Day 26 More Cupcakes!

The boys had a cub scout Blue and Gold dinner tonight and everybody was supposed to bring a decorated cake to share.  We did some crazy yummy chocolate cupcakes with peanut buttery frosting; they were pretty remarkable!  The theme for the dinner was All American, so they did hamburgers and hot dogs.  We figured it would be something out of our realm, so we had dinner before we went and just enjoyed the veggie platter and some fritos.  Fritos, by the way, are so dang good and are pretty incredibly basic.  The ingredients are, I think, 3 things: corn, oil and salt.  Not too bad, I thought.

Our dinner was tofu tacos and I think they are a dish we will keep long-term.  The kids all really like them and they come together in  all of 5 minutes.  I just stir-fried crumbled tofu with some taco seasonings and salsa while dad grilled up some corn tortillas and we had them with shredded lettuce and tomatoes and Daiya cheese.  Simple and seriously good, so that worked well on (yet another!) busy night!

Day 25

We are almost there!!
Monday was another busy day with mom at school so dad made veggie burgers and a salad for dinner and the rest of the day was standard with cereal and smoothies for breakfast and sandwiches and noodles for lunch.
We are getting excited to wrap the Vegan Experience up and trying to decide what changes we will keep and what we will ditch...stay tuned!

Day 24

We were dying for some sushi tonight, well mom and dad, not necessarily the kids, so we called up our favorite place and asked what they could do vegan.  They were wonderfully accomodating and we ended up with some cucumber/avocado rolls, tofu rolls and our favorite crunch roll done with tempura sweet potato instead of the shrimp.  It was declicious and the kids were champs and tried everything we gave them.  The crunch rolls were the big hit, no spurprise there.  It has been really nice to see how great all the restaurants have been with helping up stay on track.

Day 23

OK, don't call social services, I went to the grocery store!

Breakfast: our basic cereal

Lunch: Mini vegan corn dogs and apples with peanut butter

Dinner: lasagna and garlic bread with a nice salad

Ahhhh, feels like home again.  We have a table top full of apples, bananas, plums, and even an Ugli fruit! The fridge has juice, carrots, jicima, broccoli, lettuce and spinach, zucchinis and cucumbers!  The pantry is filled with crackers and cereals and whole wheat pastas!  And, well, the freezer is filled with things like veggie burgers riblets, and vegan corn dogs (reality).  It was $200 well spent and I think about a third of it was gone by 2:00pm.

My Thoughts (T)

So, we're almost done with the whole vegan thing. It was pretty cool to experience what being a vegan feels like. I didn't notice much of a change except I had more energy and wasn't always hungry.  The hardest part was being around all of my friends who always had snacks that I can't have, but it was a lot easier than I thought it would be.  I'm eargerly awaiting the final week to see what's in store for me!  Will I feel any different the last week?  How will I feel after we are done?  Will I go back to all my old ways?

                             

Day 22, right?

Friday was Day 22.  Given the fact that we had basically no food in the house, it sort of became a free for all.  Mom and dad both had to work late downtown so the kids were trying to torture each other until we got home at about 7:00.  I knew the smart thing to do would be to buck up and go to the grocery store but after a long day at work and still a lot of pain from Tuesday's surgery, I just couldn't bring myself to put on shoes and get in the car.  We foraged for whatever we could find, cereal, peanut butter, the last apple, popcorn.  Luckily, the kids had breakfast and lunch, so they didn't actually starve.  I promise tomorrow I will go to the store.  seriously.

Everything salad

It's one of those days...so I ended up opening the fridge and basically putting EVERYTHING in a bowl.  Last night's lettuce and spinach, broccoli and cucumbers, crumbled tofu from earlier in the week, the last tomato, the entire avocado (that had to be eaten before it went bad), seitan from last night, sunflower seeds, sprinkled with nude food powder.  It is official, if I don't go to the grocery store, we are going to starve.

Day 21: 3 Full Weeks!

We were supposed to have vegan chili nachos, but I have made a new rule that when it is snowing enough for a 90 minute delay from school and mom is on percoset, we should have fried seitan, mashed potatoes and mushroom gravy for dinner.  With a big ol' salad, it hit the spot!

Of course, yesterday's breakfast and lunch was typical cereal, smoothies, peanut butter and fruit/veggies.  E took a nude food bar and had a few bites at snack time.  They are super filling.

We desperately need to go to the store for a veggie and fruit run, but it's been "one of those weeks" so the poor kids get 1/2 a tiny kiwi each in their lunch, along with a slice of black bean brownies and peanut butter rolled up in a whole wheat tortilla (we are out of bread, too).

