Weekend List with Great News on Fruit

Whew, it’s been a week. Hubby was out of town on business travel which sounds like it should be relaxing having the house to myself, but it wasn’t! I usually try to take at least one day off work when he’s out of town to have a little down time with the house to myself to clean and organize, but that did not happen this week with so much going on at work and a work conference. Thankfully he got home safely Friday evening and we’re enjoying some down time.

I purposely did not grocery shop over the week to do a little fridge and pantry use up since it was just me and by lunch yesterday, I only had a few carrots, an onion, and purple cabbage for fresh ingredients and came up with this simple, oil-free tofu stir fry seasoned with curry, turmeric, Bragg’s Liquid Aminos, dried cilantro, and a dash of cayenne.

It was very good and the tofu took on the look and texture of scrambled eggs from the turmeric. But I was also happy to load of on fresh ingredients later in the day, I was out of bananas for smoothies which is a no no!

I also took the chihuahuas for a long walk where they were often fighting over which direction they wanted to go on the dually dog leash to take in new smells.

And Miko crashed on my lap for awhile after while I relaxed and caught up on news reading.

Later we had another family gathering at my sister’s house, it’s been a busy month for birthdays and family events! This time the food was catered by a local Mexican restaurant with great vegan burritos loaded with rice, beans, and flavor.

And very filling!

Today is for relaxing, we’re just gonna catch up on house stuff, go for a run, and maybe see a movie. And I’ve got a great list this week!

Living Non-GMO has a helpful list of crops that are at high risk of being GMO. Corn and soy really bum me out, thankfully finding decent non-GMO stuff is fairly easy and cheap at Whole Foods because I am a popcorn lover.

I really like this article over at One Green Planet making a case that showing compassion for animals is great for our health too and is inline with being grateful for what we have and focusing on the positives in life. I believe humans were meant to be compassionate to all forms of life and protecting the lives of others connects us more to our surroundings and gives us more purpose.

Thanks to Colleen Patrick-Goudreau’s book, The 30-Day Vegan Challenge, two local CBS reporters are taking the 30-Day vegan challenge which should be fun to follow. This video from the kickoff is great with all the vegan alternative milks and cheeses.

And more on cheeses, Alex over at Veganosity did a great write up on it to arm any plant-based eaters that are tired of hearing people say they could never give it up.

This is a very interesting short article on how curry could be linked to killing cancer cells – expect more curry recipes here in the near future!

Also expect more fermented foods soon because I want to get back to it making my own sauerkraut, pickles, etc. Here’s a great read on 7 awesome things about fermented foods.

This is an inspirational quick read about 5 people who went vegan after refusing and saying they’d never do it.

One of my favorite local vegan restaurants, Baagan, needs to move to a bigger location to meet demand. Isn’t that awesome?! And they’re crowd funding to do so here if you’re local and would like to support a great place to eat.

You know I love healthy, oil-free blender salad dressings. Here’s a great recipe for Zesty Tahini Dressing to mix up your salad routine.

Moby is a hero for rocking the vegan lifestyle for 27 years, wow! This is a great interview with him.

Finally, this is a great article on carbs in fruits an vegetables separating them from the bad processed carbs in crap, processed foods based on how we digest them and nutritional value. I’ve had a debate or two about this with my hubby who was once a supporter of the meat-heavy Atkins-style diet years ago and avoided fruit and other good plant foods because of generalizing the carbs in them as bad. Ugh. This is an encouraging study of no adverse blood sugar effects for people who ate twenty servings of fruit a day due to the fiber and nutrients – wow! So, if you like to snack, make it fresh fruit and veggies! It goes hand-in-hand with friends we saw last night after not seeing them for over a year or so, they both looked great after losing 40+ pounds each following a Weight Watches program together. The woman said eating fruit was the biggest change she made in her diet. She never ate much of it before, but has been replacing a lot of processed snacks and breakfast foods with fruits and has lost over 50 lbs. Wow!