Vegan Chili

Dinner

My first shift at work since I've been back flew right by and I zipped home to whip up some dinner. I started with a salad of baby greens, cucumber, tomato, avocado, and home made oil and vinegar dressing with a few squirts of chili garlic Cholula (it's so good, you should try it if you can).

I concocted a vegan chili using

• 2 cans of stewed tomatoes
• 1 can of tomato paste
• 1 white onion diced and sauteed
• about 1/2 cup vegan "Soyrizo"
• 1 can kidney beans
• chipoltle chili powder, regular chili powder, black pepper, and garlic powder

Served with "Food Should Taste Good" Multigrain chips on the side.
And now I am stuffed! I still have ridiculous amounts of reading and a kitchen to organize so I am going to get cracking till I just can't any more.

I hope you had a relaxing Sunday evening and I will see you in the morning.

Night!

I'M BACK! Mind Blowing Nutrition Info!

Blogworld, I'm back!!

I'm sorry to have been gone so long but I'm back now with lots of exciting updates. I missed blogging and I haven't stopped taking pictures of my food; I haven't forgotten about you! I've been home from Israel for about two weeks now and I've been readjusting to my usual swing of things, starting my first week of summer school back in Santa Barbara, and living in my new apartment! I have so much information that I want to share with you but it's impossible to try to do it all at once. Hopefully things will come up organically as I begin to post regularly again and I will also try to put up highlights from my trip every week.

Before I get to my first Breakfast post since being back, (woohoo!) I want to share one valuable set of lessons that I learned while in Israel that has changed some of my eating habits. While I was in Tzfat with a group of friends for a Shabbat weekend, I stayed in a hostel called Ascent which hosts themed Shabbat retreats for guests of all ages and backgrounds. With no pre-planning we happened to be there during a Shabbat themed around nutrition for the body and soul. Obviously I was very interested in what exactly this was going to be and so we all attended the series of lectures over the course of the weekend.

Suffice to say, I was soaking everything up like a sponge and buzzing with validation as the Dr. began spelling out nutritional information that was not only very similar to what I had been doing before but was connected to the teachings of the Torah. One of the key things I learned that I have really made an effort to change is the concept of timing out and ordering the various foods as I eat them.

What I mean by this is that there is a different approach to diet than what most people take. (And by diet I don't mean a structured, goal-oriented eating regimen but rather the foods that compose one's sustenance.) Rather than focusing on the properties and attributes of the foods that are eaten, the main concern is instead the function of those foods within the body and the mechanism of the digestive process. It seems like such a subtle difference and yet, it makes so much more sense, I can't believe it isn't the standard! Surely most 'diets' or lifestyle plans are designed after this principle but I've never seen it spelled out directly in this way and I think having the knowledge behind the plan makes it easier to carry out and stick with.

So what are these guiding principles and how do they apply? I am in no way an authority on this nor am I deserving in any credit for the originality of the information. I will relate what I learned and give you my word that the facts are, as far as I know, accurate. But don't just take my word for it! Alright, here it goes.

1. The Stomach-- Listening To Your Gut

Imagine an empty ballon. It's pretty small in size but has the ability to stretch to an impressive volume, hopefully while avoiding popping. Now imagine filling that balloon with grains of rice until the ballon is 3/4 full and tying it off. If you were to mush that balloon around in your hand you could theoretically come into contact with every grain of rice through the rubber. Now imagine that instead of 3/4 full you filled that sucker till it was jam packed and tied it off. If you were to mush that balloon around in your hand it would be stiff and some grains of rice may be trapped in the middle, never coming into contact with the walls of the balloon.

This balloon is your stomach. It stretches and it mushes just like the balloon, but the kicker is that the lining of the stomach secrets acids which saturate and digest stomach contents while nutrients are absorbed through the stomach walls. If your stomach is 3/4 full it will have the ability to be the super efficient digestive organ that it is and properly digest food and absorb nutrients. Conversely, when the stomach is filled to the brim, proper digestion and absorption are compromised--at your expense!

