Awesome Vegan Food Products I Like

Do you remember the first pair of sneakers you bought that molded to your feet and hardly felt like shoes at all?  You wore them long past the time you should have thrown them away.  Or maybe instead you have a favorite book, one that you return to over and over, simply because it speaks to you like no other book does.

When you find something you love, it's hard not to keep coming back to it.  I hope you finally found the will to toss the sneakers, but chances are you'll never pitch the book.  That's the way I feel about foods I've grown to love.  Now, don't get me wrong.  I'd much rather eat whole foods that I've prepared myself, but I'm also realistic.  Some days I just don't have time to prepare an entire meal from scratch.  Or maybe I can, but I don't want to also bake a loaf of bread from scratch every time I put together dinner.  There's something to be said for the age of convenience.

That doesn't mean, though, that all convenience foods are equal (you know exactly what I mean).  When I buy those types of foods today, I'm looking for products that are healthy, preferably organic, and vegan (of course!).  Here is a list of some of my favorite brands:

Alvarado Street Bakery breads:  Not all of their breads are vegan (some contain honey), but many are.  My local grocery store right now only carries their breads, but I hope they begin carrying some of their other products soon (like bagels and tortillas).  What I really like about their products is that many of their breads are made from sprouted seeds (like sprouted rye or sprouted wheat).  When you eat sprouted seeds rather than flour, your body digests it more easily.  They also don't use GMO (genetically modified) foods, and that is a huge plus for me.  Most of their products contain no dairy or eggs, so most of their goods are vegan.  YAY!  If you're curious, you can check out Alvarado St. yourself!

Amy's Kitchen products:  Those of you who have been reading my blog for a while will find this entry as no surprise.  Not all of Amy's products are vegan, but a good many are.  More than that, though, Amy's prides itself for using natural and organic ingredients, and none of their ingredients are genetically modified.  Amy's makes frozen foods, canned foods (like soups), and other products.  Those products of Amy's that are not vegan are vegetarian.  Some of my favorite Amy's products include the Bean and Rice Non-dairy Burrito (I will never grow tired of these!), the Black Bean Vegetable Enchilada entree, and the No Chicken Noodle Soup.  And what would I do without their Roasted Vegetable Pizza?  They label their vegan products so you can find what you need without wondering.  Want to see their website yourself?  Amy's Kitchen.

Kashi:  Not all of their products are vegan, but like Amy's, they label the ones that are.  I have to admit it:  I love several of their frozen vegan entrees.  On nights where I feel like I just can't do another thing, it's nice to be able to pop one of their entrees in the microwave.  My faves include Black Bean Mango (so unusual but really good!), Mayan Harvest Bake (again, strange, but in a good way), and the Tuscan Veggie Bake (more traditional if your taste buds just want good old-fashioned comfort food).  You can check them out here:  Kashi.

Galaxy Nutritional Foods Rice Vegan American Flavor "Cheese" Slices:  Most vegans I know worship at the alter of Daiya.  Daiya's not bad, but it doesn't taste like cheese to me.  I don't know how to describe it, but my taste buds are not fooled for one second.  I still use their cheddar and mozzarella shreds, but I just can't embrace them as the vegan cheese.  I've tried lots of vegan cheeses, and few have satisfied that occasional craving I get.  That is, except one.  When I use Galaxy's rice vegan American slices in a sandwich, I can believe I'm eating a good ol' slice of American cheese.  I can't just have a grilled cheese sandwich, but if I have a veggie sandwich with a slice of rice vegan (or make a plate of nachos with refried beans, salsa, and rice vegan), I am happy!  I have to go out of town to buy this cheese, so I'm glad I don't eat it a lot, but I'm looking forward to the day when my local health food store carries Galaxy products.

Boca: I'd almost bet there isn't a vegetarian out there who hasn't heard of Boca (well, American veggies, at any rate).  I don't like all Boca products, but they do have a few I like.  If you buy Boca, you'll notice that they package their non-GMO soy products differently, and those are the ones I buy.  They are in brown packages, whereas their regular products are in red.  Sometimes, dang it, I want a burger and fries, and I don't care how unhealthy they are, but my burger still has to be vegan.  Some Boca products I love (all the non-GMO soy versions):  Vegan Meatless Burger, Original Chik'n Patties, Original Chik'n Nuggets, Spicy Chik'n Patties, and Ground Crumbles.  I don't know what I'd do if they didn't have non-GMO versions!  I used to love Morningstar Veggie Patties, but they use egg products (and probably GMO products as well), so I hope someday Morningstar jumps on the vegan, non-GMO soy bandwagon...but I'm not holding my breath.  Thank goodness Boca did!

505 Southwestern:  I'm a sucker for a good salsa.  Heck, I'm a salsa junkie.  There.  I admitted it, and I feel better now.  505 products aren't targeted toward vegan audiences, so I guess they're what PETA would call "accidentally vegan."  My favorite products are both of their medium salsas, regular and chunky.  I use them in and on so many foods.  Their products are all natural, and any products that has just a few ingredients is better than a food that has dozens!  For instance, that medium salsa I told you about?  Seven ingredients, and one of them is water!  So it's not an entire meal...but it can make any blah meal awesome!  Check out 505 yourself and see what you think.

