Day Five - Earthfare, Beans and a Happy Colon

It's been a few days since I've posted and I apologize for not being on top of things.  Life happens, though, and we don't always get to do everything we want to do.

I bought a 9 bean soup mix at a health food store a while ago and decided to give it a try.  I soaked the beans overnight on Wednesday and tossed them in a crock-pot Thursday morning with some water and onions and let them cook all day.  After work on Thursday, I tossed in some tomatoes, frozen mixed vegetables,  textured soy protein, garlic powder and chili powder.  I then let that simmer for a couple more hours and stuffed myself silly with this soup.  It's VERY filling and the textured soy protein adds a "meaty" texture to it, but as far as I can tell not much flavor.  The only drawback seems to be, without getting too graphic, what goes in must come out - and in the case of this diet, much faster than a meat based diet and apparently in greater quantities.  I'm sure you get the picture.

I've mentioned in an earlier post that I live in a meat-eaters town and this attitude is reflected in the products that are available.  Some of the grocery stores have small vegan selections and there is a pretty good small health food store, but it would be nice to have a store with a large selection.  This morning, a friend called me and said he was going to Columbia for the day and wanted to know if I wanted to ride along.  Since there is an Earthfare in Columbia, I hitched a ride and away we went.  I think if I had been better prepared, I could have made a list and stocked up for the month, but I was a bit overwhelmed at the selection and didn't really know where to start.   I did pick up a few items and was pleasantly surprised to find that although my local health food store is much smaller, it does have a similar selection and is competitively priced to the big guys.

My energy level is definitely up and I feel good, so this has been a good start this time.  I'll keep you posted.