Vegan Diet
Our journey into the vegan diet – actually it’s more a vegan lifestyle – began in June, 2004 shortly after Joyce was diagnosed with breast cancer and surgically had the lump removed. We were very apprehensive about chemotherapy and radiation treatments, and extensive research cemented our belief that there had to be a better alternative.
The turning point was when Joyce viewed a tape by Dr. Lorraine Day, who related her experience with having a grapefruit-sized cancerous tumor on her neck shrink and disappear after going vegan. We immediately decided to go vegan – that meant no more meat (yes, that means no fish or chicken either), and no dairy products. And we weren’t going to ease into it – we went cold turkey (no pun intended).
It was going to be easier for Douglas than Joyce, as he had been a vegetarian (no meat, but yes dairy) for periods of his life totaling nine years. But it was a commitment made together. A life threatening illness is all about support, so both of us vowed to support and encourage each other in our new “lifestyle”.
A few days into our new regimen, we heard about the Hallelujah Acres diet. We checked out hacres.com and it was a defining moment. Rev. George Malkmus had originated the “lifestyle” when he battled his own life-threatening colon cancer. He talked about the Standard American Diet (acronym SAD), and how better health is all a matter of nutrition. So we adopted his philosophy – no meat, no dairy, no white flour, no sugar, and no caffeine. Organic food was a must, processed food was to be avoided. We tweaked the Hallelujah to fit our own likes, dislikes, and preferences, building from his basis but finding our own unique path.
The carrot process begins by cutting off both ends of the carrots. Notice that these California carrots are much larger than those you find at the local grocery store.
The heart of his Hallelujah Acres diet is carrot juice. Its healing powers are unbelievable. We quickly ordered a Green Star Juicer over the internet and it arrived a few days later. That juicer and the Champion juicer are the only two that don’t add heat or air to the juice as it is made. Heat kills the enzymes, air makes it go bad quickly. To do it right, you need one of those two juicers.
Part way through juicing as jars are beginning to fill up. The juice is poured through a strainer as it's put into the jars, removing the remaining small bit of pulp.
Since organic carrots were hard to find and we could never grow enough for our needs, we bought 50-pound bags of California carrots at the local restaurant supply distributor. Since they weren’t organic, we’d always have to peel them before juicing. We quickly fell into the routine of juicing carrots everyday.
Juicing carrots leaves you with three products. The juice feeds your body, while the pulp and peelings enrich your garden. The peeler, with a baseball bat-style handle, makes skinning carrots easier on your hand.
A 50 bag of carrots yields 38 glasses of juice. That’s 8-ounce glasses, since the body can only absorb that much at a time. That’s about 73 cents per glass, a real bargain. We started out by drinking six glasses each per day and maintained that pace for a full year. Then we dropped to four glasses each per day and still maintain that consumption rate. We use 16-ounce Ball mason jars to store the juice, and it will keep all its nutrients and enzymes for 48 hours. In other words, we now juice about 20 pounds of carrots every other day and it lasts us two days. That adds up to over five tons of carrots used during our first 2 ½ years of juicing!
Our Green Star juicer with a two day supply of carrot juice ready to go into the refrigerator.
You can get variety in your carrot juice by adding different fruits or vegetables. Our favorite is spinach and carrot, and others we like are celery and carrot, apple and carrot – you get the picture. But we mostly drink straight carrot juice – we love the taste.
Salads also became a major component of our diet. Much of the year we are able to grow our own organic vegetables thanks to having a heated greenhouse. The rest of the time we buy organic veggies. If your local health food store doesn’t carry all the fresh produce you need, chances are the nearby grocery store has a selection of organic produce, too. Our favorite products are Olivia’s Organics for spinach and leaf lettuce mixes, Formosa Sprouts for broccoli sprouts, and dressings by Seeds of Change.
Our typical salad starts with a mix of 1/3 spinach and 2/3 leaf lettuces. That is topped with a generous portion of cancer-fighting broccoli sprouts. Next come the veggies, which should be cut quite small to aid in easy digestion and quicker absorption of the nutrients and enzymes. I layer in onion, then green pepper, zucchini squash, yellow squash, cucumber, and finally tomato. The guys should especially eat lots of tomatoes, since they help prevent prostate problems.
