The Adventure of Restaurants as a Person with Tummy Troubles

Well, needles to say I have been super busy! We've had a lot of guests staying over this month including my amazing boyfriend who I hadn't seen in months! On top of all our wonderful visitors, Mom and I decided on a whim to hop over the pond to Ireland and Paris for a little over a week next month! I have been over the moon planning it. (Imagine tears and an incredibly rapid heartbeat for three weeks straight, and I still have three weeks to go!) So I havn't been very adventurous in the kitchen the last few weeks besides some amazing vegan french toast that I will share with you in a few days!
    I have found that with some tools and the right foods, cooking a veggie filled whole foods diet can be very easy and fun! But, being busy, I have been to some resteraunts in the last few weeks. I was kind of nervous. What was avalaible? Was there dairy products hidden in there?  They probably think am a high maintenance jerk, right? The first restaurant  I went to was a Mexican restaurant, Don Ramone's. I spent a while combing over the menu. Let me tell you, I was missing cheese right then. But I found a tostada with vegetarian cooked beans, cheese, lettuce and tomatoes. I ordered it without cheese and used the tomato salsa on the table to add a little flavor. They were happy to ablige with my request for no cheese and I was really relieved. A few days later, I found myself at Rubies Diner on the Pier in Huntington Beach. I was really in the mood for A veggie burger and I knew that as a vegetarian, I had eaten them there before. I was bummed to find out that they were cooked with cheese. Nope. So I searched the menu for something I could eat. Luckily I was there with my mom and boyfriend who are incredibly supportive! I finally found a veggie taco with beans. Unfortunately the sauce was sour cream based. So I had to make a special order with no sauce and extra beans. They were also awesome and perfectly accommodating. The last restaurant  where I had a problem was Claim Jumper. They don't have a menu with allergen free options. So I ordered a mashed sweet potato meal that originally had chicken but without the chicken. It was supposedly just veggies and a mashed sweet potato. It looked delicious!! Unfortunately though, the sauce the veggies were cooked in or the way they were cooked, they had an odd pickly taste and it started to make me feel sick. I let the guy know and he brought me a plain mashed sweet potato. It was amazing and just what I needed. And since I'm only eating a veggie diet for health reasons, I added a little honey. The server was really sweet and made sure that I didn't feel rude after sending a meal back. The manager even came to my table to ask if everything was alright and made me feel like it was "about me". I learned that as a paying customer, if you ask nicely and treat the staff as the awesome people they are, they will happily help you. Your body is your body! No one can tell you what you can and can't eat! People are a lot more understanding then I thought and restaurants want you to feel like a valued customer so you will come back! Don't be afraid to ask for changes in the menu, no matter what menu change you need, whether vegan, vegetarian, gluten free, etc.! It's not that hard and they're usually happy to help!

Getting Creative...plus a new recipe book for when I'm not!

Meal planning isn't really my thing all the time. Im more of a "what do I feel like today?" kind of girl.  I plan occasionally if I won't have time and I plan around ingredients, but not too many recipes unless I want to bake. 

Lately, Ive been into quinoa and veggie stir fry type meals with tempeh and different spices or miso sauce (miso, a little maple syrup, and a little vinegar...aka YUM.

This one is butternut squash, quinoa, and lentil mix with a little bit of curry spice, nutmeg, and a pinch of chili spices and 100% tomato  sauce and a broccoli green and spinach salad. This was what I had on hand, so I used it. I pulled some spices out, smelled them and mixed the ones that I thought might taste good together and my gosh, it was THE BEST meal I've ever had. I was pretty proud.

This one is carrots (from the garden), green beans (from the garden), kale, quinoa, and tempeh sautéed with a little bit of the miso sauce, and then I poured the rest of the sauce over it. It was also delicious. There is absolutely no need for me to go back.

Both these meals are full of calcium, protein, iron and countless other healthy benefits, without the bad fats, cholesterol, sugar, or toxins in meals I used to eat. Changing my diet to meat and dairy free  has simply been a blast, and making meals is quick and easy! 

 Now that I have decided that this is a pretty serious thing for me, I went to Barns and Noble and picked up some books! The red book "101 Best Vegan Foods" has a ton of vegan staples popular and lesser known and information about them. Who knew vegetables could be full of protein and calcium right!?

The second book "Vegan Planet" is full of information and recipes, and it makes me really excited! There are recipes for so many things that I won't even miss out on foods that I would have eaten before! Changing how you eat, whether it is changing to whole foods from processed, cutting out meat, or going vegan is so much easier than it seems, and can be fun!

It truly is an adventure, and I am learning so much about foods, about health and about what is best for my body! 

(Again I'm not a doctor and I don't claim this as medical information, but man I feel good!)

Why I am changing my diet....plus a new discovery I'm in love with.

I realize that the post I made about why I am vegan didn't show up for some reason. So, I'll tell the story of this crazy adventure again.

 People eat vegan do it for a lot of reasons. For me, I chose to become vegan because at this time, it feels like its what is right for my body. I have always had stomach aches when I would eat, and I have always been nauseous when I would wake up in the morning. I gave up milk twelve years ago because it would hurt my stomach and I stopped eating meat six years ago because I began to get really ill after eating it. I always thought it was lactose intolerance, so I would still eat things like cheese and yogurt.

This year, I had an endoscopy and found that I have what is called a hiatal hernia. Its a pretty weird concept, but I'll let you learn about it here if you are curious. This condition leaves me with heartburn, chest pain, muscle soreness and nausea after eating certain foods, most of which are animal based. And so, this crazy journey begins. I accidentally became a vegan because something in my stomach isn't right. Now comes the fun part. Where do I start? What do I eat? Where does the protein come from? All crazy important questions, Am I right? So, I am on a quest to answer these questions, feel healthier, and eat an insane amount of veggies!


Speaking of new things, I took a trip to whole foods (and surprisingly only spent 50 dollars on a couple weeks worth of food!). I have been drinking non-dairy milks for years. So I knew about them and have tried most of them. What I haven't tried is non-dairy yogurt because I always thought that yogurt could help my lactose intolerance. Well, since I'm not L.I., and instead have a hiatal hernia, yogurt is just as bad as the rest of them. Luckily I stumbled across this So Delicious Brand coconut yogurt. (They also have almond and soy yogurt, too!) It is made with non-dairy milks and the live-active cultures that you find in dairy yogurt.

I must say, I was a little nervous to try it, because I was afraid it just couldn't be the same, but some yogurt with berries in the morning is a favorite breakfast of mine!
The Vanilla Coconut yogurt is absolutely delicious! Its a bit more expensive, but now that I know I like it, I am definitely getting a tub of it rather than paying more per ounce for the little serving sizes.
P.S. They have a coupon you can print online for 55 cents off of any product! That goes for their non-dairy milks and ice creams as well! (Which of course since it is 100 degrees this entire week, I had to get some chocolate coconut ice-cream!!)


(any info is not medical advice, just personal experiences and what works for me!)