As I complete this list, I realize I've left off some products that aren't registering with me right off the bat.  I think this list will give you a good idea, though, so next time you're too tired to whip up an entire meal from scratch, consider one of these products!

Confused about What Vegan Really Is?

Okay...so this story makes me feel a little guilty.  Stick with me!

Earlier this week at work, one of the women from another department brought me a bag of homemade cookies.  She had apparently been passing out little bags of cookies to lots of different people.  When she came to my office, she said, "I know you're vegan, so I made you these special cookies."  I thought that was very sweet.  She started naming off ingredients like quinoa flour and such, and then she said honey.  I couldn't help it, but I just blurted out, "I don't eat honey."  It's true.  I don't.  Most vegans don't.  It's animal protein (even though it's an insect and not a large animal), but I also don't appreciate what bees go through when we steal their honey.  Daniel Hammer, in his article entitled "Is Honey Vegan?", explains it best:

Honeybees . . . are able to experience pain and suffering . . . . Honey, beeswax, bee pollen, royal jelly, propolis and venom are taken from bees for human uses. In the process of acquiring these, beekeepers regularly disturb the bees’ homes by removing the honeycombs from the hive. When this is done some bees will inevitably be injured or crushed, and any bees who sting the beekeepers will also die.

So, anyway, I blurted out, "I don't eat honey," implying that I wouldn't eat the cookies. 

She frowned and said, "What?  You don't eat honey?  Why not?" 

I replied, "It's an animal product." 

She said, "Animal?" 

I then said, "Yes, lots of vegans don't eat honey." 

Again: "Why not?"

"Do you know what they do to bees to get their honey?"

Then her tone completely changed and she said, "Oh.  You're one of those PETA vegans, huh?"

I'd been reading Rory Freedman (an outspoken well-known vegan) earlier that day and felt empowered.  I kept my tone calm and said, "I am vegan for every reason there is to be a vegan--for health, the planet, and animals."

Anyway, both she and I agreed that my carnivorous children would enjoy the cookies, and the next day I composed a Thank You card where I simply thanked her for the thought and told her I appreciated it.  But I felt guilty.  Guilty because I'd looked a gift horse in the mouth.  Guilty because someone had done something so completely selfless and unsolicited.  Guilty because I could have simply just said, "Thank you."  But I didn't.  I told her my feelings.  Even without the honey, I don't eat a lot of sugar anyway.  I suppose it would have been easy enough (I guess) to simply say thanks.  In fact, when I related the story to my husband and daughter, they slapped their foreheads (a la "I coulda had a V-8") and said I should have simply thanked her.

But it's not that easy.

You see, the longer I am vegan, the more firmly I feel about my eating convictions.  And I wanted to set the record straight.  This woman told me a while back that her daughter is vegetarian.  Well, what if her daughter becomes vegan?  If the daughter were to become vegan, well, at least her mom will have a heads up about honey.  And, while we're on that subject, not all sugar is vegan either.  In fact, most cane sugar is not vegan, and it's because of the filtering process.  When I use sugar, I usually use Sugar in the Raw (which is vegan) or Sucanat. If you're curious to learn more, you can read "The Great Sugar Debate: Is it Vegan?"

So, I suppose I need to be calmer, but if you're going to cook for a vegan, you might want to find out what that means.  For example, I would have been perfectly happy with Agave in those cookies!  :)

Easing into Vegan Eating, Part 2

So...let's say you've decided for sure you want to become vegetarian or vegan or maybe even just want to incorporate more vegetarian dishes into your life.  Or maybe you're wanting to become vegetarian on some level but the rest of your family is resistant...and maybe you're the cook in the family or at least one of them.  What are some things you can do to ease into the vegetarian lifestyle?  Here are a few things that I did along the way:

1. Have a salad with every meal.  A lot of families already do this and if you do, I congratulate you!  It's a great way to incorporate fiber and phytonutrients in your diet.  Salads don't have to be boring.  There are so many lettuces out there as well as tons of raw veggies just waiting to be chopped up!  And dressings...that's where I really enjoy experimenting.  If you can, avoid conventional bottled dressings--they're full of horrible additives, things like high fructose corn syrup and other sugars as well as a host of preservatives.  You can even make your own croutons with bread, olive oil, and seasonings, toasted in the oven.
2. If you can't get rid of the meat on the plate, at least make it smaller.  Nutrition experts say that a serving size of meat is about the size of a deck of cards.  So make sure it's no bigger than that.  Make the rest of the plate veggies!
3. Do you (or your family) have a favorite vegetable or fruit?  Find ways to incorporate that veggie in a lot of your meals.  For example, if the family can't get enough yams, don't wait until the holidays to eat them!  Thanks to the internet, you can search and find dozens of recipes online in no time flat.  Do a search for your veggie--for example, search for "yam recipes."  Try a new one every week.  Hang on to the ones that make everyone gobble it all up.  Who needs meat when the veggies taste so delicious?
4. Plan to make one meatless meal a week.  Even most hard-core meat eaters have one or two meatless entrees they enjoy.  So take advantage of that.  If the family likes broccoli and cheese casserole, then make it more often!
5. Find ways to convert old favorites.  Here's where the fun comes in.  If you like experimenting in the kitchen, see what you can do with some of your old favorites.  Maybe you had a dish that was made with ground beef.  Why not try making it once with Boca crumbles?  See what the family thinks.  With the right spices and other ingredients, they might not even figure out what's missing!

