response 1 of 63:

Jun 26 23:27 UTC 1998

For lunch/supper we had pressure-cooked millet, stir-fried peapods and
new onions from the market with ginger, lettuce with olive oil and vinegar,
and a tablespoon each of brewer's yeast, after reading about folic acid and
deciding we might not be getting enough.  The RDA is 150-200 micrograms
(milligrams?) and the yeast has 300/tablespoon.  Not many other foods have
a lot, beans, nuts, and dark green vegetables are the highest.  Also had
some watermelon from the neighbors (who accidently bought an extra one after
Jim installed his air conditioner in their window).  We were going to have
some black beans cooked a couple of days ago but the power outage got them.
Even 7 hours at 85 is apparently disaster for cooked beans.  

response 3 of 63:

Jun 27 15:42 UTC 1998

How much work it is to eat healthy depends mostly on you tastes and 
attitudes toward cooking.  Even in A^2, nothing healthy will be as easy
as ordering pizza, driving through fast food, and opening bags of chips
& bottles of pop.  For weekday lunches, i throw multigrain ingredients
into my bread machine Sunday eveving and buy apples.  It takes about 5
minutes each morning to make a jam sandwich and wash/quarter/core an apple
for lunch.  Breakfast is always a banana and cerial (fairly healthy cold
boxed stuff bought on sale if i'm busy, "home made" oatmeal/wheat bran/
dark brown sugar cooked cerial if i've the time) with skim milk.  Most
of the time, dinner is simple carrot salad, baked spuds, frozen or fresh
veggies (just boiled, nothing clever), brown rice, canned salmon or tuna
with some seasoning, fried eggs, and similar cheap/quick/easy fare.  If
i make something more involved (spaghetti with homemade meat sauce, baked
beans, sauerkraut & sausage, etc.), i make a BIG potfull and eat on it
for a while.  Going vegan wouldn't be much more work for me. 

(This ignores my chocolate desserts, but i don't make them to eat healthy.) 

response 5 of 63:

Jun 28 13:18 UTC 1998

The round steak & spuds i had last night aren't vegetarian, either.  I'm
not a meataholic because i'm not crazy enough about the taste of meat to
put up with the cost and hassles.  Many people i know have assumed that 
"i doesn't eat large amounts of red meat daily" implies "i is a vegetarian 
or vegan" and are quite surprised to learn otherwise.  

response 7 of 63:

Jun 29 01:04 UTC 1998

Sorry to have missed the vegan picnic yesterday. Everything I cook at home
is vegan, but sometimes it's impossible to avoid some cheese or egg at a
restaurant. I don't find that fast food is really fast, in comparison with
what I get at home. Most meals take less than 15 minutes, except for cooking
brown rice, which takes 45 minutes. Try baked potatoes in the microwave, 10-15
minutes, depending on size and number. Turn frequently. ... John Robbins has
some really excellent articles -- his dad was a founder of Baskin-Robbins,
and John was completely horrified at what they were doing to people's health,
to the environment, to the third world. Anyway, he showed that milk is not
needed for calcium, in fact depletes calcium, because of the high protein
content. You don't need milk for health, as population studies clearly show.
I discovered Egg Replacer recently (Ener-G brand at Whole Foods and probably
at Co-op and Arbor Farms) which makes for much better muffins. Soy milk is
fine. I use tofu all the time, but new users have to remember that it doesn't
have much flavor -- you have to add soy sauce or other flavorings to make it
taste like anything. There are a LOT of veggie-burgers on the market, but they
tend to be expensive on a per-serving basis. I especially like Garden Burgers.
If you fry them, be sure to keep the heat down. They're already cooked and
can burn easily. ... A typical vegan meal for me would be brown rice, a veggie
burger, and whatever veggies are in the refrigerator, raw in a salad, or
cooked in a microwave. If the rice is already cooked, that ten minutes at most
to prepare. ... Vitamin B-12 is missing from a vegan diet, and you ought to
take tablets for it. Remember that it is not well-absorbed in tablet form,
so you'll need far more than the MDR. Consider calcium-enriched orange juice
and soy milk. Eat a variety of foods -- veggies, fruit, whole grains, legumes,
and nuts. Try new things. The McDougalls have several cookbooks that are
excellent, in spite of their institutional-looking covers. Enjoy.

response 9 of 63:

Jun 29 12:34 UTC 1998

I would call Walter's potatoes ex-vegetarian.
We are also not cooking refined foods (which would be tofu, soy milk), or
foods sold in the store and assembled by someone else out of several
ingredients including lots of salt (veggie burgers).  Orange juice is a
refined food, you lose the fiber and the vitamins are oxidized, so last
winter we bought 10 boxes (40 lb) each of oranges and grapefruits from
teh Western Kiwanis, and we froze strawberries and blueberries and peaches
and stuff.  Juice is a treat but not a frequent part of our diet, as we
still have the teeth to process our own fruits (thought we did freeze
grape juice rather than the whole grapes with seeds and skins).  Most
vegans seem to be cooking stuff that resembles typical American food because
they like familiar things, but I never did do hamburgers so have no need
to try veggie burgers.  Last night we did a pot of rice and a pot of red
lentils with new onions, and picked amaranth from aroudn the tomato plants.
We have learned to cook from friends from other countries and do a lot
of stir-fried vegetables on rice or millet (but frozen vegetables don't
stir fry well), or bean stews (canned and froze tomatoes).
Got to eat a quick breakfast and pack lunch now (a quart of leftovers, it
is much too hot to cook this week except after dark).

response 11 of 63:

Jul 1 00:40 UTC 1998

Have you tried chickpeas, blackeyed peas, green lentils, red lentils, green
and yellow split peas, large and small white beans, small and large red beans,
azuki beans, soybeans, mung beans, black beans, yellow beans (from Kroger's),
assorted Indian small lentils and small chickpeas, fava beans, black soy beans
(Chinese), bean sprouts, lima beans.....  Much greater variety of beans than
there is of protein sources for carnivores.  Peanuts, tahini, cashews, Brazil
nuts, almonds....  Grains have lots of protein even without being balanced,
especially rice does.  Grains are also balanced by vegetable protein such as
brocolli.  We eat beans every other day or so.  You can add paprika and onions
and olive oil and tomatoes, or Indian spices, etc.  Potatoes and carrots and
onions and garlic.  Pickled turnips (Chinese).  Zaatar (Lebanese).  Stir fried
cabbage with peanuts on millet is good.  Potatoes that are cooked and then
peeled are high in protein (but missing some vitamins).

response 13 of 63:

Jul 1 23:36 UTC 1998

The potato skins contain something called solanin which is not good for you,
and since the protein and vitamins are just under the skin not in it, there
is little to lose by peeling after boiling.  Baking potatoes seem to have
less solanin (which is bitter).  Bad for the liver.  Fireside Store on Huron
just west of the railroad bridge has a large selection of nuts in bulk, and
often cashew pieces, raw, relatively cheap.  Also almonds, peanuts.  We use
the whole nut in stir-fries, in fact we try to use everything whole.
There was agood new library book on vegetarianism for beginners which
explained which foods lack which amino acids, and crucifers compliment
grains.  Have you tried millet, quinoa, amaranth seeds, teff, boiled wheat,
homemade tortillas, cracked rye cereal, baked oatcakes?

response 15 of 63:

Jul 20 23:37 UTC 1998

Oh yes!  Especially Mary's fruit and greens with toasted almonds!!  It was
divine!

response 17 of 63:

Jul 24 13:54 UTC 1998

Freezing tofu and thawing gives it a somewhat rubbery texture, which is good
for some things. Try slicing it and browning (with oil and soy sauce) under
the broiler. Use a barbecue sauce, your own choice. At Corntree Co-op, where
I had dinner a few weeks ago, someone used gado gado sauce (see Moosewood
Cookbook for recipe), made with almond butter instead of peanut butter.
Incredibly good.

response 19 of 63:

Jul 27 03:14 UTC 1998

We may be going camping for two weeks.  Any ideas of what to cook that does
not take much preparation (such as presoaking or rising) or much equipment?
We usually take a small cutting board, a knife, a pressure cooker for the
rice, and a frying pan and a chinese implement that is sort of like a slotted
spatula-spoon, works like both.  You can steam in teh pressure cooker and
stir-fry in the pan with the implement.  We eat out of the pan.  Have not
camped vegan before so cannot put cheese on the noodles and some small town
markets may not have tofu.  We can take dried tofu, I guess, and dried
mushrooms, and a gallon jug of rice and some pink lentils that don't need to
be presoaked, but it could get monotonous.  Some other grain?

response 21 of 63:

Jul 28 21:46 UTC 1998

We find that supermarkets rarely carry local produce even in agricultural
areas.  In Ohio they had green canteloupes.  One camping trip we picked and
ate milkweed pods, a bit like greenbeans if you pick them young.
We are thinking of soaking beans en route and cooking them the same evening,
since we will be in a car and don't have to carry the extra weight ourselves.
A pressure cooker saves a lot of fuel, and works for potatoes and corn.
We will learn by experience.

response 23 of 63:

Aug 7 00:39 UTC 1998

Thanks, have not heard of that.  We have dried tofu, also keeps forever.
It looks like our trip will not be camping in Iowa but visiting friends in
Northern Michigan, and cooking in a kitchen most of the time.  Part of it for
a friend who does not like to cook, and is looking forward to our visit.
We may try the camping trip in February instead (long story).