How to be a "Veggie Zoner"

Different Approaches to Veggie Zoning
Blocking vs Gramming
Protein Sources for Vegetarians
MasterCook and Other Software
Cooking Methods
Vegan Zoners
Conclusions

Different Approaches to Veggie Zoning

Maybe you are ALREADY a vegetarian, but something isn't going right. You may be experiencing mood swings, depression and weight gain. You have THOUGHT that you were eating healthfully, so can't figure out why you are not MORE HEALTHY YOURSELF. That's okay!

Maybe you are a meat eating Zoner, but are tired of all the meat. and wish to SUPPLEMENT your meals with some of the vegetarian meat substitutes, but are not ready to give up meat altogether. That's okay too.

Maybe you are a meat eating Zoner and you WANT to become a vegetarian for all the reasons I mentioned on the Philosophy page. That's okay as well. I can help ALL of you!

I WILL say that I am going to approach this as a lacto-ovo vegetarian. That is one who includes milk products and eggs in their diet. I'm not saying that it cannot be done Vegan (no milk products or eggs) but it is a little harder and I will put notations on recipes which ARE Vegan).

As I note on my general F.A.Q. page, I still am accomodating meat eaters with recipes and advice. The ONLY recipes that I do not support are the ones that include scavenger meats in them such as pork, lobster, shell fish and shrimp. They are at the bottom of the food chain, the garbage disposals of all the leftovers of the world. The Bible calls them "unclean meats" and we are told NOT to eat them. If you refer me to Peter's vision of the unclean meats, I will tell you that it was SIMPLY ALLEGORICAL, because God was telling Peter that the GENTILES were not "unclean," not that the meat itself was now remarkably "clean." The worst diseases, the heaviest metals, the bottom of the garbage pile and the passing on of diseases comes from these animals. Just don't eat them. I know how delicious they are, how tender they are, how tasty they are, what a delicacy they are. Your health is not worth it. Like the poultry inspectors who have given up eating poultry, just visit a pig farm ONCE and you will never eat pork again.

The Block Method for figuring your food choices is by far the easiest. The difficulty of course lies in the fact that for years people told you that peanuts and beans were protein. They are NOT.

25% of the calories that are in peanuts are from protein. 25% of the calories in peanuts are from carbohydrates. FIFTY PERCENT OF THE CALORIES IN PEANUTS COME FROM FAT. Peanuts are NOT part of the protein group. They are part of the FAT GROUP. A GOOD fat, but a fat nonetheless!

That is why a vegetarian is better off when Zoning by using the meat analogues. It just makes it easier to to a substitution for the meat you would normally eat. There are lots of delicious (and some truly distasteful) meat substitutes. Hopefully my Phony Baloney pages can help you make some decisions along the way.

Protein Sources for Vegetarians

As I pointed out, foods that have been traditionally thought of as protein sources for vegetarians are really NOT. They have far too many OTHER nutrients in them to stand in for protein in the Block Method.

That is why the Gramming Method is better for Vegetarians when you are not using meat substitutes. But there is a slight problem in it.

Protein is made of up Amino Acids. In order for a protein to be considered "Complete" it has to have a balance of all 8 of the Essential Amino Acids. The most biologically complete protein source, and most easily assimilated protein source is eggs. The white is just as complete at the yolk, and the white does not have arachadonic acid in it nor cholestrol nor fat. The white is by far the best part of the egg. In valuing food, the egg white is THE protein standard.

Other meat sources have things which prevent them from being as "bio-available" as eggs. While you get 1 ounce of them, that ounce is NOT giving your 1 ounce of protein. First, there are issues of water in the meat. 1.5 ounces of uncooked fish have the same amount of protein in them as 1 ounce of uncooked chicken or beef. But even the protein is slightly bound up, so that only 85-95% of the protein in the meat is used by the body.

