The Kind Diet: A Simple Guide to Feeling Great, Losing Weight, and Saving the Planet (17 page)

Transition Checklist

• Move from cow’s milk to a milk alternative (see below).
  
• Move from white bread to organic whole grain bread.
  
• Move from white pasta to whole grain pasta (wheat, rice, spelt, or quinoa pastas).
  
• Move from canola and corn oils to organic olive, safflower, and sesame oils.
  
• Move from regular mustard to whole grain, organic mustard.
  
• Move from coffee to green tea or yerba maté.
  
• Move from white sugar to maple syrup and brown rice syrup.
  
• Move from canned and frozen vegetables to fresh, organic vegetables. Other new members of the pantry: brown rice, beans, unrefined sea salt, vegetables, fruit.
  

Don’t forget: spaghetti sauce, tortilla chips, salsa, pita bread, tortillas, popcorn, pancake mix, veggie burgers, tofu dogs, Amy’s frozen meals and burritos, marinated baked tofu, nuts, and sunflower or pumpkin seeds.

Milk substitutes: rice milk, soy milk, almond milk, hemp milk. Even coconut milk! There are so many choices. Just so you know, every type of “milk” on the market has a distinct taste—even among soy milks, there are different tastes and textures. Some are slightly sweetened. Explore and play with the choices as you find those that work best for you.

You can even make your own: Soak almonds overnight and blend in a blender with water and a pinch of cinnamon.

Superheroes: Vegetarians

The word
vegetarian
first showed up in Webster’s Dictionary in 1939, and the first vegan society was formed in England in 1944. But in case you thought vegetarianism was a 20th-century trend, consider this: Vegetarianism’s history goes back to ancient India and Greece; it is a tenet of major religions like Hinduism and Buddhism and has been practiced by these early and contemporary trendsetters: Plato, Ovid, Leonardo da Vinci, Percy Shelley, Voltaire, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Henry David Thoreau, Leo Tolstoy, Abraham Lincoln, Sir Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi, Rosa Parks, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Mary Tyler Moore, Oliver Stone, Alec Baldwin, Deepak Chopra, Prince, Lenny Kravitz, Kate Moss, Alanis Morrissette, Ellen DeGeneres, Shania Twain, Reese Witherspoon, Tobey Maguire, Carrie Underwood, Natalie Portman, Nelly, and Anthony Kiedis.

Energy Bars

Most energy bars contain a lot of simple sugar and—no matter how you slice it—that’s not healthy. You may need that hit of simple carbs to keep you going during your Ironman race, but how strenuous is your actual daily routine? I know it might
feel
like an endless race, but energy bars are really not the answer. All that simple sugar sets you up to crave more of the same while weakening your immune system, creating new and not-so-sporty problems. Plus, it’s a bar, in a package, sitting on a shelf! It’s not food!

If you feel like you can’t live without them or you skip meals often, look for bars that contain no white sugar and no dairy. Here are some options: Crispy Peanut Butter Treats with Chocolate Chips (page
184
) or Raw Balls (page
205
), Go Macro bars by Macro Treats, and Oskri sesame seed bars. If you can’t find any of those, Luna and Clif make some sugar-free products as well. Try making these healthier choices as you adjust to what your body really needs to run life’s races: real food.

Action #4:
Take a yoga class. Start with a gentle one if you’re new to the practice. Or take a dance class . . . or Spinning. Even a lazy, flirtatious stroll will do.

Action #5:
Get a feel for what being vegetarian is like by going 4 weeks without beef, chicken, or pork. Alternate beans and new “meats” (soy or wheat meat substitutes such as tofu, seitan, or tempeh) with fish—one day fish, one day veggie. Fish, although it has serious issues,
¹
is the easiest to digest of all the flesh foods and leaves the body feeling lighter than beef, pork, or poultry. By making this switch, you will get a better sense of what going veggie or vegan would be like.

DETOX FOR FLIRTS

If you abstain from meat and dairy completely for even a few days at a time, your body will start to discharge toxins. You may notice excess mucus, stinky perspiration, and other lovelies. Positive signs of detox include easier bowel movements and better energy, so don’t miss the good stuff! With every experience of detox or adjustment, it’s important just to keep moving forward, trusting that your body knows exactly what to do to heal itself. Yay, body! As long as you are getting a variety of nutritious foods, you can trust the process.

Food for thought:
Any reduction in your animal product consumption is—to me—a total, unequivocal, three-way win. You win by being healthier, the planet wins for suffering less of the ecological impact of the meat and dairy industries, and an animal wins by not getting eaten!

After Flirting for a while, though, you will feel some interesting, exciting changes, and your body will naturally begin to push you to the next stage. Please follow your instincts. Although it’s fine to Flirt for as long as you want, I encourage you to read through the Vegan and Superhero plans as you prepare to feel better and better, experiencing more of the benefits of a plant-based diet.

Reminders for Flirts

• Eat brown rice.
  
• Explore meat and dairy substitutes.
  
• When you feel you need meat, go for wild fish.
  
• Make friends with vegetables.
  
• Start noticing how different foods affect you.
  
