Eat Light, Be Light

Starting December 22, I gave myself permission to eat whatever. It was the holidays after all – travel, parties, cookies…

So I have spent the last 11 days in a decidedly non-vegan manner and you know what? I feel crappy.

This morning I actually woke up with a stomach ache. That bright, sharp, clear edge I had? Gone. I feel dull, achey, and vaguely depressed. But nothing externally is different, just my inner environment is polluted is all.

So today is a new day, a new year even. I’m ready to be mostly vegan simply because of how it makes me feel.

It’s interesting to me to see how much of mood relates to food. I think most people don’t really get that. And culturally, and medically, we just don’t make that connection. But I think the bottom line is, for most people anyway, you are what you eat. Eat crap, feel like crap. Eat light, be light.

I won’t be as rigid as I was in my 28 day experiment. But I sure as heck won’t be as sloppy as I’ve been over the holidays either. I want to feel good. I like feeling good. It’s worth it to put the extra effort in to feel good.

Today is the final day of the Mayan Calendar, so they tell me. The end of the 4th sun. The last day of the age of Pisces.

So tomorrow is the first day of a new cycle. The 5th sun. The Age of Aquarius.

I haven’t felt like eating much today. I had a very profound experience that made me feel full of light, like I didn’t really need to get light from food, because I was getting it directly from the sun. I also got full spectrum sunlight from a double rainbow that was visible to me while driving for almost half an hour.

I think I might have a carrot for dinner. I had a piece of bread, the Slowfire local artisan bread from the Farm Store in Jeffersonville, for lunch. I also bought some goat cheese while I was there – again, local artisan herbed goat cheese – thinking I might like some on the toasted bread when I got home, but the small hunk I pulled off in the car filled me up and I didn’t want anything else.

That was at 12:30 or so and now it is almost 6pm – I haven’t had anything since then and I am only ever so slightly hungry.

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Tomorrow I am going to start writing my book. I thought I might start writing it today but my energy is very inward today. All I have wanted to do all afternoon is sit quietly on my bed. I feel content, like a cat, happy to nap, to hang out with nothing in particular to do. Simply being feels rich enough.

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Tomorrow, I may eat eggs. I’m open to that possibility. It is very interesting to be following my body for my food choices, not my head, my emotions, my addictions, my cravings. Ha ha, except for coffee! Yesterday my two cappuccinos made me feel like I had done cocaine, or speed. Wow, was I amped! I definitely don’t need two cups of coffee anymore. But I am addicted to it! Guess I might need to address that next…

Wow. It’s hard to believe I am down to the very last day here. What an interesting experience this has been.

This morning I had to run out the door, something I really prefer to not have do. I whipped up a green smoothie and because of the crazy business of my day, it had to last me until 2:45 when I was finally able to get home and make some lunch.

I was so hungry that I briefly thought about making some cheesy bread to go with my soup. Cheesy bread is one of my favorite things – a nice slab of sourdough with butter and grated cheddar or parmesan cheese, all warm and melty and toasty…

And then I was like, whoa, Eileen, you did not come this far to eat cheesy bread in the 11th hour.

So I abstained. And it wasn’t hard to do.

You know what’s funny? I get to have eggs tomorrow morning. And at least as of right now, I could care less. I have settled, somewhat anyway, into eating like this.

I love how eating like this has made me feel. In the whole 4 weeks I have been doing this, I have only had tummy trouble once and that was because I ate too many beans.

This is in contrast to previously when I have had irritability (they don’t call it “bellyaching” for nothing), indigestion, heartburn, constipation and bloating – not regularly, and not all at once – but periodically – with my previous diet.

Cassidy, observing me writing, says “You’re down to the last day? Oh Thank God. I really want you to eat meat again. The stuff you have been eating smells funny”.

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So, the blog doesn’t end here. I still need to see how I feel when I re-introduce dairy and eggs and maybe meat? back into my diet. I guess I will eat meat if I really feel drawn to it. But I also need to start writing my book- which I am going to do tomorrow. December 21, 2012 seems like a good day to start a book.