How to avoid this:

• Only eat until you are 3/4 full. Stop eating while there is still desire.
• Allow your body time between meals to digest so that you take each meal with a blank slate, empty stomach-- ready for action!
• Do not drink water while eating-- this dilutes the acid in your stomach and prevents foods from being fully digested. Drink before meals and wait at least an hour after to start drinking water again.
• Remember: it is better to have a little bit of 'bad' or unhealthy food than it is to over eat even with 'good' or healthy food.
• Only eat when hungry. Never eat when sad or angry. "The conditions favorable to proper digestion are wholly abolished when unpleasant feelings such as vexation and worry and anxiety, or great emotions such as anger and fear, are allowed to prevail" (Walter Bradford Cannon, Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear, and Rage, D. Appleton and Company, New York, 1915, Chapter 1 "The Effect of The Emotions on Digestion",Click here to access on Goggle Books, 9). And on the flip side, digestion is better when you're happy!

2. Fruit-- Everything You Thought You Knew Is Wrong!

Well, not everything, don't worry. But I was shocked to learn that the way I was thinking about fruit was counterintuitive to its properties and functioning, and how it should be best utilized. Fruit is amazing. It is was one of the most perfect foods in existence for a few reasons: it is easily digestible, all are chocked full of various 'life-extending' nutrients, they are high fiber and high water content, and everyone can agree they taste amazing! The problem with fruit is that most people assume that because fruits are "healthy" foods, it's a good idea to substitute them for desserts and to eat them at the end of a meal. Don't get me wrong, it is way better to have a bowl of fruit salad than a bowl of ice cream after a meal but is not the way to get the most out of your fruit.

Like I mentioned before, fruit is very easily digested. Most will only take 30-45 minutes to digest, absorb, and leave the stomach. According the the Puristat--Digestive Wellness Center website, proteins take 3 or more hours to digest, fats depend on the amount but can take up to 3 hours or more to digest, starches take 2 hours or more to digest, and vegetables take about 45 minutes to digest. The best way to eat a piece of fruit is alone, without anything else, and on an empty stomach followed by refraining from eating for at least 30 minutes to allow full digestion. The best time to eat fruit is 30 minutes before each meal. Think about this: when you eat something that takes 3 hours to digest, like meat, and then have a piece of fruit, that fruit is just sitting on top of the protein waiting to be digested. If too much time goes by the fruit will rot in the body before getting digested and nutrients will not be properly absorbed, but you will still get the calories! All for nuthin'!

Just remember this simple guideline:

• What goes out first should go in first. Fruit is digested the quickest followed by vegetables, starches, and then proteins. If you follow this rule correctly, within days you will begin to notice more regularity and frequency of bowel movements due to the high fiber and proper digestion. And that's a good thing!

I think this is enough for now to get your wheels turning about how you eat, when you eat, and what your body actually has to say about it. Again, I am no expert on this and I am still working on getting it right myself when I eat, but perfect practice makes perfect. One last thing I will say about my experience at this seminar was that after the first lecture I approached the doctor and asked, "As a vegan what would you suggest as a healthy protein source?" After explaining that we don't need as much protein as we think we do and that beans, sprouts, legumes, nuts, and limited processed soy products are good sources, he told me that he is a vegan too! He is vegan during the week and enjoys a small piece of meat and fish on Shabbat. I was glowing! I felt so affirmed that after going vegan based on my personal belief that it is the best way to give my body what it needs, here I was, being told by the expert himself that he has the same diet! Talk about validation. Also, his exact words were "Milk is not good for any body at any time." Golden! Please feel free to ask questions about these concepts and if I don't have the answers I will do my best to find a credible source and seek them out.

Breakfast

Now, On to the present! I've spent so much time writing about my new nutrition info that I have to fly through this so I make it to work on time! Following with my fruit first rule, I had a grape fruit after drinking some water upon waking.

