Baby Carotene

Hello healthy herbivores! What’s the word?!? I have been happily sucked into MOMLAND for the last couple months. It’s a pretty place where you put your feet up, drench yourself in life’s miracles, and sip organic green smoothies out of martini glasses. Actually, it’s more like Legoland. Bright lights, fast moving humans, and too many colors to count. Too bad it’s not vegetables whizzing by! Or is it?

Not only do we have an amazing new being in our brood (a little girl, born at 8.1 lbs in early May), but life for the other 3 kids hasn’t stopped, nor has the Vitamix! But now I am back, and I am full-on gluten-free-fabulous.

When the new baby was born, I read a neat article about a new study that had just been published in the journal Diabetes: Could a Maternal Gluten-Free Diet Protect Protect Offspring Against Type 1 Diabetes? I read it while sipping tea and quickly inhaling my very last piece of whole wheat peanut butter toast. Sure, the study was done in mice, but when you have 1 child with type 1, even a study done with mice is motivating. Plus, with a few pesky baby weight pounds to dissolve, perhaps GF is a grand idea anyway. Bring it, Stuart Little!

So as I ventured into GF land, I realized most GF snack foods, breads, and muffin mixes are high-calorie, low-fiber, and rich in eggs, oils, and dairy (not so good for the squishy tubular mid-section of which I’m trying to bid adieu). And EXPENSIVE! Am I supposed to diaper the new baby with the GF Flour Mix packaging? Better idea anyway, I’m sticking with a GF plan that skips the processed goods and highlights the whole ones, and am on a mission to make a high-fiber, plant-hearty GF sandwich bread (read on). This mission may take the remainder of my life on earth.

My day at the moment:

First thing:
Huge glass water, then coffee with coconut creamer (I do love me a cup ‘a joe!) while nursing baby
Exercise:
2 mile hilly run/walk, 100 crunches, 50 sit-ups, 20 push-ups, 30 squats, 600 beads of sweat pouring down face
Breakfast:
Green smoothie: 1 scoop Plantfusion vanilla, 2 c dino kale, 1 c frozen fruit, 1 banana, water
Snack:
KIND bar, apple, OR peanut butter on corn thins
Lunch:
Huge green salad with lots of veggies and beans w olive oil-lemon-salt dressing, 2 pc dark chocolate
Snack:
Veggies, hummus, Brown rice cakes (2, 3, 4…), TJ’s Roasted Seaweed or TJ’s Kale Chips
Dinner:
Stir-fry veggies with tempeh or tofu, OR overloaded veggie burrito fixin’s piled on 2 corn tortillas
2 pc dark chocolate
Bedtime snack:
2 chilled sliced apples topped with cinnamon

For baking, I’ve been substituting GF all-purpose flour blend for regular flour and things have come out well. Until I tried my hand at a healthy, vegan GF sandwich bread, modeled after this one (except using King Arthur’s multipurpose GF flour and flax instead of chia). Mine was edible, and bordering on tasty if you like dense, heavy bread. Yum! I mean, HELP!!

Hugs to plants,
Jen

GF Vegan Sandwich Bread, Take 1