For breakfast I had a green smoothie, for lunch I had a hummus and veggie sandwich and for dinner I had some kind of Indian food in a foil pouch that I heated up on the stove and put over rice. It tasted good but really looked like…vomit. Yes, that is what it looked like.

Quinn kept peering over at it and saying, “That looks like….” but then, since I have raised him to be polite, refrained from actually telling it like it was. 

I made them ham steak. It truly grossed me out. 

Well, I made it through the wall I hit yesterday. Today I was fine, great even.

I had oatmeal with an apple, some raisins and walnuts in it for breakfast, a green smoothie for a mid morning snack, and then I think I missed lunch because I wasn’t hungry then…

I could have eaten dinner I was so hungry when I got home but I had a piece of oat bread dipped in sunflower oil and that tided me over until dinner.

I made the boys kielbasa for dinner, which sort of gave me the heebs as I was taking it out of the package and cutting it up.

I also made polenta – the kind that comes in a plastic tube that you slice into discs. I fried it in sunflower oil (although I usually use butter), heated up a can of black beans and steamed some kale.

I put the beans on top of the polenta and topped that with some salsa and it was satisfying and tasty enough.

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A message from a friend today: “very curious as to your ‘output’ now that your ‘input’ is so changed. how is that treating you?”

Funny you should ask, I said, because I actually wrote about at the end of the 1st week but decided against actually posting it. But since someone has actually asked about that part of the experiment, I will share…

I think I wrote something like “Wow! How can I eat so little and poop so much??”. 

I have heard it said, probably from a man, that there are few things in life as satisfying as a good bowel movement. I’m happy to report that is my daily experience. Not that it was so terrible when I was eating meat. But this is definitely much better, consistently so. 

Today I am actually feeling quite happy being a vegan. Funny how things often get worse before they get better.

I want eggs! I want eggs! I want eggs!

I am making up love songs to eggs, imagining them fried in butter, slightly crispy around the edges-  my mouth is actually watering for eggs. Dammit. There are some in my fridge right now. Argh.

I don’t even know what else to eat right now. I don’t want to eat anything else right now. Anything else I eat right now will not even begin to compare with EGGS!

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I toasted one of my teff wraps under the broiler, cut it into wedges and ate some hummus with it. Whoop de do. I’m still hungry. I don’t want canned soup. I don’t have enough time to make homemade soup.

So now what?

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Today is the first day I have really felt stalemated over what to eat. Part of it is because I should have gone to the grocery store yesterday instead of finishing the book I was reading – I don’t have much on hand. But the other part of it is that all I really want is eggs. And that is blinding me to other possibilities. I guess I need to go open a carton of soup but I don’t like eating things that I am not FEELING it, you know? That’s how it was with the black bean soup last night. I like to LOVE what I am eating, not feel indifferent because it just needs to fill the hole…

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So, I am eating an almond butter and honey sandwich on organic oat bread. Not too keen on eating two slices of bread because I know that bread isn’t the best thing for my body either. But it says “Vegan Friendly” on the bag, and that is my prime directive at the moment, not “Gluten Free”. I don’t have gluten sensitivity by the way. I just know I feel better when I don’t eat bread.

It’s taken 25 days but I am finally wearing thin on this experiment. I realize how HANDY eggs are and have a whole new appreciation for them. God, I hope I don’t notice any ill effects from reintroducing them to my diet!

When I undertook this, I had no idea that they would really stick out as what I would miss the most. Followed a close second by raw milk and third, goat cheese.

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I have to say that I have officially “hit the wall” in my experiment. This afternoon I was crabby, listless, tired, confused, unable to think about what to eat. I actually thought meat wasn’t such a bad idea.

None of this probably would have happened if I had eaten eggs this morning.

Is it all in my head because I am almost near the end? Or am I really lacking in protein? I really haven’t been able to bring myself to eat too many beans, that’s for sure.

Or maybe it is another wave of detox?

I ate pasta with marinara sauce and steamed kale and (yet more) bread for dinner. I feel pacified but I don’t have that sharp clear edge I’ve had for the last few weeks. I feel oddly defeated.