30 minutes later I enjoyed a bowel of golden flax cereal with almond milk and a cup of Starbucks VIA with stevia and almond milk. I haven't been going crazy with the coffee lately (thankfully) but it was one of those nights and hence, one of those mornings!

Lunch

After working hard on organizing my new kitchen I took a lunch break which started with this beautiful bowl of cherries.

Next I had a small bowl of red leaf lettuce with a homemade oil and vinegar dressing.

I waited 30 minutes before having this toasty almond butter and boysenberry jam sandwich.

Now I have to rush to get ready for my first shift back at the Music Library since I've been home! Don't wanna miss it. It's so good to be back guys, I just want you to know. There's a lot of good stuff in store and I hope you'll be nice if I'm not super consistent at first. I'm still getting grounded in my routine here.

love love love!

First Shabbos!

Breakfast

I was so happy to set my alarm for 8 instead of 6:30 on Thursday night and strolled into breakfast with my fixins. I made oats with banana and walnuts which really hit the spot.

I also had some black coffee with a little sugar. Coffee is coffee at this point, know what I mean?

Workout

After doing some easy stretching and letting my breakfast fully digest, I threw on my workout shoes and actually went for a run around the campus. I came up with a loop around the school that starts uphill and finishes downhill. I did it four times and then cooled down on a shady grassy area behind some dorms. Then I did some circuits that I picked up from the Jillian DVD which included jumping jacks, push ups, bicycles, toe touches, high knees, butt kicks, and double crunches. Then I finished up with some more sit ups in my room (cause the grass was attacking me) and stretching.

Lunch

I basically lazed around my room after my shower, anticipating seeing some of my favorite ladies for Shabbos from when I was here last winter. I knew there was going to be intense amounts of delicious food so I wanted to leave plenty of room. The cafeteria kitchen pretty much shuts down on Friday in preparation for shabbos but they do leave some potato kugel. I enjoyed a few pieces with some hummus,

and also and orange. It would be a long time before eating again and this little lunch did a good job holding me over.

The family who housed my roomie Chelsea and I were really nice and the kids were bundles of energy!

Meet my alarm clocks. These two came bursting in the next morning and it's a good thing I can quickly flex my abs because yes, there was stomach jumping.
Both our Shabbos dinner and lunch and third meal were wonderful and we got to spend them with some of our favorite people! As a reminder, part of Shabbos is that no electricity or electronics are used from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday so there are no pictures of the food. But trust me, I was wishing I could have snapped shots of everything because it's always a feast worth remembering!

When Chelsea and I got back to our dorm we met up with our much missed roomie Sam! We decided to go have a little fun in the downtown area of Jerusalem and meet up with Chelsea's boyfriend and some of the guys from his study program.

Preparation.

The girls!
Sam and I went Polish if ya know what I mean!
Chelsea and her boo. Aren't they adorable!?

Breakfast

This morning I was a little late waking up and just barely made it to breakfast. I was in such a hurry that I forgot my camera and I was forced out of my normal oats and had cereal with banana and walnuts and milk (I know, milk! Ahh!) But it's all good. I was just happy to have something in my tummy before classes.

Snack

During a little break between classes I snacked on these rice cakes that my friend Netanya and I went halvesies on.
I dunked mine in my hummus, a winning combo in my book actually.

Lunch

Lunch today was brown rice, peas, and crazy salad fixings. I also had some veggie soup.
I got creative with my rice cakes and spread them with hummus and topped it all with cucumbers, onion, tomato, bell pepper, carrot, green olive and pickle chunks. It wasn't graceful to eat but it was tasty and afterall... it's an all girls school hahaha.
An ity bity green apple for a little something sweet.

Snack

I started a class today learning Hebrew, wooohoooo!! It's going to be tough since I have had no training at all and its seems like many of the girls have been to Hebrew school before. After class I has a little snack of more rice cakes and hummus and peach applesauce. Yum!
Dinner

I totally forgot that I took the battery out of my camera when I went to dinner so there's no photo of dinner tonight sorry! I had flashbacks of my childhood at dinner tonight because there was rice and corn, a dish that always reminds me of my mommy. There was also veggie medley, soy patty, salad, and a really tasty soup that I suspect was made with beef broth....but who really knows.