• Keep flirting; make a new recipe from this book every week.
  
• Enjoy the adventure.
  

Eye Candy for Flirts

All of these cute boys are vegan:

8

Going Vegan

vegan:
(noun)
a vegetarian who omits all animal products from the diet

Although following a vegan diet is defined by abstinence from animal products, it is much, much more than that. By committing to a new way of eating, you are investing in your health, longevity, peace of mind, and overall enjoyment of life. By giving up meat and dairy, you withdraw your support from industries that take a toxic toll on the environment and on the well-being of your fellow humans. And finally, by not eating animals, you are reducing the needless suffering that occurs in the world, on many levels. Whether or not that’s a priority for you, isn’t it nice to know that being good to yourself benefits others? You’ve arrived at the place where kindness to yourself meets kindness to the earth meets kindness to other creatures, and that’s pretty cool. Abstaining from animal products is a profound act, with physical, emotional, and even spiritual benefits. Come join me and many, many others as you take this magical leap forward.

GETTING STARTED

It’s helpful to cleanse your home of animal products. Start by giving away any meat or dairy products you have to friends, family, or charities.
Please
don’t throw food away. I know I’ve labeled meat and dairy as “nasty,” but to someone who isn’t ready to make this change, they have real value and there is absolutely no reason to waste them.

In order to treat your body as kindly as possible (and to feel amazing), I’m going to be asking you to go a step beyond simply eliminating certain nasty foods from your kitchen and diet. I want you to
add
certain Kind Foods to your diet now rather than making the mistake of surviving on corn chips and Pepsi all day. Of course, you may be eating lots of vegan foods already, like bagels, salads, pasta, vegetables, and fruits, but I’m asking you to go one step further by incorporating some whole grains and bean products in your diet every day. I also encourage you to use the Superhero recipes as much as the Vegan ones; that way you will build a nutritionally solid center as you experience the benefits of saying “bye-bye” to meat and dairy. That’s it. Simple.

LET’S GO SHOPPING

Now’s the time to get serious about stocking your kitchen. Once you’ve given away or used up all the meat, dairy, and other nasty foods that line your shelves and fridge, it’s really important that you replace them with ridiculously yummy food so you never feel deprived or likely to slip. I’ve organized these foods into categories, so pick liberally from each.

• Grains:
  brown rice, barley, quinoa, rolled oats
  
• Bread:
  whole grain breads like whole wheat sourdough
  
• Other whole grain products:
  couscous, noodles, mochi
  
• Beans:
  chickpeas, lentils, kidney beans, black beans, or any other
  
• Bean products:
  tofu, tempeh, seitan, and premade hummus
  
• Vegetables:
  leafy greens, onions, cabbage, winter squash, daikon, carrots, lettuce, cucumbers, and anything else you like
  
• Fruit:
  Get a good selection for snacks and desserts, but try to choose mostly from what grows in your climate.
  
• Seasonings:
  unrefined sea salt, shoyu, umeboshi vinegar
  
• Oils:
  olive, safflower, flaxseed
  
• Processed foods:
  See Flirting list of transitional foods (page
  86
  ) and go crazy.
  
• Snack foods:
  fresh fruit, figs, raisins, trail mix, edamame, toast, cereal, peanut butter and jelly, soy or rice milk smoothies, cinnamon-raisin mochi, toasted whole wheat tortillas, ramen soups, and anything else that tickles your fancy. One of my favorites is popcorn with melted Earth Balance Buttery Spread. (See the Snacks section of the recipes, pages
  179
  –
  195
  .)
  

BUILDING A MEAL

Every healthy lunch or dinner is built around the same three elements: grains, beans, and vegetables. Without being super rigid about it, you should think of your meal as one-quarter grain, one-quarter protein, and one-half vegetables. It’s not necessary to have a bean or protein food at every meal; once a day is really enough, though if you want to eat protein more often, that’s okay, too. For meals that don’t include protein, a balance of 50 percent grains, 50 percent vegetables is about right.

Of course, there’s a ton of variety within these three categories, but once you understand the basic structure of a meal on the Kind Diet, meal-making becomes simple. Here are the basics:

1. Start with a
   whole grain or grain product
   (whole grain cereal, or pilafs; noodles; bread; or tortillas).
   
2. Add a
   protein
   (beans, tofu, tempeh, seitan, or, in a pinch, any processed meat substitute).
   
3. Add lots of
   vegetables
   , some raw, some cooked. Try to get lots of variety in colors, textures, and flavors.
   
4. If you want
   dessert
   , find or make a healthy treat (rice ice cream, brown rice crispy treat, etc.) or have a piece of fruit.
   

Voilà! That’s your meal!

Breakfast has a slightly different personality. Although Superheroes have vegetables with their grain at breakfast, you may not feel attracted to a big bowl of collard greens first thing in the morning (yet!). Just decide what grain you’ll have for breakfast (oatmeal, pancakes, brown rice, cereal), add a protein if you like (scrambled tofu, tempeh bacon), and maybe a drizzle of something sweet like jam or rice syrup . . . and if you’re feeling frisky, steamed greens . . . YUM!!!