Day 20

Breakfast:
cereal and smoothies

Lunch:
standard peanut butter, fruit and crackers

Dinner:
Noodles and salad

Busy night with mom at school, and still slightly sedated, so we went with simple.

Day 19 Single Dad Day

mom was knocked out all day after her little surgery so I think dad took the kids to Pizza Hut for dinner.  Just kidding!  The kids had the standard breakfast and lunch and he made veggie burgers for dinner.  They are becoming quite the staple around here and, although they are not exactly a "whole food", the one's we get are far less processed than a lot of other "vegan" prepared foods.  And dad did serve veggies along with the burgers so it was not just "fake foods", which I think are really important remain a seldom-eaten emergency item.


yes, it's vegan, but it still has 470 calories and 22 grams of fat!

Vegan cookie with 500 calories and 16 grams of fat, yikes!

That takes me to my next little soapbox; feel free to stop reading now.  Just because something is vegan, does not mean it is healthy.  Oreos are vegan, most of those Little Debbie crap snacks are vegan as well, so... you know. 

I appreciate vegan recipe blogs, really, but it seems like 85% of them are vegan desserts.  And they'll have comments like, "none of my friends could believe it was vegan!"   Well, yeah, I am sure cinnamon rolls made with white flour, vegan cream cheese frosting and margarine instead of butter are pretty darn delicious.  I am happy that people are sharing the vegan love but wow-ing with margarine and sugar isn't exactly going to get the world munching kale and quinoa.  The vegan junk foods will do the same thing to you as any other junk food: make you tired, bloated and fat.  Desserts are still a special treat and a cupcake is still a cupcake, whether it has eggs in it or not. 

Day 18

Today the kids and mom had the day off so it was a lot of grazing, like the weekends.

Breakfast:
cereal, toast, fruit, smoothies (mom)

Lunch:
kids had either peanut butter sandwiches or leftover noodles, and bananas/cutie oranges
mom had a big salad (lettuce, spinach, tomato, mushrooms) sprinkled with a spoonful of supplement powder from Whole Foods
dad forgot to pack a lunch (oops) so he ended up doing another Whole Foods gigantic salad

Dinner:
mom had school so we did the baked potatoes and salad again that worked so well last time.  The kids were not as jazzed about it this time so, although they did eat some, they ended up snacking on random things the rest of the night.

Random things:
black bean brownies
watermelon
crackers
popcorn
cashews
Corn Dog Muffins (from livelearnloveeat.com)

Mom has a little surgery tomorrow and it may take a few days of recovery, so we'll see what kind of a wrench that throws into things over the next few days!

Day 17: Of course I did not feed my kids brownies for breakfast, pshh!

Black Bean Brownies were a big hit today!  The recipe is from nomeatathlete.com but I put a heaping scoop of this wonderful nutrient boost powder we found  yesterday at Whole Foods so they are full of fiber and protein.  Not that that makes them an appropriate breakfast food.  Fudgy, rich and delicious.  Not breakfast food.  No way.  What kind of a mother do you think I am?

Lunch:
leftover noodles and crackers...
BLT salad for mom (tempeh bacon, tomato and homemade croutons with lettuce and spinach)

Dinner:
Orange French Toast (from Veganstoner.com), fresh pineapple and watermelon

Day 16

Breakfast:
ummm, I'm sure our kids ate cereal but we have not had a Saturday free for months so we slept in till', well let's just say 9...sure.

Lunch:
mom had a huge smoothie with berries, banana, kale and dates
dad and kids had peanut butter on toast (so, clearly, it does not get old if we are eating it on the weekend)

Dinner:
mom and dad went out
kids had vegan mac and cheese and also peanut rice noodles

Went to Whole Foods today with E.  I don't usually shop there since it tends to be much pricier than I like but I was supposed to have a "meet up" group (that I never found, bummer).  We overspent, but not as bad as it could have been.  Bill was $172 but $32 of that was some locally-made, raw protein powder and raw bars that we sampled that we were super stoked on!  Plus, we have an awesome menu planned for this week!  E found some vegan mac and cheese (his favorite!) and we were really nervous about it being gross and him being disappointed but it was super and he loved it!  He has had vegan mac and cheese that I made a long time ago with a cashew-cream sauce and it was too sweet and not cheesy enough, to this one was a hit!

Mom and Dad ate with friends at a mexican place in Denver.  They had a tofu taco with raspberry-chipotle sauce that was delicious and killer guacamole.  They were very accommodating with veggies and offered to sub tofu or veggies on anything.