The salad is topped with some great energy sources, which we sprinkle on cooked veggies and soups, too. There’s Nutritional Yeast made by Red Star. It gives you 17% of your daily protein needs, plus a full day’s B1, B2, B6, B12, and Niacin. It also adds folic acid, selenium, zinc, and iron. Next we sprinkle on ground flax seed, which we grind from seed in a small coffee bean grinder. That takes care of your body’s needs for Omega 3’s, Omega 6’s, and Omega 9’s. Lastly it’s chia seeds, another source of Omega 3’s. For a little variety, we sometimes might add raw sunflower seeds, raw pumpkin seeds, raw broccoli or cauliflower, raw edamame beans, or cooked kidney beans.
Here are nine oranges cut in half and ready to be juiced. The juicer stands ready to do it's job, while the strainer patiently waits.
Another component of our daily regimen is fresh squeezed orange juice. We have a Braun juicer, which cost about $29. We tried other brands, but this is our favorite. We buy oranges by the box (about 30 pounds) at the same restaurant distributor. We buy 88-count boxes, which seem to yield more juice than the 113-count. It’s 25 less oranges, but more juice, for the same cost. We squeeze 8-9 oranges of the 88’s or 13-14 of the 113’s. After juicing, then straining to remove all the pulp, it yields us an 8-ounce glass for Joyce and a 14-ounce glass for Douglas.
After straining, the two glasses of orange juice get a scoop of Green Vibrance stirred in, then they're ready to drink.
The cost of oranges greatly varies according to the season or growing conditions. A box can cost as little as $20 up to $45 after a crop freeze. Normally the price is about $28, so that’s about $2.80 per day to get two glasses of juice totaling 22 ounces. That’s a bargain, even at the high of $4.50 a day.
The only supplement we take is Green Vibrance, which we add to the orange juice before drinking. Green Vibrance contains 60 certified organic and concentrated foods and extracts. For a complete list of the ingredients, go to vibranthealth.us/ and you will be impressed. It’s great energy food and assures your body gets all those needed extras, including probiotics to aid digestion. A 60-day supply costs $78.50, or $1.30 a day. Of course with two of us, that’s $2.60 per day.
Another important part of our diet is water. Bottled water. We buy distilled water by the gallon for about $1. The formula for how much liquid your body needs everyday is simple. Take your weight, say 160 pounds, and you need half that amount in ounces. So that’s 80 ounces a day. A 200 pound guy needs 100 ounces, a 110 pound gal needs 55 ounces. Without proper hydration, your body can’t flush out the bad stuff. So drink, drink, drink to your health. It’s important.
Here’s a look at a typical day of food for us.
We start with a glass of carrot juice at 5am. The nutrients are being absorbed within 60 seconds and your body can continue that process for about 45 minutes. By 7am, we have our glass of fresh orange juice with Green Vibrance added. It’s important to strain the juice after squeezing to remove all the pulp. Your body doesn’t need to waste energy breaking down the pulp, so give it just juice. A banana follows at 9am, then an apple at 10:30. The second glass of carrot juice is consumed at 12 noon. Lunch, around 1:00, is a very large salad. It’s the big meal of the day. Around 3pm the third glass of carrot juice goes bottoms up. A snack, maybe a handful of raw almonds, can be eaten around 4:15.
Dinner, around 5:30, is the one cooked meal of the day. The optimum diet is 85% raw and just 15% cooked. We will have rice, potato, or pasta along with cooked broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, cabbage, green beans, or other green vegetable. Occasionally we may have a Boca Burger or Yves Veggie Dog from the grill along with baked beans and corn on the cob. The longer you are a vegan, the more experimenting you can do to infuse variety in your diet. And you become an avid label reader, scanning every ingredient list on every product to make sure it’s AOK.
The last food of the day is a glass of carrot juice, naturally, around 9pm. We go to bed knowing we got all the proteins, vitamins, and nutrients our bodies needed. Since going vegan, we have a lot more energy, our skin looks healthier, and our weight is easier to control. In our nearly three years of the lifestyle, we have never been sick, never missed a day of work, never had so much as a runny nose.
Most importantly, Joyce’s cancer is totally gone. Not a trace. The vegan diet was a better alternative than being a guinea pig for the medical industry. The status quo in traditional medicine seems to be to treat the symptoms, not the root cause of the disease. Proper nutrition, not drugs, is the best medicine.
What to Eat
The first questions usually heard when people find out you’re a vegan are, “Where do you get your protein?”, “Do you eat chicken and fish?”, and “What do you eat?”. Let’s briefly address those concerns voiced by meat eaters.