Right now I'm in the internet room where those of us who were going into internet withdrawls bombarded directly after class. I'm having a weird crampy stomach ache right now and I can't figure out why! I was in a rush more than once today at meal times...maybe I ate too fast? Nothing a good night sleep won't fix.

It's weird to say good night when I know you're all still in the afternoon. It's also weird that Sunday was a school day for me and it's a rest day for you all! It's all backwards up in the Holy Land haha.

Toodles!

I'm Back!

Hello blog world! I've missed you so much you don't even know!! I've been MIA on the web because there's been so much action going on for me that I literally have had no chance to report until now. It's been such a long time that I'm not going to even attempt to do a massive catch up but rather jump to my time in Israel!

First a little re-cap is in order. So not only did I have finals to worry about last week but I was also moving moving out of my apartment, packing for my six week trip to Israel, and grading about 600+ Human Sexuality finals. Luckily for me, my mom came down to help me and she really was the brains of the whole operation and I would not have been able to do it without her. I would have been so much more stressed out without her! So, in between studying, and helping mom with organization and packing, I would dash over to the house of one of the graders where all the finals were, whip out my red pen, and grade like a crazy person. While grading one of the graders, Dave, went for a food run to the Co-op and picked up a vegan turtle cup for me! As promised, it is being fully document on the blog as officially: amazing!

Dave, you made my grading that much sweeter. Thank you!
Carmel, puffed rice, and peanuts....soo good!
The packing was no small job. We spent at least, at least three days getting my life in a box. I know I have a lot of stuf... don't judge!

So, I don't know that the next few days that I'm about to post will be interesting to anyone at all but I figure, on the off chance that someone is interested in how a vegan would travel to Israel, I'll just post everything I can. I would mention that I think it's healthy that when I travel, I loosen up a little and am not as strict about eating vegan as I am at home. I go to new places to experience and learn new things and sometimes that has to do with tasting new things. I don't want to go crazy and start eating everything in sight but I also don't want to hold myself back from enjoying little things. With that said, I still will probably be avoiding eating meat as an entree.

Anyways, when I got the the airport I had a bit of a fiasco. I had an interview early that morning so I didn't eat breakfast. I figured I'd have plenty of time to get something at the airport and leisurely enjoy my departure. Alas, that is not at all how it went. Long story short, I was at the wrong terminal just long enough to miss the flight I was supposed to be getting on to make my connection in New York. Thankfully, the crew at El Al was kind enough to get me onto a direct flight! I was so happy that I wasn't going to have to stay in LA an extra night that it didn't bother me as much that by this point I was starving.

Snack

My mom grabbed an apple for me from the hotel which I gobbled as soon as I got in my seat.

Without me even noticing, my mom also slipped this bag of candied ginger into my bag and thank goodness she did! This little bag of sweetness been saving me left and right.
I like this kind of candied ginger much better than the crystallized.
When the inflight service started they served these little corn chips which I remembered really liking from the last time I flew El Al.

Linner

I was not aware that this meal was actually our dinner since I hadn't eaten breakfast and meals are always kind of crazy on long, international flights like this. I avoided the chicken and dug into the rest which was quite tasty to a starving girl like me.
I also throughly enjoyed this little dessert :)

Breakfast

After making a significant dent in my book The Alienist by Caleb Carr (which was getting crazy intense I couldn't put it down), and watching all the inflight movies I could handle, I slept for maybe an hour if that. I woke up starving again which is really not a fun way to travel. Luckily breakfast service came and I gobbled it up. Refined gobbling that is.

Dinner

Again, my meal schedule was all mixed up and I arrived at Neve (the seminary I'm learning at) after lunch time. Dinner was couscous, salad, chicken broth soup with veggies, and potatoes cooked with beef. I avoided any chunks of meat, no worries.