I didn't get a chance to make the black bean brownies I was so excited for so I made them when we got home at 10:30.  We'll see how those go over with the kids tomorrow!

Day 15

Breakfast:
Cereal and smoothies

Lunch:
PBJ's, fruit and pretzles
quinoa burger (mom)

Dinner:
Pizza pockets and spinach salad

Not our most exciting day for food but it was a busy Friday.  Mom had to go to school and dad worked a little bit late so it was nice to mix up pizza dough earlier in the day and dad could put pizza sauce and Daiya cheese on it, fold it up and bake it for a bit.

Day 14 Where do you get your protien?

D's friend asked him today how he will live without any protien.  "Where will you get protien from if you don't eat meat?"  It's a common question I have gotten from people who have been raised thinking meat=protien and milk=calcuim (we'll tackle dairy another day).  

I did a little research and the recommended daily allowance of protien for children is between 24 and 28 grams per day.  So here was our kids' protien rundown today:

Breakfast:

Toaster Pastries (yeah, yeah, they were on sale) 3g

OJ 2g

Banana 1g

Lunch:

Peanut Butter 7g

Bread 8g

carrots 1g

Cutie oranges 2g

Veggie Stix 1g

Dinner:

Gardein Crispy Tenders 8g

Quinoa 6g

Lettuce/Spinach mix 2g

Oven Fries 2g

Plantain 2g (but they only had a few bites so I won't count it)

Grand total: 43 grams of protien

So...there is no lack of protien whatsoever.  According a National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2007-2008 (that I found on Lance Armstrong's LiveStrong website), the typical high fat, animal based American diet provides a net protein intake of over 101 grams per day.  I think it is safe to say that Americans eat WAY too much protien.  We justify eating high fat junk food by labeling it "high in protien" but it is protien we really don't need.

Here's the kids dinner.  There was not going to be enough for everyone so I made Gardein's Patties with some white wine, lemon and capers for mom and dad.  It was all delicious and we ate every bit!

Magic Pills

Raw Almonds are magic pills.  If I have a headache or feel groggy and tired, these things make me feel so great.  They keep my blood sugar steady and allow me to have things like a giant carrot-cherry-banana-blueberry-strawberry smoothie and not get a sweetness headache or that crash at 2pm, or 10am for that matter.

Day 13

I think the "newness" might be wearing off for D.  He told me today that he can't wait to be done with the 30 days so he can eat "normal" again.  We talked about what is hard and what is not and we all agreed that lunch is the hardest because the kids are used to having pizza or chicken sandwiches at school and their PBJ's are getting old and boring.  I found a few ideas that we will need to try to spice up the lunches.    I guess all kids get bored with their lunches, even if they are cheese, chips and soda.  They've pretty much had the same thing every day for 2 weeks so it's time to mix it up!

Breakfast is somehow not getting stale, even though it is cereal and maybe a banana every single day.

Breakfast:
cereal, banana
smoothie and tea (mom)

Lunch:
PBJ's and fruit, veggie straws, fruit leather
noodles and fruit and veggies (dad and T)
leftover baked potato with tofu, Daiya cheese and salsa

Dinner:
Veggie Burgers
Spinach salad

Day 12

Happy Valentine's Day!

We kind of did our V-Day stuff over the weekend so there were not heart-shaped pink pancakes or anything.  The kids did the standard class Valentine's parties.  I volunteered to bring cookies so I sent them with vegan snickerdoodles and they had those and fruit.  No slip-ups!  I did let them have a few little candies from their Valentine boxes that the classmates passed out.  We stuck with the non-dairy and non-gelatin ones, which are pretty much straight up sugar.  Gross.  They didn't make a fuss about it at all but I just felt bad so we let them have a few.

Breakfast:
smoothies and cereal

Lunch:
PBJ's or Pad Thai noodles with carrots, strawberries and veggie straws
Salad (mom)

Dinner:
Tofu Tacos

Before you start feeling sorry for mom about the salad, let me show you what I mean by SALAD:

I am not talking about some sad mix of lettuce and a token tomato.  This had spinach, avocado, cucumbers, tomatoes, blueberries, craisins, sunflower seeds, hemp seeds, and croutons.  I used a vegan champagne dressing that was nice and vinegar-y.  And I dont' do a little side plate salad, this baby goes in a huge mixing bowl so I was fully satistfied.  Yum.