If becoming vegan is your ultimate goal, then keep trying.  No one's perfect!  But if you want to be vegan, you can do it!  My final recommendation is to find websites and books that give more information on vegan nutrition and offer tons of mouth-watering recipes.

A Former Meaty Cook Transforms into a Vegan

So how do we do that?  I had hundreds of dishes that I was "famous" for...recipes like green chili (with pork), chicken and dumplings, and spaghetti that I adapted from my mother and other recipes that I discovered and adapted over the years...things like chicken piccata and arroz con pollo.  See the theme here?  Meat, eggs, cheese all over the menu.  So even though I relished becoming vegetarian and then vegan, I had a few things I was sad to let go.  But no fear.  Really.  I am slowly adapting every last one of my recipes and changing them to vegan.  And you know what?  They taste just as good to me.

Take my green chili, for instance.  I thought I could never (and would never) eat it again.  But my husband said he was really missing it, so one day I thought to myself, "Why not just make it?  Just leave out the pork."  And you know what?  It was freaking awesome!!!  I'll admit I did increase the amount of anaheims I used to use and I added a little bit of jalapeno, but other than that, it was the same recipe.  I did something different then with chicken and dumplings (because my daughter was complaining that she missed them) and arroz con pollo.  I bought some Boca Chik'n Nuggets and substituted them for chicken.  I don't think the chicken and dumplings will ever be the same (but they weren't bad!), but the arroz con pollo was perfect.

Those dishes are fairly simple to adapt, in my opinion.  My fear was baking.  And I kept telling myself that I'm vegan now.  I shouldn't have a bunch of baked stuff.  But you know what?  I can and I will.  Don't worry--I'm still getting lots of raw, nutritious foods (I eat plenty of raw fruits and veggies every day as snacks!), but why can't I have baked goods on occasion?  There's no good reason not to.  So now I'm starting to slowly adapt those recipes.  Take my cornbread, for instance (there's a picture early in the blog, after the Week One menu).  It used to use milk and eggs, and it was slathered with butter after it was cooked.  It was full of animal protein and fat.  Well, why not change that?  I did.  I simply removed the eggs, so it was a little heavier than the original version, but I'm okay with that.  It makes it feel heavier and more filling.  And I used soy milk instead of regular milk.  Then I topped it with vegan margarine instead of butter.  And I was happy!

So...the lesson here?  If you have chosen to become vegan like I have, go for it.  Don't worry about missing old favorites.  You'll figure out how to adapt them at some point, and you'll be glad you did.  Happy eating!

The Challenge

I've been a vegetarian for a year and a half and have been gradually becoming a vegan.  I have now made the commitment to becoming entirely vegan.  My family, though, are meat eaters and will eat vegan when I'm cooking.  So, my challenge is to show my family (and anyone else) that eating vegan can be exciting and delicious. 

I plan to create a dinner menu for every day of the year that is full of variety and nutrition, that is tasty, delicious, and mouth watering.  You see, I've had a difficult time over the last year with coming up with recipes that continue to satisfy my carniverous family.  I've managed to create a few hits.

Part of the challenge came from converting my old favorites.  Most of my old dishes utilized some form of meat base.  While not using meat for flavor was hard at first, I've adapted.  And a lot of my old favorites are my new favorites in different form.  Another part of the challenge was finding dishes that emphasized flavor.  I bought a vegetarian cookbook, but some of the ingredients were too exotic or the dishes too bland.  But more than that, just planning a meal was hard.

Not anymore.  But I still meet lots of people who refuse to even try vegetarianism because it seems so boring.  Well, it's not.  And giving up dairy isn't too big a problem either once you have some ideas about what to make.

Part of my inspiration came from Women's Day magazine.  I used to read that magazine a lot when I was first married, and one thing I liked was the monthly menu they included.  It gave ideas for dinner meals every day of the month, sometimes even having dinners as "planned-overs," using food left over from the day before.  I would like to do that too, only these menus will be vegan.  My goal is to give you 365 menus with no repeats.  By "no repeats," I mean no dinner will every be exactly the same.  They might be similar (maybe you'll have the same salad twice, for example, but the rest of the meal will be completely different).  I'll also include an occasional breakfast and lunch here and there in addition to the menu.  I might even list a dessert here and there.

My goal for now is to write out a weekly menu.  I'll include recipes (or links to recipes) when and where I can or at least give you the basics.  Let's see just how many dinner ideas I can come up with.  Happy reading (and eating)!