The average American eats about five times more protein per day than is necessary. The actual requirements are about 58 grams of protein for men and 47 grams for women. Their main source – red meat – is linked to colon cancer and rectal cancer. A vegan gets their protein through the amino acids in grains, nuts, seeds, and vegetables, and the protein in green peas and other peas, soybeans, lentils, lima beans, and dried beans such as kidney beans. It’s all there, along with other healthful benefits.
All animal products are not good for your body’s health – including chicken and fish, and milk and cheese. So, no we don’t eat them. A good test of what any meat does to you is to cook your favorite piece of meat just the way you like it. Now, set it out on your kitchen counter for 72 hours and talk a look (and sniff) at it. Meat stays in your system up to 72 hours, so imagine that piece of meat sitting in your colon. Yuck!
So what do vegans eat? How do you get started?
These 12 books are full of helpful information, nutritional facts, food ideas, and recipes.
The best way to initiate your diet change is to talk to the folks who work at your local health food store. Chances are they are vegetarians or vegans and they can steer you in the right direction and show you the best products they offer that will fit your requirements. Go on the internet, where there’s all the information you’d ever need. The best place to begin your search is Susan’s Vegetarian and Vegan Bookmarks, which lists hundreds of websites at your disposal.
As you get more confident and adventurous, search out cookbooks containing vegetarian and vegan recipes. They will sometimes have a recipe with an ingredient you’ve never heard of, but many have a glossary of terms in the back. Seitan is made from wheat gluten and it’s a vegan substitute for chicken. Tempeh is a fermented soy product with a nutty flavor. Tofu comes from soy milk curds. Sesame tahini is hulled sesame seeds ground into a paste. All four are very high in protein.
Refined sugar feeds cancer and should be avoided. But there are alternatives to sweeten your dishes such as agave nectar from the cactus plant, and stevia, which is bertoni leaves, distilled water, and grapefruit seed extract. And, of course, there’s real maple syrup for sweetening. If you must use salt, the product of choice is sea salt, which isn’t refined but instead comes from evaporation of seawater. Arrowroot powder and agar powder are both used to thicken stews or gravies.
Many of these terms may seem foreign right now, but don’t feel intimidated. Just like many folks, you’ll be stocking your shelves with these items soon while giving away boxes of mainstream foodstuffs from your pantry that you will never consume again.
A glance out the kitchen windows reminds us that all kinds of leaf lettuces, spinach's, peppers, squash's, cucumbers, tomatoes, and herbs are at our disposal, even in the winter.
Here is a sampling of our favorite prepared organic, vegan foods and the companies that produce them. To break the monotony or when we need to eat a quick meal, we may have one or two meals a week using these products.
Alvarado Street Bakery has a half dozen different sprouted grain breads that we just love. And their sprouted wheat tortillas are a staple. We find ASB products right in the grocery store.
Rudi’s Organics also has a nice variety of breads. Theirs are made from organic whole wheat flour.
Right here is the best time to mention Organic Earth Balance, a substitute for whipped butter. Joyce, a butter fanatic, gave this the thumbs up the very first time. “Look, she likes it, she likes it!” And boy does it taste great on toast made from Alvarado or Rudi’s breads.
Amy’s Organics puts out some great products. There’s dairy-free bean burritos, vegetable pockets, broccoli pot pie, no cheese pizza, enchiladas, chili, and much more. But be sure to read the label, because some Amy’s stuff has dairy products in it.
Other brands that put out nice organic, vegan canned foods are Muir Glen, Walnut Acres, and Eden Foods. Fantastic Foods makes tacos a great quick meal with their taco filling made from soy. And Pacific Natural Foods packages four eight-ounce cartons of vegetable broth that is the base for every soup we make.
For cooking, we use coconut oil or virgin olive oil, as they hold up best under the high heat required for sautéing. To coat a casserole dish, we spray on grapeseed oil.
The list of good, healthy foods is extensive. It goes on and on. We have just touched on a few readily available here in South Jersey.
The vegan lifestyle is not for everyone. It limits, or eliminates, going to restaurants. It earns you rolling eyes or quizzical looks from your friends. It makes some folks feel uncomfortable when sitting at the same table during a meal. It may even get you less social invitations. It also makes grocery shopping trips more expensive, and meal preparation more time consuming.
The vegan lifestyle is for people who want to get healthy and stay healthy. It’s for folks who want to sleep better and have more pep in their step. And it is for those who feel the need to be more in harmony with their body, nature, and our planet.
If you’d like to get into specifics about the vegan lifestyle or have any questions, feel free to reach us through the Contact Us page on this website.
