Since we opened as a Whole Foods Market in 2008, we have added new equipment and made repairs to the building to better serve our expanding customer base. Over the next few months, we’re going to make some more asthetic changes to the inside and outside of the store to better reflect our community. Give us your feedback! We hope you like it.

Robert painting his "Local Love" mural on our outside wall.

The proof is in the blood pudding today (Gross? Sorry.) .  I was scheduled to donate blood, but like the masses, worried that my iron count might be low because I haven’t been eating animal protein. I would have been really bummed if I couldn’t donate, since (selfishly) it’s personally rewarding and I was looking forward to feeling like I contributed to the greater good today. So I was a bit nervous when I sat down for the finger-prick iron test.

I scored a 15.7 – which is well above the minimum requirement. The last time I gave blood, I was closer to the minimum, and I had been eating plenty of meat.

Goes to show ya – dark, leafy greens seem to be your best source of iron. My grandmother always convinced me to eat them by saying they’d put “color in my cheeks.”  I suppose I need some extra color today since I lost a pint of the rosy stuff!

It seems a bit easier to commit to the challenge when other people at work are doing it with you. We’ve scheduled weekly lunch meet-ups and even chose buddies to help keep us on track.

If you see a team member in our store with a square button on their apron with a health goal – ask them how it’s going! And look for some blog posts written by our 28-Day Challenge participants in the coming weeks.

You can sign up for your own 28-Day Challenge free of charge at Eat Right America. Use this promo code for one month free: CERAMWEVS

But what happened in the last year?

I admit, it hasn’t been all lentils and collard greens. Nutrient-dense foods are still some of my favorites, but I’ve fallen into a food rut the last few months, cooking the same less-than-optimal dishes week after week. And when I go out to eat… let’s just say I’m not ordering off the ANDI scale.

So I’m renewing my commitment this January. Yeah, yeah, so is everyone else, but there is a reason we all think about healthy foods after the holidays – we love those traditions, but face it, the ButterSugarRoastBeef diet wears you down. A plant-based diet cleans you out and gives you more energy.

Most people think that converting to a plant-based diet is limiting. But it really is quite the opposite. Not only do you need to eat more to get your daily calories (love that part) but you KNOW you’re not going to eat steamed kale every day and love this diet. When you take out meat and dairy, you’re only taking away a few foods. When you start cooking with only plants, you’ll discover the huge variety of nutrient-dense foods that taste really great together. Check out these recipes to see what I’m talking about.

So this January, instead of jumping on a fad diet, or counting calories, become a Nutritarian. Eat a ton of nutrient dense foods – it’s that simple. When you fill your body with nutrients, you stop craving the bad stuff. Nutritarianism is more lifestyle than diet. It’s a change for the good that I’m hoping to stick to long past winter this year.

Cheers to a healthy 2011!

As a Whole Foods Market team member, we get a 20% store discount (awesome) and we now have the opportunity to increase our discount based on health test scores (controversial, but I’m on board).  We need healthy BMI, low cholesterol and blood pressure, and no smoking.  My store was the first to get tested and everyone bombed their cholesterol – we found out we were getting the wrong test, so we qualify for a re-do.

So, my re-do is this Thursday.  I’m power-ANDI eating for the next two days, no exceptions!  And I’m out of groceries, so here is my list for the next few days.

Good loose-leaf green tea (I’ll see if there’s any Rishi on sale)

Fixins for vegan burritos (Ezekial wraps, black beans, salsa, no salt added canned corn, jalapenos, avocado, red pepper, collard greens and purple cabbage)

Fixins for vegan pizza (whole wheat crusts, NSA tomato sauce, NSA no oil artichoke hearts, more greens and red pepper)

I’m all set on almond milk, oatmeal and oat cereal (2 kinds of Kashi and good ol’ Cheerios)

GRAPEFRUIT

Got my fish oil

Grapes, carrots and celery - for mindless eating in front of TV (gotta have ammo for that)

Whole wheat bread or something for tempeh sandwiches

Tom’s of Maine floss (it’s the best, and I’ll have a lot of cellulose between my teeth)

Toilet paper – just a coincidence that I need it, but, again with the fiber.

The results from my test won’t be instant like they were last time, I’ll have to wait a week.  So, hopefully within 10 days I can tell you the good news that after 2-months of a plant-based diet, I’ve lowered my cholesterol below 150.  For some people, it drops quick, for others, they need more time.  Given my family history, I could be of the latter group.  But I think I’ve earned it!  Fingers crossed.