Dinner was a real surprise.  I cooked up some crumbled tofu in a skillet and mixed in a little salsa and we put it in tacos with Daiya Cheddar and lettuce (mom and dad also had avocados and mom added grilled mushrooms and tomatoes) and, can you beleive, the kids actually ate it!  Not like, choked it down and chased it with a gallon of water either.  They totally liked it!  I was so happy!

Day 11 'Bout time!

Breakfast:
cereal and mom's smoothie

Lunch:
pbj's, strawberries, carrots, watermelon, salad
shitake egg rolls and black bean hummus dip with tortilla chips (mom)

Dinner:
tri-color roasted potatoes, salad, blueberries, bananas

Well, it happened.  Somebody slipped.  'Bout time if you ask me!  I won't mention who, but somebody's French teacher brought eclairs to class and those little stinkers ended up in somebody's mouth before thinking about it!  Funny, he didn't even think about it until he was bragging at dinner and we all stared at him, waiting for him to realize what had happened.  "Oh, man...Eclairs have animal stuff in them?"  Hmmm, only eggs in the batter, eggs and milk in the custard and milk and butter in the frosting.  Not to mention the copious amounts of refined sugars. We all had a nice laugh about it and quickly forgave and moved on.

What did we learn?  Sometimes things go in your mouth without passing by your brain first.  Conscious eating is something I've been trying to master for months and will continue to try to master for years.  If we know what is going in, and actually decide to put it there, we have pretty much won the battle.  No more eating in front of the TV, at the computer, while driving, etc.  There is something to sitting down and really enjoying food.  It is the best way to be satisfied.  How many times have I eaten, who-knows-what for who-knows-how-long and afterwards felt like I still need more?  But when I sit down, on a chair, at the table, and smell the food, see the colors, taste the textures, really enjoy my meal, I feel more at peace with it.  My brain and tummy get to connect and that is a good thing!

Planned the week's menu and went to the grocery store today.  Spent $131 and we should be good to go for the rest of the week with maybe a mid-week carrot, grape, apple trip.

Day 10

Breakfast:
Pancakes and fruit

Lunch:
Seitan Nuggets and carrots and fruit

Dinner:
ummmm....cupcakes and popcorn?

They say variety is the spice of life.  Know what else is the spice of life?  Those seitan nuggets we had yesterday for lunch.  At my kids request, we made them again.  Don't judge.

Also something that might make you wonder is the fact that we really never got to a real dinner-style food.  Ooops, I think due to the fact that we had family over at 6:00pm for more cupcakes in honor of our little man turning 8, dinner just never really happened.

Day 9 E's Birthday Party!

Breakfast:
various smoothies
cereal

Lunch:
Seitan Nuggets, strawberries and "cutie" oranges

Dinner:
Spaghetti, garlic bread, grapes, carrots, salad

Dessert: Cupcakes and Rice Dream Ice Cream

Before we get into the main event, let me just say how superb our lunch was!  I literally threw seitan cubes into a bowl of flour, baking powder and tomato basil seasoning and cooked it in some vegetable oil for a few minutes and it was amazing!  So amazing, in fact, that I only got 3 pieces because my kids horked them all down and still asked for more.  Thankfully, we had plenty of fruit to fill the empty spaces in our stomachs.



And now.... (drum roll) for the cupcakes!  Today was E's birthday party, so we needed a kid-friendly, vegan dinner and cake and ice cream.  Dinner was spaghetti; what kid won't eat spaghetti, right?  (I actually shouldn't talk because my kids have been known to turn down pasta in a new shape from fear that it might taste weird)  Anyway, it was great.

I found a recipe in a Vegetarian Times magazine for Boston Cream Pie cupcakes but the filling was made with silken tofu and I didn't want to take that kind of a risk at my kid's birthday party.  So I improvised and made the vanilla cake per the recipe and then filled them with a Tofutti Cream Cheese, powdered sugar, vanilla and coconut milk filling.  Then we melted vegan chocolate chips (remember the $7 ones?) with a dash of coconut milk and spread it on the top.  They were delicious!!

So, we did it!  A real birthday party with cake and ice cream and dinner for 7 kids.  All vegan foods and all yummy.

Day 8 Eating Out with "special dietary restrictions"

Breakfast:
cereal (kids and dad)
Smoothie (mom)

Lunch:
peanut butter sandwiches (Dad, D & E) noodles (T), grapes, carrots
leftover pizza and bean dip (mom)

Dinner:
veggie burgers
chef's special (mom and dad)

We went out for our Valentines Day date tonite and had to be that couple with "special dietary restrictions"!  We went to a swanky mexican place downtown and appetizers was easy: chips and guacamole (made tableside, very cool).  But when it came to our entree, it got a little tricky.  This place only had one vegetarian entree, a tostada dish, and the description just wasn't hitting home.  Our waiter told us about the chef's special: beer battered fish on a bed of black beans and roasted veggies with chiptole jam and sweet potato fries.  We asked if there were any meatless options for the dish and the chef told us he would put it together special, just for us!  He battered larger sweet potato peices and left out any cheeses and we spit that with a big salad.  It was really delicious!

