Traveling Vegan

Lessons learned from my first experience away from home

I was visiting my son Ben at Conserve School in northern Wisconsin.

We stopped at a restaurant on the way up...I picked it because I liked the name  "Shady Sue's"
There was one "vegan friendly" item on the menu ...the dinner side salad.  It certainly made choosing dinner easy.   At least it was a good salad.  ( I did have some of my friend Mary's french fries!)

At Conserve School, it was very easy to eat vegan.  They eat healthy and plant strong in general...there is always a vegan option and an amazing salad bar ( the photo does not do it justice...sorry Scott)

I will be more prepared next time I am on the road.  I will pack snacks...healthy,  fun and easy to get to.   I used to pack snacks all the time when the boys were little...so this is returning to a habit not starting a new one.

 I am paying attention to food in a different way!  I am much more appreciative of healthy, beautifully prepared food.

Yes!

After a few disappointing meals from vegan cookbooks..we decided to change our strategy.

Why not start with Rip's recipes that have all been vetted by Texas fire fighters. (Engine 2 Diet)

Here is Mark making Rip's sweet potato lasagna.
(official name Raise the Roof Lasagna)



 As he made it he announced..."I'm not making this again...this is a lot of work."












However when eating Rip's lasagna he said

 " I will make this again...

 I would serve this to company."

Yes!

Happiness is...

soy milk creamer and a Mighty Muffin!

Who would have thought I'd be happy about soy milk creamer :)

 I really like coffee with cream. I tried almond milk and it just didn't cut it so I was getting ready to go with out coffee ( gasp from coffee drinkers).

Turns out there must be quite a few vegan coffee lovers who don't drink black coffee.  There are multiple kinds of creamers to try.

Breakfast has been a ho hum granola... fine but not very filling. So we checked out Rip's online recipes and chose the Mighty Muffin.   To say these are filling is an understatement.  You make them with 3 cups of oat bran and 6 bananas.  These things are  meal.

Our first dinners were disappointing.  We tried a chili and a Hunan hotpot.  Both C-...not awful but certainly not anything exciting.  We were not looking forward to dinner.   Mark said " We can do better than this!"

So we went online.  Rip, who inspired this whole adventure has recipes that look amazing (hoping it isn't just that he as an awesome photographer.)  And so does Fork Over Knives and my sister suggested Whole Foods  (which has a getting started vegan section with recipes)

We love food and this challenge was not about deprivation.  We knew we might need to "educate our palate: ( pretty sure Rip said something like that) but we are pretty sure there are recipes we will be excited about...and that is part of why we are doing this challenge.  We want to widen our food horizons...and ramp up the plants.

The next adventure...I visit my son Ben at Conserve school this weekend where he has quite a few vegan friends so I am going to try my hand at baking vegan cookies.

photo source:  Engine2Diet

Slaying the Five Headed Dragon

We have been looking for a  challenge 

and we finally found one.  

It has to do with food ( no big surprise if you know our family)

We are going to "slay the five-headed dragon of chronic disease—accounting for 75% of our health care costs. Heart disease, breast cancer, prostate cancer, diabetes and obesity."

We were inspired by Rip Esselstyn, former fire fighter in Austin Texas.  When he discovered one of his mates had such a high level of cholesterol he was basically a "dead man walking." he challenged his team to eat a plant strong diet for 28 days. In other words....they went vegan.   

The results are pretty amazing...but you  really should hear it from Rip .

What does this mean for Mark and I?

We officially start this Sunday (March 10) so we can end before our son Ben comes to visit on April 4.  So for you sticklers…that’s 27 days.

We have some learning to do..but the basics are no meat/ no dairy.

We will be on relaxed rules when we are guests in people’s homes...but will do our best to stick to vegan when we travel.

Getting started: we checked out vegan cookbooks from the library.  I was surprised by how many there are ( we haven’t even started looking for recipes online)  We had fun looking at recipes and pictures…there are lots of recipes to try. 

We have made our first week menu and will shop this weekend.  

We are eating down the non-vegan foods in our fridge ( eggs/ cheese/ milk)

 Here is the video that inspired our start  

Photo source: Healthy Eating Healthy World