This problem is even more apparent in vegetables and legumes. Because of the fiber content in these food items, the protein is bound up in such a way that the protein is only 75-85% bioavailable. The way to release it and make it MORE bioavailable is through COOKING. But there is a trade off there as well!

The more you cook a food, the more it allows all the nutrients to be released. But HIGH TEMPERATURES during cooking will kill enzymes and vitamins, so there are some precautions to take of cooking methods and temperatures which I will address further down the page.

The problem that Sears and I have discussed for vegetarians IS the decreased bioavailability of protein in legumes and vegetables is due to the fiber. He felt that this issue made it less appealing for vegetarians to use vegetable and legume sources because we are getting LESS protein for the same measurement. My point, which he conceeded, is that using the Gramming Method is going to cause a meal to be well within the Zone parameters, especially when you consider the less-than-100% bioavailability of even regular MEAT. So when NOT using meat substitutes (or analogues, as they are technically referred to), the lack of bioavialability in vegetables and legumes is not large enough to worry about. Harder to figure out initially, but in the long run when you have computed a recipe ONCE, you don't have to do it a second time. My favorite way to do this is to use MasterCook recipe software.

MasterCook and Other Software

I have a confession: I don't like to learn new software. If I like the way something works and I have no desire to go out and find bigger and better. I don't have TIME to learn new software.

That is why I was so delighted when I found MasterCook. It does everything I want it to do except one simple thing that they will NEVER change for me and that I can do by hand easily, and so I never need to learn new software!!! I hope, anyway...

What you do is this: you type your recipe into MasterCook. They have an enormous database of foods INCLUDING fiber content for all the foods. After you type in the recipe, you open the Nutritional Analysis and see how many carbs there are in the recipe. Subtract out the fiber and then divide by 9. Close down the Nutrition Analysis and record your answer in the SERVINGS box.

Now open up the Nutritional Analysis again. It will show your NET CARBS are now 9 per serving (that is total carbs minus fiber). If your protein per serving is less than 7 grams, you need to add more protein to the recipe. If it is more, then you need to subtract some from the recipe (VERY RARE that this will happen in our Carb-Addicted Society).

Then look at the fat. More than 3 grams? You need to cut down on the fat in the recipe. Very rare that you will need to ADD FAT, but always a happy occassion when that happens!

I don't mind 1 dish meals, but that is not my goal for every meal. Even so, as a vegetarian, when I do a casserole, I HAVE to use Mastercook because I want to take advantage of the ability to use the protein from grains, legumes and vegetables. This is how I do the "Gramming Method" of Zoning.

Otherwise, blocks are fast and fine.

And if you find software that does it better, let me know. Just don't be surprised when I don't change...

Cooking Methods

There are only a few methods of cooking that should be used to get the OPTIMUM NUTRITION out of a food.

Baking - The nutrition is kept inside the food as long as there is nothing that is being cast off after baking. Lower baking temps are prefered.

Boiling - If you boil something, make sure you use the water when applicable for that is when you will get your water soluable vitamins.

Broiling - Perfect for fish, but I love to use it for my VEGETABLES. I do vegetable kabobs with marinated tofu this way, and even the meat eaters love it. Great method for maintaining nutrition IF you don't burn the vegetables. Watch carefully as you broil. One minute a feast, next minute a burnt offering.

Steaming - Keeps the vitamins and nutrients in the foods, but too high heat steam or if you let it steam dry will rob the food of the nutrients, taking them out of the food and sticking them to the pan.

Stewing - Crock Pots are WONDERFUL for vegetarians as it cooks the food at a low temperature over a longer period of time, helps to safely break down the fiber so that the protein is more readily bio-available. Also help in food preparations in busy households.

Frying - Controversial because it is done at high temps in high fat. However, if you are careful to heat the pan to full heat BEFORE you add the oil, then use a SPRAY ON oil (Pam is good, and the Misto Bottles are great for olive oil or peanut oil) then you can still put that "crunchy outside" on a food and prepare it quite nutritiously. Cooking with peanut oil is more nutritious because it can stand higher heats and does not change to trans-fats in a high heat situation. I use olive oil for a condiment rather than a frying implement. Peanut oil is even more stable than Canola Oil in high heat situations.