Many restaurants are used to accomodating vegetartian and vegan diets these days and, as long as you aren't super demanding about it, they are happy to help.  I always make sure to bump up the tip for their trouble.

A few months ago, we went out to a dessert bar and my only vegan option there was a plain, sad scoop of chocolate sorbet.  The chef asked me if he could dream something up for me, as long as it was vegan, and i naturally said, "yes!"  I ended up with a gorgeous sorbet with panes of sugar and various nuts in a presentation just as exciting as my husband's fancy dish!

Week 1 Recap

Smoothies 101

Happy Friday!!! 
Has this week been anything for you like mine has been??  Yikes.  I heard a funny McDonald's commercial on the radio this morning about crazy playgroups and how stressful they can be and it ended with something like, "take a deep breath and a big bite of that egg mcmuffin, you got this!"  Obviously, I could go on about the validity of the egg and cheese nightmare; however, I had to agree with the feelings of stress and how preparing your body with proper fuel can work wonders!  So I wanted to share my morning fuel thoughts!

Smoothies, Yay!  Anything this versatile is great; you can throw in whatever your body needs! 

A few tips:

1.  If you are too lazy to clean your juicer every day, like me, or have perhaps sold said juicer, in a fit of rage after bloodying your hand cleaning it, for $2 at last summer's garage sale: buy fresh carrot juice.  No matter how badass your blender is, you really cannot just blend carrots in your smoothie and not end up with a thick, stringy mess.  Most other things going into my smoothie can be blended, saving me (and my poor knuckles) from evil juicers.

2.  Frozen fruit is awesome!  This morning I threw a handful of a frozen mango, berry, pineapple mix in my blender (yes, a badass one), pulled leaves off some kale and plopped that in and covered it all in carrot juice and about a cup of water.  Note: Orange and green = brown, so it was not as pretty as the bright green one I had the other day without the carrot, but super yummy all the same.

3.  Blend once, drink twice!  I am, so far, the only daily smoothie drinker in the house, so a blender-full is way too much on my little digestive system in one sitting.  I grab a glass jar (last night's spaghetti sauce perhaps) and put my leftover smoothie in there and stash it in the fridge for tomorrow.  It'll need a little shake to reacquaint the layers, but tastes perfect.  Bear in mind, however, after 2 or 3 days that all changes so it is best to just make one extra serving.

One more bit of breakfast advice: Anyone looking to replace their favorite brown drink may want to try this Chocolate Mate Tea. It is sweet, slightly spiced, and downright delicious!

Day 7 One Week In!!

We made it a week!!!!

Breakfast:
cereal (kids)
banana muffin (dad, last one so I need to do some baking again!)
pineapple, mango, banana, kale smoothie (mom)

Lunch:
peanut butter sandwiches (Dad, D and E) noodles (T), pretzels, apples, snap peas, almonds
leftover pizza (mom)

Dinner:
Spaghetti, bread, parsnip fries, pears

Dessert:
Popcorn with Earth Balance and salt

Tried the Nut Butter Crusted Parsnip Fries recipe from Oh She Glows.  I used almond butter and they were really yummy.  The kids thought they were "alright" and E didn't like them at all, which surprised me because he is usually the one who likes everything!  Dad and Mom loved them!

Sometimes it can be tough to get the kids to try new things and I feel like maybe they decide before they even try it that they won't like it.  We try to do a 3 bite rule, rather than a 1 bite rule.  I tell them, "the first bite is when you introduce it, the second bite is when you get to really taste it and the third bite is when your tongue decides if it likes it or not."  I think it is more effective because if they are only having one bite, their brain can just tell them to choke it down and chase it with a drink so they don't taste it.  That's not really giving it a try!  If they know they have to try 3 bites, it is actually trying it and not just getting mom to shut up.  Well, I guess it is that too.

