Happy Eating!

Some people have asked me for a blog about being a vegan...so here it is. 

There's lot's to know, not just about veganism but more importantly, why move away from animal products, so I usually suggest to my friends to google and read about it first before drawing any conclusions. 

Now that I eat a vegan diet, I regularly get asked what I eat. In fact, many people do not know what a vegan is. A vegan is someone who does not eat any animal products. Some vegans choose to go further than just diet, restricting wearing clothes and shoes that have been made from animals, or cosmetics that have been tested on animals. 

Before my diagnosis, I had already been reading about vegan, raw and acid/alkaline diets so I already knew about the health benefits. (Please note though, some people can claim to eat a vegan or vegetarian diet without a vegetable ever passing their lips...and no, this is not healthy! A whole foods, plant based diet is what I eat and is what the WHO claim to be excellent for your health and the environment.) So, it was a very easy decision once diagnosed to make the switch to being vegan. I make all of my meals from scratch. It is easy to do and it means I can be completely sure that no animal products have sneaked into my meal. You would be surprised at just how many shop bought vegetable sauces, etc, have milk in them. In fact, have a look in your cupboards and fridges at the ingredient labels, especially those that you would not expect any dairy to be lurking...it's in everything. Not good for those with intolerances, skin, asthma or other inflammatory conditions.

Garlicky mushrooms with cannellini beans
and spinach

So here is a very small selection of what I love to eat;

Vegetable and rice noodle stir fries

Vegetable curry..one fav is sweet potato and spinach

Minestrone soup full of chunky veg including potatoes and beans

In fact any veg soup; carrot and coriander or spicy butternut squash especially!

vegemince chilli

vegemince spag bol

Mina's Minestrone Soup

salad and marinated tofu with roast potatoes

marinated artichokes, peppers and rice

The list goes on, I won't bore you further! 

I like to choose my favourite dishes and veganise them! 

I am also experimenting with vegan baking. I love chocolate cake, so here is the recipe (as I have promised some friends I would add it). It is a really moist cake and very quick to make. My kids love it!

Oven at 175 degrees Celsius

Vegan Chocolate Cake

I use a lined or greased loaf tin

210g plain flour

200g caster sugar

35g good quality 100% cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking powder

Half teaspoon salt

Sift together in a large bowl

then add

225ml water

75mls of vegetable oil or you can use 75g vegetable spread (I use soya Pure)

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

1 teaspoon of balsamic vinegar (or white vinegar, but the balsamic complements the chocolate)

Mix together to combine all ingredients.

Pour mixture into pan and bake for 45mins or until a skewer comes out clean.

Veganise your favourite buttercream using icing sugar and vegan margarine (I use Pure) to top, or serve warm with dairy free custard, or your favourite jam. Yum! 

If you fancy eating more healthier, especially after over eating during the festive period, why don't you do some reading around the subject of a whole foods, plant based diet. Have a look at the health benefits you can expect. It is particularly beneficial for those looking to lose weight in a healthy, gradual manner. It can reverse high cholesterol, diabetes and heart disease and protect against many cancers.

In a society where obesity, ill health and cancer are becoming epidemic we need to look at how we can take responsibility for our own health rather than expecting our doctors to simply dish out the drugs...it is no way to live.

One of my Facebook friends has just shared this excellent web site about giving veganism a go in January... have a look, the recipes are brilliant. Or, just ease yourself into it by having an animal free day, once a week. (p.s. you don't need to register to have a look at the recipes, etc)

Veganuary

Happy Eating!

Choices   

One of the choices I made to reduce my cancer risk was to have my ovaries removed. For those with the BRCA gene, it is one of the options (see link: BRCA gene mutations ) that you can take. Well, I did. I actually had a laparoscopic removal of my ovaries and uterus. Both had been shrunk to just about nothing following chemo anyway. I'm recovering fine. It's been four days. I opted to decline any analgesia post op. To be honest I just can't face any more drugs. I found it very difficult knowing that they were going to be giving me drugs during surgery, but obviously I needed to be put to sleep! I actually think I have recovered faster without any analgesia. A lot of these drugs can make you feel really doped post op, not to mention constipated and depressed and I didn't want to go down that route.  But, this again is a personal choice, everyone is different. The worst part of it all was the gas pain in my abdomen (they use gas to distend your abdomen so that they can see your organs clearly). It didn't hit me till I got home the day after surgery and I had to manage it with moving around and heat pads. 

