Ok. Before anyone hits me with the line about wanting to enjoy life and eating what tastes good and all of that, let me just say that, health-wise, I've reached a point where my body is saying ouch and I have started listening. I'm not on a diet so much as returning to eating foods that aren't going to kill me. I have never seen "Super-Size Me," but I have been living it for the past couple of years.
And, just so you know, I actually like fruits and vegetables. I also Have always been able to dabble in non-dead-animal types of food and enjoy many of them.
The only thing that has changed is that I am partially abandoning my previous eschewment of "substitutes." That is, I used to insist that any processed food that substitutes for the real thing (i.e. Silk instead of milk, Nice Dreams instead of ice cream), really only reminds you of that which you are doing without and, therefore, most people who try these things will only go back to that which is supposedly bad for you.
So, to lower my cholesterol, I have begun to use some meat substitutes. Maybe not permanently, but for now. Here are my thoughts about the good and bad aspects of each:
The good thing about TOFU is that it is cholesterol free. The bad thing is that it tastes like tofu, so you have to dress it up.
The good thing about SOY PROTEIN POWDER is that if you throw a dash of it into a cup of cottage cheese with lots of fruit and it give it a pudding-like consistency. The bad thing is that it tastes like soy protein powder and ruins the flavor. Egg protein powder has a more neutral flavor that compliments the fruity cottage cheesey concoction.
Soy Italian Sausage tastes ok. But it has a grainy quality and doesn't plump when you cook it.
Soy ground beef substitute is fine in a marinara sauce, which I think makes it a bolognese sauce, but has a more chewy texture.
Soy nuts and endame baked endame are a good source of protein, but soy nuts are a little too crunchy and endame aren't crunchy enough.
Non-soy cooking tip: If you mix egg substitute with egg white, you can make an omelet that looks almost like a normal omelet. If you put the egg white in the pan first and let it begin to cook and then put in the egg subsitute, it really begins to look like a real omelet.
Tofurkey is dressed up tofu. Tofurkey sausage is neither turkey nor sausage.
4 comments:
So, do you actually like it?
Like which?
Do you know how much protein you're actually supposed to eat? Only 15%. Maybe you don't need as much as you eat and thereby cut out some of the nasty replacement foods.
I do not understand replacement foods such as tofurkey. Ick.
qvvyegfm: faux food
Like which? Any of it. Your descriptions don't inspire me to go out and stock up. I wondered if you were enjoying your soy products.
I don't think dead animals are actually all that bad for you. You can get organic meats if you're worried aobut hormones and stuff. Dean says organic chickens are fabu.
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