Standard American Diet (SAD) or Vegan?

Ok so I officially became vegan on April 9,2012. That means that as of November 9th I will have been vegan for 7 months now. I did start losing weight before I became vegan. I started with cutting out soda. I lost 10 pounds in the first week when I started drinking more water and juice and no soda. I quit cold turkey. Now when I drink soda I am only able to get a few sips down before I get a bad taste in my mouth. Soda is disgusting when you aren't used to drinking it anymore.
After cutting out soda I stopped snacking and eating all the junk I was used to. I was feeling more energetic but I wasn't losing anymore weight. I was still eating meat and a lot of cheese. I switched to soy milk because cow's milk was starting to bother my stomach. Someone posted a link to the 30 day vegan pledge. I believe it was on PETAs website. So I took the pledge and I bought all kinds of vegan products. I started losing more weight. I liked the meat alternatives and the soy milk but I "couldn't give up cheese." So I was a vegetarian. Then I watched a few videos online of what happens to the animals on factory farms. I, being an animal lover, was outraged. I was angry, I was upset. I became obsessed with watching these videos. I had to know everything that was happening. I had to be vegan. So I started my transition to veganism, losing more weight along the way. I finally made the full change April 9th and I couldnt be happier. My goal is to lose another 50 lbs.
I am happy that I am healthier than I ever have been and my daughter is following in my footsteps now too. Pretty soon our whole household will be vegan. I will probably post another blog in the near future about all that is wrong with the Standard American Diet. I am so grossed out by the Standard American these days. It really is sickening to think that not even a year ago I was one of these people stuffing my face with what is really not edible. Just because it doesn't kill you TODAY doesn't mean it isn't toxic.

Review: Yves Veggie Cuisine Meatless Pepperoni

Yves Veggie Cuisine Meatless Pepperoni: *****
I have been vegan for several months now and I just discovered vegan pepperonis. Yum! I have been sadly disappointed in my pizza options and thought I would never be happy with pizza again. I ate these pepperonis plain and I thought they were good. They were great on pizza though. I put a little bit of sauce on a crust, used some vegan mozarella slices and used pepperonis and banana peppers. It was delicious. I am actually salivating at the thought of this pizza I made last night. Even my daughter loved it. She knows the good stuff though. Of course it was more expensive than regular non vegan pepperonis but it was well worth it. The taste was good and my daughter ate it. I give this 5 stars.

Review: Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese

Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese- *****
I was always a lover of cream cheese. Cheese cake was my favorite and I ate cream cheese on bagels, toast and crackers. I love flavored cream cheese and plain. Oh and I cannot forgot my favorite... Jalepeno Poppers. Once I became vegan I thought I'd never get to enjoy the taste of cream cheese again but I was wrong. I discovered Tofutti. Yes, it's more expensive than non vegan cream cheese but it is totally worth it to know I am not harming animals for my taste buds. I love this cream cheese. I have eaten it on toast and bagels. I made cheesecake with it which was DELICIOUSI made Vegan Jalepeno Poppers.
I made a delicious Wild Berry Cheesecake with it. I will post a recipe for that sometime in the future.  I also used the leftover jalepeno cream cheese from my poppers recipe and had that spread on crackers. Yum! I found a delicious pumpkin cream cheese spread recipe that I am going to try. I will let you know how I like it.
So overall Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese is a little more expensive but the taste and texture is great, works well in recipes or plain. I give it 5 stars!

Banana Oatmeal Pancakes- It's Vegan!

I found this recipe in Fitness Magazine. I tweaked it just a little using almond milk instead of soy milk because I prefer it. It was delicious. It tasted like banana bread. Even my wife liked it and she's not vegan. Of course my daughter had to eat seconds and thirds. :)

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups soy milk (or almond)

1 cup rolled oats

2 bananas chopped

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1 TBSP plus 1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp kosher salt


Direction:

In a blender, puree your non dairy milk and oats until smooth then add in bananas, flour, salt and baking powder. Puree for a few seconds then let rest for 10 minutes. These pancakes will stick to the pan so cooking spray is needed. Brown on each side (about 5 minutes.) Top with slice bananas if you like and pure maple syrup. Enjoy!

This recipe makes 8 pancakes.

Vegan Jalepeno Poppers

I have loved jalepeno poppers for as long as I can remember. I loved the combination of hot jalepons with cream cheese. MmmmmMMmmmmm... Well since I became vegan I hadn't been able to enjoy that combination...until NOW. Of course I have a pinterest and I am always seeing delicious looking recipes involving cream cheese and jalepenos. Usually I skip over them because I am vegan now so I thought I couldn't indulge in their deliciousness. That is, until I realized that I could use vegan cream cheese! DUH! So I found one post that I used for inspiration and I tweaked it a little. Here is the recipe I used.

Veganized Jalepeno Poppers

ingredients:

6 oz vegan cream cheese softened (the original calls for 8 but I didnt need that much)
1/2 a small can of minced or diced jalepenos ( I actually used a little more than half)
1 tube of vegan crescent roll dough (beware of hidden milk ingredients)

directions:

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees farenheit. Grease a cookie sheet. Combine your softened vegan cream cheese with the jalepenos in a bowl. Mix well enough that you will have cream cheese and jalepenos in every bite. Open your crescent roll dough and separate into 2 sheets. Pinch the seams together and lightly flatten the dough so you are left with 2 rectangular sheets of dough instead of 8 individual crescents. Spoon the mixture onto the dough and roll up cinnamon roll style. You should now have 2 long rolls. Cut them in equal pieces. I ended up with 8 per roll, 16 total. Place on the cookie sheet with cut sides down. Bake 11 to 13 minutes (mine took the full 13 minutes.) Let cool and enjoy!

Delicious Kale Smoothie (even the kids will love it)

I had some kale on hand that needed to be used up so I decided to make a smoothie with it. I first blended the kale and a tiny bit of plain almond milk in a blender. I added just a little bit at a time to make it easier to blend. Then I added in a banana, frozen strawberries and some orange juice. It looks pretty delicious to me but alot of what I make lately is green. Green no longer means gross in this household. Anyways, MacKenzie couldn't wait for her smoothie. She was squealing with delight the whole time she waited for me to finish the smoothie. She said it was like having dessert in the middle of the day. She took a sip and exclaimed, "OH. MY. GOSH. THIS IS DELICIOUS!!!" I sure do love my girl.

Quick Organization Tip: Sunglasses/eyewear

Hang fabric or string of some kind horizontally on the wall and hang eye wear over it. I used an old shoe lace, hung right under a shelf. I will probably make something fancier eventually but for now it gets my wife's sunglasses off of the dresser, floor and anywhere else I find them laying around. :)