First, the backstory - my medical history (aka the brain thang) is of record. I am now self-employed in the good ole US of A, where health care is a privilege, not a right, and I was lucky enough to sign on to an expensive group self-employed people's medical plan, which is better than a poke in the eye, but less than the comfort level of coverage that I had before. So, I started thinking hard about cheap/free things I could do to improve my own odds of staying healthy. I was already pretty good about the basics - sleep, moderate exercise, take a vitamin, I never smoked, etc. - so I started reading up on dietary changes that would keep my blood pressure low and my arteries flowing freely. And it kept coming back to basically a vegan diet. And I resisted - mostly because a lot of the vegan bible is so fundamentalist. I resisted, until a preponderance of the evidence kept me reading further, and I hit on stuff by this doctor, and bought this cookbook, and a couple of other highly rated vegan cookbooks.
I started fooling around with the recipes.
Second backstory: I have congenitally bad knees, but in the last year, they went from clicky and crunchy and sometimes painful, to I could not kneel for even a minute, and my left leg often didn't want to bend. I woke up at night in pain, it hurt to walk, it was just getting damn pathetic, and I was finally ready to concede that I needed to get some drugs to fix my body and make it stop hurting. I didn't connect diet to my knees at all; it was not a motivating factor in experimenting with giving up meat and dairy.
After about two-three weeks or so on a plant-based diet, I went to FL. This involved 9 hours in the car as a solo driver. It was a breeze. I felt so good and had so much energy and the drive was so easy, it wasn't until the following DAY that I realized that it was so much easier than it had ever been! I hopped in and out of the car at rest stops without stiffness and groaning. My knees weren't sore. I arrived feeling perky and energetic. It was only AFTER the trip, when I came home and picked up on some of my plant-based diet reading, that I saw that joint pain was one of the things that could be fixed by giving up meat and dairy.
I DID eat meat and dairy on the trip - I'm not so hardcore that I will starve rather than eat what's in front of me - but the difference in how I felt was already obvious. (And I also spent a day with a truly spectacular case of stomach cramps and the runs after eating a lot of meat and dairy in one day - which is so weird, considering I'd lived on that stuff for 50+ years.)
When I came home, I continued my plant based diet. No meat, damn little dairy. I won't call myself a True Vegan, because I'm not that absolute on dairy. I haven't found a satisfactory substitute for real half and half in my two measly cups of morning coffee. I did find a coconut based French Vanilla flavor that is excellent, but I like my coffee unsweetened and with just a splash of cream, so I'm still searching for the right unsweetened non-dairy creamer. So, I'm not hardcore vegan - I don't fuss over vegetarian products that might contain some dairy product on the label. But I switched to veggie cheeses and almond milk and gave up eggs, and I honestly don't miss meat at all.
One of the things that turned me off on eating this way in my earlier, tentative explorations was the freaking ingredient lists for most of the recipes! Seitan? Tempeh? WTF? Things I'd never cooked, plus seasonings and stuff I'd never heard of, and I do think I'm at least a fairly educated foodie who doesn't fear new ingredients. I do not fear new foods, but I did fear spending hours every week hunting them down and paying out the wazoo for them. A plant based diet just seemed like too damn much work.
But I've found that exotic ingredients aren't necessary, and I'm having fun with my vegan cookbooks. So far, the one I'd suggest as an "easing into" plant based meals, besides Dr. Barnard's book above, is Supermarket Vegan: 225 Meat-Free, Egg-Free, Dairy-Free Recipes for Real People in the Real World
That makes you a Very Polite Vegan, compared to a couple of our acquaintance - they are pleasant people in all other ways, but heavy on the the preaching and guilt stuff when it comes to food.
ReplyDeleteI think we can do and eat just about anything we like up to a certain age, and then something gives, and the 'fun' part is finding out what is making you, personally, hurt, managing it, and still living in the real world.
Good luck with it,
Gae, in Callala Bay
LOL, Gae - yeah, I prefer to just say I mostly eat a plant-based diet and avoid the word "vegan" in public, because of exactly that stereotype. As the joke goes, "Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Give a vegan a fish and you'll be lectured for a lifetime."
ReplyDeleteBut I'm pleasantly surprised - no, shocked - that giving up meat and dairy has had such a positive effect on my aches and pains and energy level, and how easy it really is.
Hmmm... I live on meat and think I might die without eggs & my 2% cow milk but something here has to give cuz I'm not getting any younger, thiner or more energetic. I'll at least have to peruse these cookbooks. The biggest hurdle will be convincing the hubby to eat what I put in front of him and like it! LOL!
ReplyDeleteGlad it's working well for you.
I wonder how much the hormones, etc., which are fed to the animals we eat affect our health. Know any studies about that?
ReplyDeleteOh, just a thought, if you have a pain attack, try Turmeric, it is supposed to be the most powerful natural anti-inflammatory available.
ReplyDeleteErnst has Polymyalgia Rheumatica, and has been on Cortisone for nearly 5 years, trying desperately to get off the stuff, had a resurgence of pain, now supplements the cortisone with about 3 teaspoons of Turmeric, in food, made into a Sort-of-Sate sauce, and in a mixture with oil.
Found this tip (and others) in a book called "Food is better medicine than drugs".
Gae, in Callala Bay