Deep Frying - I hate to have to tell you this, but unless you really need the fat, you ought to give up deep fried foods. If you HAVE to deep fry stuff, invest in peanut oil. Best place to buy it is at Costco, just before Thanksgiving, when it comes in the 15 gallon container for cooking turkeys. And even as a vegetarian, I have LOTS of meat eaters during the holidays, so yes, that is when I buy it, and once every 2 or 3 months I do deep fried "Skallops" a vegetarian phoney scallop that my meat eaters LOVE. That with Fauxtatoes and a big salad, and I have a very happy family. No extra fat added.

Vegan Zoners

Can it be done as a Vegan? Absolutely! In this day and age there so many companies that are catering to Vegans, it has never been easier. While I have yet to give up milk and cheese totally, I am cut back to cottage cheese, ricotta cheese, mozzarella cheese and some goat cheeses (supposedly easier to digest). I have given up the fattier cheeses and all the aged cheeses, and rarely have milk to drink after considering the hormone issues again and finding out that there is more calcium in brocolli than in a glass of milk! Oh, watch out for spinach, for in hinders calcium absorbtion if that is an issue for you, and it SHOULD be for most women. Same with soda pop--leeches calcium from your body. And I still do eggs.

But when you consider the Tofu Cheese, the Hemp Cheeses, the soy milks, the eggless cassaroles and vegan meat substitutes, I don't think there is a problem in doing this Vegan. I shall do my best to add as many Vegan recipes to this site that I can in the upcoming months. If you have one or more that you have enjoyed, SEND THEM IN!

Conclusion

The Bible said that the orginal diet was fruits, grains, and herb bearing seeds. If you are an evolutionist, this may not make sense to you, but if you are a Christian, this might have puzzled you as to why at this stage of the earth game, we are confronted with needing so much protein when it doesn't seem that we had it back then.

As I have always said, I am NOT a scientist, but here is my not-a-scientist theory:

There is a company that sells "Heirloom Beans." They paid thousands of dollars for several beans that are a couple of thousand years old, taken out of the pyramids. They have found other beans that are also quite ancient. They started producing these beans, and after several years they are HARVESTING these beans in large enough quantitites that they can sell them. What they have consistently found is that these beans have 5 to 7 times MORE PROTEIN CONTENT in them that current beans produce. So evidently, nutrition of foods several thousand years ago was sufficient to give man the needed protein for growth and maintenance.

The processing that is done for our foods today is so severe, and the best nutritional parts of the grains are stripped out to make white flour, white sugar, white rice, that our bodies overreact to the carbs in our planet. Hence the need to supplement other forms of protein to counteract the assault of the carbs that enter the blood stream at rapid rates.

Add to that how little exercise we get, and you see that our bodies are TOTALLY out of whack!

While I think that the Zone Diet is a long term solution for the problem, and it has healing all over it, I also suspect that once you get healthy by leaving the processed foods behind, once your body stops overreacting to the onslaught of over-refined carbs, once you stop eating refined carbs, I think that the balance of carbs to protein to fat will not be AS CRITICAL. Once the Zone heals you, there may be a life with less protein needs and greater carb tolerance just around the corner

But the problem is this:

Are YOU going to give up refined carbs?

While the Bible says that your body is the temple of God and you should treat it accordingly, there are some folks that don't give that much care and consideration to what God wants, even if they believe in Him. Whatever way you want to look at it, even if GOD isn't "dwelling" within your "temple," it is the ONLY temple that YOU are going to be dwelling in, so isn't it time to sop the fat off the floors, toss the potato chip bags in the garbage can, replace the white bread with the whole grain and tidy up the place a bit?

Best Regards,

Karen