Edwin Soto's Blog

Ever since, well – what I’m labeling as my “coming out” post, I have had some of the most interesting conversations with individuals.  I’ve found that with every minute I talk about my new eating habits, I actually get people to listen. People have questions, and I don’t have all the answers, but I do have 4 weeks of personal experience. In some circles I’ve been straggling around with, I’d be practically an expert in Animal-less eating.

I realize that I’m growing to understand myself a bit better every time I talk to folks about how and why I became a Vegan. I have yet to encounter the prejudice that I thought I would encounter. Anybody that read my post could, at the very least, connect with one aspect: health.  I don’t think anyone could possibly argue against eating more fruits and vegetables and less meat (or no meat in my case) is healthier for you. Doctors say it, news reports scare you into it all the time, and heck, I think at this point its accepted fact by all.

The question I get the most is, “What do you eat all day? Salads?” I figured it warranted a blog post to answer it. I’m glad your curious, because the answer is a big fat NO.  The speakers and mentors at the Vegan Pledge have made one thing abundantly clear: you can be a Vegan and still be unhealthy! Since I got on this train to be healthy, I’m listening. I’m reading a lot about good, balanced nutrition. It takes very little effort to actually eat healthy, just some will power.

Let me get back on track for a moment, I think nutrition is probably a longer topic for another day. I’ll discuss my personal endeavors with food in the time period I’ve now started to label as Edwin, A.V. (after Vegan). One of the goals I set out to accomplish was to eat more raw foods daily. So I take tons of snacks with me to work. Usually consisting of fruits like apples, oranges, bananas, tangelos. That is what I eat in place where chocolate bars used to be. As for potato chips cravings (or salty cravings) I tend to eat things like Wasabi Almonds, Peanuts, Natural Corn Chips with Hummus. The key for me has been to eat wisely and often – hunger leads to overeating and bad choices.

But what about meals? Keeping with the idea of eating more raw foods, I have also taken to eating salads just about once a day. Sometimes, in place, I’ll have steamed veggies. And in both cases, I eat as much of that as I want since there’s so little calories involved. I use little to no salad dressing because I use good tasting lettuce and a wide vegetable variety: romaine lettuce, raw spinach, cauliflower, tomatoes, green/red/yellow peppers, zucchini, etc. I genuinely enjoy the taste of good fresh veggies so this is pretty easy.

For the hot plates, I eat roasted potatoes and peas drizzled in olive oils, delicious breads like Alvarado Street Bread or Ezekiel Bread from Food for Life; these are now a must have in the household. I eat pasta, and Amy’s Organic Soups (a lunch favorite of mine) that vary from Lentil to Minestrone. I eat Pei Wei take out with vegetables and tofu. I really like the Nature’s Path Cereals with Vanilla Soy Milk. I eat rice and beans (see, I’m still eating like a Latino), bento boxes from Trader Joe’s.

As for desserts, my two top favorites have to be Julies Organic Sorbet bars which is basically a freaking delicious fruit pop (only 60 calories!) and Trader Joe’s Pound Plus 72% Cacao Dark Chocolate. I love dark chocolate and this is a massive block of chocolate for 5 bucks of which I only eat a square the size of a quarter.

There’s tons more I didn’t get into, after all I don’t want to post 4 weeks worth of food right now! But those are some of the favorites as of late. I will leave you a photo of what I made for dinner tonight: Penne and Diavolo Sauce with (Meatless) Italian Sausage, a side of Avacodo, zuchinni, tomato salad. It was a great meal, large portion and only 758 calories, 0mg of Cholesterol, and only 4.2g of Saturated Fat. Hope you’re not hungry.

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