*Follow-up: I did lower my cholesterol with a plant-based diet! So I nailed the biometric test for a higher team-member-discount (extra 7%). The only portion I missed was blood pressure. I think I was so concentrated on the cholesterol test, I didn’t work on keeping my blood pressure down. Don’t think it was the food I was eating – but maybe more exercise and deep breathing would finish it off. Let’s see if I can hit the full extra 10% this year!

Most people who do not eat the flesh of animals will call themselves vegetarians, and most vegetarians abstain from meat out of ethical reasons.  They do not believe in taking animal life for food; livestock living conditions also enter into the equation.

My first beef with vegetarianism involves the ethical debate and the huge defining line between vegan and vegetarian and is something that’s for another day, another blogger.

My most relevant beef concerns vegetarians’ personal health. A 4-egg omelette with cheese fried in butter with a side of hash browns is vegetarian (but loaded with fat). An iceberg lettuce salad with dressing and croutons is vegetarian (but devoid of nutrients). Chili made with grass-fed beef, lots of veggies and beans cooked in a crock pot… now we’re getting into healthy territory.

I love vegetarians for protecting animals. I love them for protecting the environment (do you know how much energy it takes to create meat?). I love them for their homemade deodorant recipes. But I can’t help but shake my head in wonder at vegetarians that don’t really eat vegetables! A vegetarian by definition should lurrrve vegetables, yet most of their calories seem to come from cheese and simple carbs.

Check out the vegetarian offerings at the next restaurant you go to. Nurtients are probably not on the menu. As a nutritarian, I distance myself from the terms vegetarian and vegan, because I’m going after nutrients here. Sure, I’m staying away from animal products, but I’m also shoveling in leafy greens, seeds, beans and nuts. No vegetarian poutine for me, I want my veggies straight from the ground, with a little dirt on them.

So, okay, apologies to those veg-heads who do chow on nutrient-dense foods, I know you’re out there. You of the Haven’t Eaten Meat in 25 Years/Ever crowd, the I Love Lentils family, the What’s a Sweet Tooth and Raw Kale is My Comfort Food peeps. Rock the bleep on.

I’m not claiming Holier Than Thou – please, my binge on Mrs. Field’s ice cream sandwiches will be on my record for a long time.

But for those kids who are fashionably eating their poutine sans boeuf… I’m sorry, you’re not doing your body any favors. Humans are animals too; what about your welfare?

So, hopefully I didn’t beef you off too much with that.  I also extend my apologies for all the Wikipedia references, but those were the most accurate articles I could find! And I wanted to gross you out with photos of poutine.

Okay, it’s time for an update. I’ve been good and I’ve been bad. Not as bad as my Joseph Leonard night, but little cheats here and there have become a little too normal. Like the 1…okay 2 chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwiches I ate while watching an episode of Dexter. My throat was sore! But still, no reason to leap off the wagon.

So I thought I’d focus on the positive and show off a few things I’ve made recently.

First, My Vegan Pizza. A little bit like My Vegan Burritos, as in really easy and a staple of my nutritarian diet.

Vegan Pizza

So easy to make. Pop a 365 Organic Whole Wheat crust in the oven for about 5 minutes to make it crispy. Then spread on some Eden Organic no salt added crushed tomato sauce, top with pizza seasoning – oregano, basil, parsley, etc. (Canned pizza sauce has WAY too much salt in it.) Add tons of chopped garlic, toppings of your choice – I like red peppers, collard greens, kale, mushrooms, olives - sautee first if you like. Bake your topped pie in a 350 degree oven for about 10 minutes (my oven runs hot so you might need to adjust).

My secret ingredient? Chopped artichoke hearts. They make it seem like you’re eating cheese, they have a similar texture and they even look like cheese. The visual element is important in comfort food.

I’ve even started experimenting with using olive tapenade on the crust – go easy on it. Divina makes a black olive tapenade that doesn’t contain oil.

Black Rice and Mango Salad

This is Mango and Black Rice Salad – recipe from Delicious Living Magazine. I used tempeh instead of chicken. I didn’t like this recipe – it had too much going on. I did like the rice, I cooked it in mango nectar but it seems naturally sweet. You can get it in the bulk department at Whole Foods Market.

My boyfriend really liked the dish, so he ate that and I ate the rice with sauteed collard greens on top, lots of pepper. I love collard greens!

