravings and naturally eat fewer calories.
3. You learn to love the foods in your new diet and dislike the foods you used to love.
http://www.drfuhrman.com/shop/books.aspx
This is really interesting. I haven't checked into this thread for a few days and now find that others are experiencing the one thing I have noticed the most..........almost a total lack of allergies. In fact, when it rains - or even threatens to rain - my allergies kick up. We have had a lot of rain this month and not a trace of an allergic reaction! I do remember reading that if you have allergies to different sources, say cats, wheat and pollen, the more you are exposed to at one time the more likely you are to react. So maybe we have all had food allergies we were never really aware of. Take away the food allergy and other allergies get a chance to calm down perhaps. It's definitely an unexpected bonus! Plus I'm not having to take over-the-counter medication for it either.
Now that I'm considering doing this myself, I have to wonder... you didn't add any extra liquid?
EDIT: And for that matter, did you go with 1/2 as much dried beans as the recipe called for canned?
-Anne
The kitchen is almost on empty, and we're lookin' for the good stuff to try to change when we stock up on better foods.
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To use up winter veggies here, I made some colcannon-ish kale, leek and potato mash, and a brown rice butternut squash and mushroom risotto last night to eat over the next few days. Does anyone have any good ideas for something to bring to a super bowl party? I'm brewing up some bean-dip-related ideas, but anyone have ideas to get me going on a different vein? Perhaps using up some of these winter veggies?
Anne, I have to say I didn't measure the water/broth, oops! I put in enough to cover the ingredients, which is what I do by habit when using the crock pot.
For beans, I threw in one bag of kidney beans, I think. Volume-wise, isn't that close to 2 15-oz cans? The second time we tried it I put in one bag of kidney, one bag of navy, a little extra bulgur and it ended a little thick. I am a rather haphazard cook...
If we figure out a conversion between wet/dry beans, i'll edit the TB
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I agree. I got the ebook version, what's on the card?
My only reservation about this book is that I think it could be misleading for anyone new to this. People are so accustomed to diets counting calories, or points, or whatever, I worry that people will think they have to use this thing every day to count their Nutrient Density Scores. I got it because I was interested in the scores, but I think the last thing anyone eating like this should do is to obsess on these numbers. Eat a well balanced diet of fruits and vegetables, mostly vegetables, and mostly green, and you'll be fine. Oh, and you need nuts and seeds for fats, too, and they score low on the Nutrient Density Scores.
But, the first few chapters are a great distillation of ETL, and it's a handy little book, for sure.
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Thanks.
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I watched the whole documentary (thanks for the link). What struck me was that near the end of the movie after he'd lost nearly 500 pounds (and still needed to lose another 300), they were asking him if he'd changed his diet much. He said "no". He still eats the same things, just smaller quantities (as he was munching on some sort of processed food in a bag) because his stomach has been stapled to be a fraction of it's original size.
I thought to myself, wow after all he's been through and he still doesn't understand that he needs to eat healthy foods and that it would make a huge difference in his health. He doesn't understand that quantity isn't the only thing that matters and, in fact, eating healthy will help a lot with the quantity problem too. I wonder if someone involved in all of his medical care tried to teach him this and he just didn't grok it or if his medical care just never really tried that direction?
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Yes. Thirty-six-thousand calories a day. Every day. I'll try to find that on the net somewhere.
http://photos.mikelanestudios.com/
I think that the doctor only chose the stomach staple procedure to keep Patrick from over-consuming when he left hospital. I am also shocked that the weight reduction was enough to buy him several more years of life. And actually, I am shocked that he could survive as he had. It is staggering to see people (more than one) that are immobilized by their weight!
On a different but related note, my grandparents generation had really good longevity - and generally did so despite terrible lifestyle habits such as too much alcohol and/or cigarette smoking. Their progeny are not living as long. I listened to a great podcast by a British researcher discussing the correlation between longevity and the 'economic' (as it pertains to food supply) conditions of the parental generation during the years leading up to reproduction. There is a traceable connection between higher longevity and good economic conditions of the previous generation. So as this relates to my parents generation, well they were all born around the time of either WWI or WWII. But I also think that a hugely significant difference between my mom and her sibs and cousins, and their parents, was farm raised foods vs. store bought/processed foods as well as a decrease in actual physical activity by the younger generation. They were 'so much better off' and the first to really have a 'life of conveniences'.
I will also tell you that I expect to get off my buttocks and start exercising regularly - I want this to be by walking and doing outside things - I need to conquer my absolute disdain of winter - but I can't do so at -20C. I will at -10C, I promise!
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Ramblings About Me