Of course, the collective vibe today is something that needs to be taken into account. 27 innocent people were “slaughtered” on Friday, all of them shot “multiple times”, most of them 5-7 year olds. Yikes. We have all been pumped full of this horror. And the world may end in just 4 days. I’m just counting down until I can eat eggs again – but millions of people all over the world are anticipating the worst possible scenario, while millions more are anticipating the best. Wild times we live in and all I can think and write about is frickin eggs…

Today is Sunday. It is a lazy snowy sort of day. I haven’t felt much like eating or doing very much except for finishing a good book I was reading.

I’ve had a green smoothie and 3 macaroons. God I love those things.

“When are you going to make dinner, Mom?” Quinn just asked me.

“And what are you going to make for dinner, Mom?”

“I’m  making burgers, Quinn, and I am starting dinner right now”.

But honestly, it feels sort of tiring to have to make two dinners tonight. I don’t have any veggie burgers because I was too engrossed in my book to go to the store today. I don’t really feel like having to make both them and me dinner. But I have to eat. And they have to eat. So I don’t really have a choice. This is where cans of soup come in handy, I guess….

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I had half a can of Amy’s Black Bean soup and some frozen french fries for dinner. I made burgers for the boys- organic, grass-fed, local burgers.

I like burgers. Or maybe I should say, I liked burgers.

I eat them without a bun, but with some nice sharp cheddar slightly melted on it, topped with avocado, spinach, onion and the very delicious zucchini relish my mother in law keeps us well supplied with. And lots of fresh ground pepper. It’s one of my favorite meals.

But I had a stupid can of soup that I didn’t really even want instead. Cassidy didn’t eat a burger either. He fixed it the way he likes burgers, with pickles and spinach and ketchup, but left it on the plate untouched.

“I think your veganism is rubbing off on me now too, Mom”, he said. “I was just feeling bad about the cow…”.

Quinn, however, succeeded in eating the entire thing.

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Green Smoothie in a Bee’s Knees and Rock Art (says that on the other side) Pint Glass

Day 22 is missing from my blog. Yesterday there was a terrible tragedy at a school in Newtown CT and what I ate seemed terrifically irrelevant in the face of that. So I observed a day of internet silence.

But I am back today because even when terrible things happen, we must carry on with our own lives because what else is there to be done? Love each other more, love life more dearly, send love and prayers and healing light to that part of the world, to every part of the world.

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Today is my son Quinn’s birthday – he is 15, on December 15 (although for some reason the day/time stamp on the blog says 12/16). He wanted steak and cheese subs for dinner, and apple pie (he doesn’t like cake). I made the pie crust with butter. I ate a small slice. How could I resist birthday pie? Besides, I make great pies. The first apple pie I ever baked, when I was 21, actually took blue ribbon at the Woodstock Fair in Woodstock, CT.

That pie came out of the oven in my cafe looking so fine, and it just so happened that was the day to enter pies into the state pie contest. “I reckon’ I’m goin to enter this fine lookin’ pie in the fair”, I said, and that’s what I did.

The next day, I took some of my employees with me and we went to the fair to see how my pie had fared. We looked and looked all around the exhibition hall at the many dozens of pies, but couldn’t find mine anywhere – and then someone found it, with the blue ribbon on it. Talk about beginner’s luck! I became famous for my pies for a while, until I got sick of making them. It’s a lot of work that goes into a pie.

So, no, I wasn’t passing on the pie. And I didn’t pass on the Garlic, Rosemary, Parmesan Foccacia bread I bought when I went grocery shopping, hungry, this afternoon.

Feeling a little reckless and sloppy I guess. I am tired of being a vegan. 5 days to go, and then I am eating dairy and eggs with abandon. Ben and Jerry’s, here I come!

Still zero interest in meat though. The boys ate their steak and cheese subs quite happily, examining my dish with curiosity and slight disgust.