Black rice and collards

And here is one of my cheats that I’m proud of (gotta get back to those). Vanilla cupcake from Pheobe’s (they DO have the best cupcakes in the city) that I dreamed about for hours after I picked it up in Lakeview. Savored with a cup of blueberry rooibos tea (a good dessert, so sweet you might not crave sweets…maybe) on a pretty plate (remember the Visual Aspect!). I can STILL remember what it tastes like. Unlike the 2 chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwiches from whenever that was. Sigh.

Vanilla Cupcake from Phoebe's

I decided that eating a diet based in nuritarianism would set me up to splurge a few nights a month on meat and cheese, verboten foods I just don’t want to give up entirely. Not only am I not consuming them regularly, leaving room for more nutrient-dense foods, but saving them for special occasions seems to make them taste that much better. And that’s part of the point – awakening your taste buds and eating habits so that calorie-dense foods aren’t just, well, a habit.

Not that eating nouveau French American cuisine at exclusive restaurants should ever become a habit.

Don’t get me wrong, I love piling my dinner plate with greens and legumes… when I’m at home. But I adore eating at restaurants, especially new restaurants, especially exclusive places with no reservations, long waits and New Yorker articles written about them.

A trip to New York and a couch in Greenwich Village gave me the opportunity to try out Joseph Leonard, a tiny, uberhip restaurant-of-the-moment with cheeky wait staff and amazingly rich food. Such a place I cannot resist.

The latest trend in dining nowadays being pork (the fatty bits), we feasted on the Soggy Toast (soaked in egg, au jus and oyster mushrooms), Steak au Poivre, braised chicken, and yes, pork shank. Oh wait, and aged chevre and two kinds of dessert. I won’t even tell you what I drank.

And now it’s 3:20 a.m., I can’t open this window wide enough to catch a breeze, and my fits of sleep are interrupted by meat-induced night terrors (so real), trips to the sink for water, trips to the bathroom to expel the water, and the door to my friends’ room being opened on their trips to the sink and bathroom, which terrifyingly sounds like someone breaking into the apartment.

There are also flat-out unmentionable smells happening.

Freaking meat. Butter, salt, sugar, cheese, grease and meat. Was it worth it?

I love these little sojourns of sinfulness, but I cannot wait to get home and back to my nuritarian diet. There’s nothing like feeling at the top of your game – that never gets old and I never take it for granted. (I stopped drinking soy milk, instead alternating between cow and almond milk because I can’t seem to digest the stuff, and I’ve been doing a lot better in the, well, unmentionables area. See “ANDI: The Most Musical of Foods.” Actually, don’t.)

I’m sorry Joseph Leonard. I will always remember my trip to your exclusive little corner of Manhattan. I just hope in the light of day my memories will be of the fantastic time I had eating, and not the basketball-sized belly I have right now.

Stop by the store today from 5-7pm to meet Rip and learn about his lifesaving Engine 2 diet.  Check out our “store webpage” link above for more details.  Plus, the book is $7 off right now!

But I’m back.

I had to visit my grandparents in Southern Florida – after 95 years their health is finally starting to waver (please give me those genes) so I flew down to check on their standard of living.  Yes, they are still living in their own condo.  But my grandmother, once a practiced Italian cook famous for her handmade ravioli, stuffed artichokes and an ability to knead twenty-five pounds of flour at a time while making bread and biscotti, has pretty much lost her ability to handle a kitchen.

I arrived to the typical leftover extravaganza a la Betty White in Grandma’s Boy, this time featuring a bag of frozen shrimp that were quite obviously off.  At least, obvious to me.  I searched the freezer and pantry for hermetically sealed food – the Nutritarian diet being at the time less about nutrient-density and more about not catching parasites – and settled on a safe-looking frozen chicken breast, jarred pasta sauce and a bag of Bob Evan’s frozen hash browns.  Hooray for tomatoes ranking high on the ANDI scale.

Though my grandparents’ food choices have gone downhill recently, I know that part of the reason they have lived as long as they have is because of the healthy diet they have always enjoyed.  It may not have been all kale and lentils, but they were raised (and raised their children and grandchildren) on a diet of homemade, whole foods.  As a kid I had no idea what was popular on MTV, I had to dial radio stations to win concert tickets with a rotary phone (big handicap) and if you’ve ever had the pleasure of accompanying me through a drive-thru, well, don’t be in a hurry.  But for being so out of touch with some modernities of 80′s and 90′s living, I was given a huge gift, and that is a love of real food.  I can’t thank those frozen-thawed-refrozen shrimp loving nonagenerians enough for that.