We had to make a grocery run tonight since I discovered while trying to make lunches at 11:00 last night that we were pretty much out of all our produce!  Vitamin Cottage was closed (only open till' 8:00!? Who's got it together for grocery shopping before 8:00pm??) so we went to Safeway.  T and E came with me and they laughed and said, "we pretty much only need one section now, cool!"  We did get a few staples like flour, Puffins cereal, crackers and peanut butter.  And also a ton more produce.  It's hard because in Colorado during winter there is no such thing as "local" so we had to get a lot of stuff that probably won't taste as good as it should but we really wanted grapes and strawberries.  We also got a few plantains to try later on (they take about 2 weeks to really ripen), so we'll have to see what we fun nonsense we can do with those.  I had the kids go and fetch things and, since they don't pay much attention to prices, I ended up with a $6.99 bag of dark chocolate chips (we need for E's bday cupcakes, can't wait!) and two jars of peanut butter (crunch and creamy) that were $7.69 each, ouch!  Those dang Clementines come in a gigantic bag but were $7.99 so we better eat them all!  Bill came to $138.44.

Day 6

Breakfast:
mango, pineapple, banana and kale smoothie (mom)
cereal

Lunch:
Peanut butter sandwiches, carrots and broccoli, wheat crackers, fruit leather (dad, D & E)
Noodles, banana, carrots and snap peas (T)
mom grazed on almonds and leftover bean dip all day

Dinner:
Veggie burgers
spinach and carrots

Snacks:
homemade sugar cookies with brown rice syrup instead of white sugar

Busy day!  Mom had school again so we needed to keep it simple for dinner.  Throwing veggie burgers on the grill pan worked nicely but T wasn't full with one so we will need to remember that 14 year old's and dad's may need more food!
We are kind of in a rut for lunch, but I don't think that is a bad thing.  If the kids start to complain or get bored with it, we can make a change but it is nice being able to put together the same thing for them at night and we wash and re-use tupperware sectioned containers, which fit a sandwich and 2 snacks in there perfectly!
I kind of wish the kids were eating a more nutritious breakfast so I will have to think of some ways to get them some more fruits or something in the a.m.
Snacks: these are so important to kids (and us all!) so I made some more cookies last night but used brown rice syrup to replace the white sugar in the recipe and egg replacer for the eggs.  They tasted great, but the first batch was really thin so I refrigerated the dough for an hour and then they were a little bit better.  I'll be looking for snack ideas and advice because I don't necessarily think we need cookies every day!
We have gone thru almost all of our produce so we'll need a mid-week grocery run!

Extreme?

I had someone ask me, "isn't that kind of extreme? Making your family eat all this crazy vegan food for 30 days?"

Well, I will paraphrase Dr. Campbell: I think slicing open your leg, taking out a vein, and sewing it to your heart is extreme.  I think taking pills and shots every day for the rest of your life is extreme.  I think living life, day in, day out, in a haze of exhaustion, constipation and pain is extreme.

So, no, I don't think this is extreme.  I don't think eating spinach and oatmeal, apples and grapes and carrots and grains is extreme.  I look at our menu over the last 5 days and nothing is gross, expensive, complicated or extreme in any way.

I get that it can be scary for people (like us!) to try something like this because it may be admitting that what you are doing now may be wrong and none of us want to be wrong.  It is scary because if you try it and feel incredible but then fall off the wagon after the 30 days because you go on a road trip and have In and Out, you may feel like you failed and none of us want to feel like we failed.  It might be scary to commit to because, if you live on meat and cheese like most Americans, you don't even know what you will eat and that "unknown" is the scariest of all.

Our kids have been studying explorers and inventors in school and I just love some of the things they have learned about failure.  Did you know Thomas Edison "failed" 3000 times before he invented the light bulb?  All great explorers failed more times than they succeeded.  The last time I failed at something, I fessed up to my kids and they quickly asked, "so, what did you learn?"  So failing is not such a big deal; you are in good company!  The only way you will really and truly fail is if you never try, never take a chance, never jump!

Another comment I have recently gotten is "well, I just eat normal and I think that is just fine".  Yes, it is normal to eat burgers and hot dogs and ice cream.  You know what else is normal in America?  Diabetes, heart disease, strokes, high blood pressure and all kinds of cancers and degenerative diseases.  So, I guess "normal" is not fine with me.

Day 5: Pizza Night!

Breakfast:
cereal with coconut milk/almond milk (or dry)

Lunch:
Peanut butter sandwiches, apples and crackers (D and E)
T brought a veggie burger to heat up, along with crackers and apples
Mom ate a leftover baked potato with broccoli and Daiya cheese, and an orange

Dinner:
Pizza

Tonight was a true test, pizza night!  We made a whole wheat crust (nice and thin) and used Daiya Cheddar and Mozzarella cheeses on your standard pizza sauce.  Mom's pizza had zucchini slices, tomatoes, radicchio and spinach and, of course, nobody appreciated the beauty but mom.  Dad and E ate 2 slices, D and T just ate one.  So they ate the "fake" cheese pizza without any complaints, but definitely not the 3 or 4 slices they usually down.  We ate and had to run out the door so I kind of forgot to make a salad or add any veggies.  We will do better about that next time.