I had taken some of the onions and mushrooms I made for the subs and mixed them up with some tempeh that I marinated in the same barbecue sauce I used for the subs. I threw in some spinach and red peppers and wrapped it up in a teff wrap (or rather, tried to wrap it up in a teff wrap. It came unwrapped right quick, revealing its contents.)

“What is that?’ my son said to my husband after I put the plate on the table and walked back to the counter.

“It’s some kind of soy thing” said my husband

“Why would she be eating that if she could be eating steak and cheese subs?” asked my son.

“Good question”, said my husband

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My husband washed the breakfast and lunch dishes that were in the sink before dinner. Because I was busy making pie.

“What the fuck is this green shit you’ve got stuck to insides of my favorite glass?”, he asked, holding up my unwashed green smoothie glass from this morning.

Yeah, I don’t think we’re going to turn him into vegan anytime soon…

My friend Lauren asked me to post my green smoothie recipe, so here it is:

1 cup almond milk (or what have you)
1 TBSP almond butter
1 frozen banana
1 TBSP of chia seeds
dollop of maple syrup
couple of handfuls of spinach and a dash of parsley too if you like
and a few ice cubes

Blend in the blender and enjoy!

I love this smoothie – it tastes great and keeps me going for hours, really works well in a pinch if I have to get out the door. I just put it in a travel mug and take it with me.

Officially at the 3/4 done mark. And I am celebrating with….milk in my cappuccino!

I know, I know. I shouldn’t have done it. But when I opened the fridge this morning, that big gallon jar of fresh milk looked so delicious that I just wanted to drink a great big glass of it.

I NEVER drink glasses of milk – I steam it for coffee, period. And well, yes, I add it to mashed potatoes. But drink a glass? Nope, never have, not even as a kid – in fact, I wouldn’t touch dairy products as a kid.

With 6 kids in my family, my parents actually bought one of those milk machines with the handle you lift up and the spout underneath – the milk man delivered a great big carton of it every week to go in the milk machine. Even the groovy handle and spout wasn’t enough to tempt me as a kid. I guess I knew it didn’t really sit well even then.

But that was pasteurized milk, and here in Vermont, we drink it raw. There is a family here in town who have two cows and we get a couple of gallons from them every week. The last few weeks I have ended up with quite a bit at the end of the week since I haven’t been drinking it. Sort of sad to pour it down the drain, but after 8 days it gets a bit funky.

Yesterday, I only had enough hemp milk for half of what I needed, so I used almond milk for the other half – and that was actually quite a good combination for cappuccino. The hemp milk by itself is kind of rich, the almond milk is kind of thin, but together they work nicely. I have to go shopping today so I’ll get some more hemp milk and almond milk and be a good girl for the rest of my experiment.

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I spent the morning in Montpelier getting some work done on one of our cars. I went to the Hunger Mountain Co-op to have breakfast and ordered a tofu wrap. I had the same one on Monday when I was also in Montpelier also having car work done and that one was really good. This one had way too much tofu. I’m not really big on tofu to begin with, but it was the only vegan option at their deli.

I could only manage to eat half of it so I wrapped up the other half and put it in my bag. Then I went for a hike with my friend Lauren, who gave me a half dozen eggs from her organic free ranging chickens  :”I wanted you to have good eggs next week when you eat eggs on December 22.”, she told me.

I ate the other half of the sandwich driving home. It still wasn’t very good but at least it had worked for breakfast and for lunch.

When I got home, I went for a hike with my friend Annette. Annette also has chickens. “Make sure you come over and get some eggs when you are ready to eat them again”, she told me. I think I will have to have one of Annette’s eggs and one of of Lauren’s eggs so they can both take credit with supplying  me with my first eggs post experiment.

I gave them each 3 cloves of garlic- I recently bartered with a client who gave me about 70 beautiful heads of garlic. So I have been gifting gorgeous garlic to my girlfriends lately.

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For dinner tonight I made a very delicious soup. I used portabello, crimini, and shitake mushrooms, sauteed with onions and garlic and celery, and then I threw in a few of those leftover failed yam fries from a few nights ago, then blended it all up. I threw some cooked broccoli in it as well. Very rich and savory and satisfying. I am content.