Mini lesson: Keeping kosher involves never mixing milk with meat. All the food at Neve is kosher which means that a kosher kitchen must be kept. You may begin to notice that there is a color coding of the dishes that reveals the type of meal being served: Pink= meat meal Blue= milk meal. On shabbos I look forward to meat meals mostly because I know there won't be dairy in anything!
I finished my meal with an orange that was not the sweetest. I have a feeling I'm going to get good at spotting the tasty ones in the next few weeks.

Breakfast

Breakfast on Wednesday morning was a bit of a challenge but I remembered from last time that I would be able to make oats. Only problem I arrived towards the end of serving time and had to rush! I topped my plain oats with peanut butter and a little sinfully good chocolate spread.
I also had a slice of bread with peanut butter. On the way out I grabbed another half slice of bread and mistakenly spread it with the sweetened peanut butter. Regular peanut butter and sweetened peanut butter are not the same, let me tell you.

Snack

Snack time rolled around between classes so I enjoyed this little apple. The apples are much sweeter here in Israel. I wonder why?
At the next break I bought an iced coffee for 10 shequels which is about $3.50 US dollars. It's like a slushy iced coffee and it was soo good! I appreciated that there was a sign noting that one serving is about 190 calories. Better than I had estimated!

Lunch

At lunch time I was ready to load up on all the veggies I could. You will probably begin to notice that each meal includes a soup of some kind, lots of veggies and salad, and a main course that is either meat or milk based. The soups usually have a lot of fresh dill which I didn't use to like but have grown to appreciate. Also, there is almost always fish at lunch but I haven't decided to cross that bridge quite yet. What do you think? Should I go for the fish?
For a little mid-day dessert I enjoyed one of these Rugala.
These things are so ridiculously good! They have a very subtle chocolaty flavor.

Dinner

Dinner was a chicken broth soup with carrots, roasted potatoes (yaaaay roasted!), peas, cucumbers and peppers, a soy/corn patty with mustard that has more of a horseradish flavor, and for a super treat some summer melon.
On my way out I grabbed another slice of that melon. It was too good to pass up.

Snack

On our way to evening classes I snacked on my candied ginger. There's Sam, my awesome roomie in the back!
After class I had this juicy orange and then hit the sack! I passed out I was so tired. The jet lag is still affecting me.

Breakfast

Finally at today! This morning I was determined to make the oats situation happen. I decided to ad some of this yogurt to my concoction to make it a little creamier and topped it all with PB&J, reminiscent of oats at home. I also enjoyed a little coffee with sugar.

Lunch

Lunch today was a dilly, veggie soup, and pasta with a bunch of mixed veggies.
After laying around in the grass for a bit and a cool shower some girls and I made the trek down the hill to the mini strip of shops. We hit the ice cream shop first of course where I got a scoop of strawberry sorbet and a scoop of lemon mint. Super refreshing in this crazy hot weather.

Dinner

For dinner I had cooked squash, rice, a soy patty, and I'm happy to introduce to the scene: hummus!! I made sure to buy some when we went to the grocery. I didn't end up eating my soup because I found a hair in it. Yuck.

Snack

At the break during evening classes I snacked on this apple. They are perfectly small for snack size.
So, the internet situation was all mixed up until tonight so as soon as I got the chance, I jumped in the internet room and got working on this post! I actually just finished this bag of ginger :( Luckily we are probably going to the market tomorrow where I will definitely be buying trail mix.
I only have internet access after 9PM so my posts will be whole day posts rather than the daily ones I try to do at home. Also, tomorrow is Shabbos!! This means that I will not be using the internet (or any technology for that matter) until sun down on Saturday.

I am really enjoying myself here so far even though a part of me really misses home. I hope to be able to contact my family soon and I will be making facebook appearances when I can! For now, I am really tired and I wanted to try and catch a run in the morning. (we'll see what jet lag has to say about that!)

Good night (or good afternoon for most of you) and Good Shabbos!