Our snag for the day was with Dad.  For the second day in a row, he forgot to pack a lunch.  Yesterday, he was able to come home and eat.  Today, he totally came thru and ran into Whole Foods Market and got a big ol' salad.  We really need to set aside time at night to prepare for the next day or we are bound to run into trouble.

Day 4

Breakfast:
Cereal (dry for D and E or with coconut milk T)
zucchini or banana muffins (mom and dad)

Lunch:
peanut butter sandwiches (D and E) or Noodles (T), grapes, snap peas, snickerdoodle
couscous and Gardein Orange Chikn (mom and dad)

Dinner:
Baked Potatoes with Daiya cheese and broccoli
Spinach and lettuce salad

snacks: triscuits and wheat thin crackers, tortilla chips, apples, grapes

Today was the first day we had to pack lunches and it went off really well.  Lunch was totally normal for the kids, sandwiches and fruits and veggies.  T has access to a microwave at school so he had some noodles.  The kids were fine with not eating the school's processed and animal-filled lunches, like they normally do.  T's typical school lunch is cheese pizza and the other two eat a lot of that as well, along with Chicken Breast Sandwiches, Bosco Sticks (cheesy bread sticks) and mostly processed, white flour and cheese dishes with a carton of chocolate milk.  They always tell me they will eat the fresh fruit offered but come home with excuses about how it was slimy or gone.

Mom had school from 5-8 so she threw some big potatoes in the oven before she left and that worked like a charm to get the family fed with minimal effort.  They all liked it and ate a bunch.  I should add that our kids do not normally do potatoes (they must be the last living kids that don't eat mashed potatoes!) so they had to stretch outside their comfort zone, even though it was a pretty basic food. We were all really proud of ourselves.

One of the kids had a terrible tummy ache tonite and I think the increase in produce created some uncomfortable bloating.  We are really pushing drinking at least 8-10 glasses of water to try to alleviate that.

 Zucchini muffins and Banana muffins

Grocery trip last night: beans, crackers, cereals, breads and frozen meatless stuff at Target came to $112.49 and we had to make another trip to Vitamin Cottage for vegan sour cream, cream cheese and popcorn (we are kind of popcorn snobs) and that was about $22.  Our grocery bill for the month of January (we use mint.com so, unfortunately, I know it to the penny) was...this is so embarrassing: $1048 and that does not include $472 of restaurants and fast food.  So, yes...we are definitely going to save some cold, hard cash this month.

Day 3: Superbowl Sunday!

Breakfast:
Zucchini muffins and fresh pineapple
dry cheerios, of course

Lunch:
leftovers...peanut butter sandwiches and carrots, pasta, veggie burgers

Dinner:
Dinner never really happened.  We snacked all night long at the Superbowl Party across the street.
Vegan Hot Artichoke Dip with Bread
Bean, Guacamole, Salsa Layered Dip with Chips
Homemade Snickerdoodle Cookies

No, it was not our most shining day of plant foods.  We ate a lot more sugars, chips and crackers tonight, but I am realizing that we need to be realistic with ourselves and try our best to stick to plant-based foods, while living a normal life.

Vegan Hot Artichoke Dip

5 Layer Dip (beans, guac, olives, tofutti sour cream & salsa)

Yes, there are leftovers.  So, we will continue to be tempted to over eat things that have to be scooped up with chips.  Probably not good.

Day 2

Breakfast:
Mango, Pineapple, Banana smoothies (everyone but D and E)
Steel Cut Oats (mom)
Cheerios, again...dry

Lunch:
Peanut Butter Sandwiches
Apples

Snack:
Vegan Cookies
Carrots
Strawberries
Fruit Leather

Dinner:
Pasta with Olive Oil and Garlic
Breaded Eggplant
Salad
Grapes

Dessert:
Popcorn with Earth Balance

Today was hard for E.  He went to a birthday party at Jump Street (we all stayed and played).  We had talked about lunch and cake plans but when it all came down, he was really sad.  He said he was sad he couldn't have the food and that he was really hungry.  Luckily, we were a few doors down from a Sunflower Market so I ran over and grabbed us some snacks and that worked really well.  I felt like offering him carrot sticks in exchange for pizza and cake would be a disaster, this early in the challenge especially.  So I got some vegan cookies that were low in sugar and also some fruits and veggies and fruit leather.  We all devoured them and realized that we get hungry jumping on trampolines for 2 hour stretches.  I was happy that the kids not only ate the cookies, but mowed the carrots and strawberries too!