I have been looking at the role of oestrogen in the body..especially now I have very little. Most people don't realise that your adrenal glands also make oestrogen. We have oestrogen receptor sites all round our bodies because this hormone plays an important role in many of our biological functions. A reduction in oestrogen affects our hearts, bones, skin, nervous system, brain as well as the more obvious gynaecological changes. (see link:role of oestrogen) 

I'm worried about the long term health effects of no oestrogen. It's like Russian Roulette..keep the hormones, have some breast cancer...get rid of them and take your choice between stroke, high cholesterol, dementia, and Parkinson's. And that is without the drug Letrozole, which further removes oestrogen from our body which I am supposed to take! I am going to have to make another choice regarding taking this or not.

I'm also worried that I have removed the protective, healing factor that my brain needed to recover from the chemo as oestrogen influences the blood flow and nerve impulses in the brain. Oh god, I'm going to be this forgetful forever!

Well, it is done. All I can do is continue to improve my health with proper nutrition and hope that I can reverse any damage I have done through eating the so called 'balanced diet' that we in the west claim to be healthy (and is anything but).

In hospital, a couple of the older women that I shared a room with, asked me why I chose to eat a vegan diet. One asked "what do you eat?" in such a way that she could not possibly fathom what I put on my dinner plate every day. I told her about the various meals that I had, which seemed to stir her interest and she was going home to do some research herself.

I too, am continually researching about food. I am fed up being misled about what a healthy diet really is. It is important that I make dietary changes to avoid a cancer reoccurrence and to correct the damage already done by previous choices (animal products, sugar, refined foods) and chemotherapy.
Coincidently (or not), my favourite nutritionist Dr Michael Greger, posted an article yesterday just as I was looking into the subject of pesticides. Is this something we should be worried about? Surely the government, environmental and health agencies would have something to say if we were being poisoned...right?  It can be difficult not to mention costly, to get all organic. Should we care? Well yes, we should and here is why.
Animal studies on the effects of pesticides have shown that they can affect foetal development, disrupt hormones, damage DNA and cause infertility. Studies however, failed to show the same negative effects on humans when they looked at the active ingredient. As a result, pesticides have been declared relatively safe for humans and the allowed pesticide residual levels have risen over the years. So, we're safe right?  Er, no! We're not! When another study looked at the effect of the active ingredient plus all the other adjuvants (basically everything else in the actual solution they spray on the crops which they normally don't test for), they found that they were 1000 times more toxic than the active ingredient alone! 1000 times! And these were the so-called inert substances. So, we can clearly state that pesticides are definitely harmful to us and environmental agencies will need to reassess this information with regard to the way that they test for toxicity levels and inform the public on safety.
So you think you are safe now just eating all your animal products...well no. Putting aside the carcinogenic effect of animal protein, the crops and many of them are GMO, that they feed to the animals are obviously sprayed too, thus impacting on their meat.
So what to do? Well, don't just take my word for it.
Do some research yourself. You can start with the paper that I have just discussed (here is the link: Major Pesticides Are More Toxic To Human Cells Than Their Declared Active Principles).
Make it your business to know what big agrochemical companies are making you and your family eat. What goes into the ground also contaminates marine life.
Eat more organic produce (including animal products if you eat them). In the USA, The Environmental Working Group advise us to steer clear of the "Dirty Dozen" fruits and veg and to only eat them if organically grown. Sadly, they are the ones we most routinely buy so it is worth reading their fact sheet (See link here: Health Risks of Pesticides in Foods) as it is info that also impacts us here in the UK too.
Don't leave it to the environmental, agricultural or health agencies to look after your health. They don't. They are too busy protecting big business interests to tell us the real truth.