I think we learned today that we need to be over-prepared.  8-year olds cannot just sit at a birthday party and watch everyone else eat cake without having something for themselves.  We were not sure where we stood with the "sugar" issue since it is vegan but not part of a "whole foods" diet and we know it is really bad for us to have so much refined sugars.  After discussing it, mom and dad concluded that we can be discriminating about our treats, home-make them whenever possible without white sugars, and try not to have sweets every day but that a vegan cookie can really be a lifesaver!

Day 1

The day went pretty well.  We went to the grocery store last night just to see what fun kinds of fruits and veggies we might want to try.  We found some little purple potatoes, eggplant, pineapple, apples, pears, parsnips, grapes and a kabocha squash!  We didn't get a weeks worth of groceries, but a pretty decent start that I think will probably get us thru a few days and our total was $44.21.

Breakfast:
Strawberry, Kiwi, Banana Smoothies (everybody but D)
Steel Cut Oats (Mom and E)
Cheerios for D(dry, yuck)

Lunch:
Veggie Burgers
Apples

Dinner:
Roasted purple potatoes
Salad with spinach, lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes and avocados
Homemade wheat bread

D's thoughts:

Today was the first day of the Vegan Experience.

I tried a sip of a fruit smoothie and I didn’t think that it was the best thing but it sure didn’t taste too good. I am about to eat some Cheerios for breakfast; I hope I am not to picky next time because I am going to have to try lots of different things…

I am at the end of the first day of the Vegan Experience. So far I have had some great vegan foods. For lunch we all had some vegan burgers. The burgers were made of grain and soy. They still tasted pretty good though. For dinner we all had purple potatoes, some salad, and homemade bread. It was an amazing dinner. Even though it was vegan. You know sometimes eating vegan things doesn’t always mean that it is going to taste bad.

The Vegan Experience has been a great experience so far. I think I am actually going to make it through this whole thing…

T's thoughts

Forks Over Knives

We sat down with our greasy, processed, McDonalds meal and watched the movie, "Forks Over Knives".  We cringed watching footage of heart surgeries and stories of men and women who struggle with lives full of shots and pills and surgeries that were results from diabetes, cancer and heart disease.  It made us think of family we know that struggles with these diseases and some who have passed away from them. 

We were amazed by stories of people who were able to reverse the diseases completely and get off all their meds by simply changing the foods they ate.  Did you know that doctors have been able to turn on and off cancer in lab rats by increasing and decreasing the levels of milk protien they feed them?  It's true!  And now we have proof from humans that eating plant-based foods provides and environment where cancer cells don't thrive, arteries heal and cells regenerate like they were many, many years ago.  It was really eye opening! 

Here's how our discussion went afterwards.

Our Vegan Experience

We are your typical busy American family on a budget.  Both parents work full-time jobs and mom goes to school 2 nites a week.  We have three boys, ages 14, 10 and 8 (in a few weeks!).  Our kids have been known to make comments like, "when I grow up, I am going to live in a house made of bacon!"  Our 14 year old subsists Monday thru Friday on cheese pizza at school and they would all prefer Chicken Nuggets to veggies.

We battle over the same things most families do.  Our kids are super picky.  Nothing can touch anything else on the plate and even a new shape of pasta is scary.  We are super busy; it seems like there is something just about every night (we try to reserve Thursdays for a quiet night but that does not always work!) and we absolutely have to plan meals for the week or we end up microwaving corn dogs or eating a bowl of cereal for dinner or frozen waffles.  We are on a budget; we know we spend too much on fast food and restaurants and every month we vow to "do better".

Mom has been vegan for about 6 months but realized that you can eat vegan and be tired, grumpy and unhealthy if you eat too much sugar and fried tofu!  After watching "Forks Over Knives", we realized that there might be something to this "plant-based foods" thing and decided to take on a challenge to eat a Whole Foods, Plant Based Diet for 30 days!

We are hoping to feel great and enjoy food.  E has eczema that he would love to have clear up.  D wants to see if his energy level can be more stable so he is not so moody.  T has trouble concentrating and seems to have stuffy sinuses a lot.  Mom and dad don't sleep well and would love more energy and less headaches.

Here is our Vegan Experience!