General Info

Taco Bell is one of the most vegetarian and vegan fast food restaurants I have found.  That said, it is still fast food.  Even if the corporate headquarters is telling us one thing about the ingredients, it still gets made at your local store and there is no telling for sure what goes into the food.  My point is that your mileage may vary on this, and if you are a super-strict vegan then this probably isn’t the place for you.  According to Taco Bell headquarters, they don’t use lard in things like beans and the basics like corn and flour taco shells are vegan.

One thing to watch out for is the sauces and dressings.  Most have egg and/or milk so they aren’t vegan.  The 3 basic border sauces (mild, medium, & fire) are vegan.

They have a great resources on their website.  They have a table of food allergens and sensitivities which lists egg, dairy, wheat, plus other things like shellfish.  They also have a complete ingredient list of basic components on their website.

On The Menu

First off, there are several items on the menu which are vegetarian and can easily be made vegan.  Parenthesis indicate steps to make it vegan.

• Guacamole
• Cinnamon Twists
• Mexican Rice
• Tostada (no cheese)
• Seven Layer Burrito (no cheese, no sour cream)
• Bean Burrito (no cheese)
• Cheesy Fiesta Potatoes (no cheese)
• Pintos ‘N Cheese (no cheese)
• Cheese Quesadilla (not vegan)
• Cheesy Nachos (not vegan)

Off The Menu – Sub Beans

You can also order almost anything on the menu and have them substitute beans instead of beef.  I usually am redundant in ordering things this way.  Say “no meat, with beans instead of beef” for example on a regular crunchy taco.  The hard and soft tacos can be ordered this way, plus anything else that strikes you on the menu.  This should be a standard substitution that any Taco Bell can handle.  I believe they have a button on the cash register for substituting the beef with beans.  I have never had a problem at the different Taco Bells I have tried and most cashiers don’t seem to have any difficulty with it and take it right in stride.

Fresco Is Your Friend

They have a term called “fresco” which is used on their healthy and lowfat menu line which they also refer to as the “drive-thru diet”.  It basically means no cheese and add “fiesta salsa” which is simply diced tomato and a tiny bit of diced onion.  This is the easiest way to order things vegan – by substituting beans for beef where necessary, and then saying fresco style.

Putting It All Together

I like to start out setting the expectation with “there should be no meat in anything we order” and then proceed from there.  A few of my favorites are “crunchy tacos, no meat, substitute beans for the beef, fresco style” and the very simple “fresco bean burrito”.  I usually add a side or two of guacamole for dipping the tacos too.  Yumm, I’m getting hungry now!  Any thoughts or experience on eating vegan or vegetarian at Taco Bell?

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The Differences

One of the biggest things I have noticed is that it is harder to eat out strictly vegan than it is just vegetarian.  Many of the vegetarian staples – like nachos, grilled cheese, quesadillas, and cheese subs – are not options anymore.  It definitely takes more effort to find vegan options.  While most restaurants have at least something to offer for vegetarians, I am finding more places just don’t have anything at all for vegan options.  Eating vegan has been eye-opening and I have figured out what I can and can’t eat, and places that are more friendly or have regular options or ways to order dishes to make them vegan.  I’ll do some future posts on how to order at typical places.

Best Effort

I coined the term “approximate vegan” to describe how I have been eating.  It is, simply put, making a best effort to eat vegan without sweating the small stuff.  When I can, I avoid dairy and eggs.  I no longer order dishes that are mostly cheese or have obvious eggs in them.  On the other hand, I will still take my kids out for sandwiches and for myself I get just veggies or hummus on bread or sub rolls that probably have dairy and eggs in them.  I do try to find places with vegan bread – Thundercloud Subs in my part of the world is a good one – but I don’t stress if it is a small amount.  Another example is we went to Disney World in August.  I ate mostly vegan, but some of the dishes and desserts sounded and looked too good to pass up.  Again, I didn’t eat anything majorly made out of cheese, but I did eat some dairy and probably some eggs in things.  One restaurant had a fabulous buffet with a dessert spread with tiny little individual desserts so I tried a tiny caramel cheese cake and a chocolate mousse with chocolate ears shaped like Mickey Mouse.  It enhanced my experience without diminishing my veganism by much.

Good Enough?

So is an approximate vegan a true vegan and is it good enough?  I’m not really concerned with being able to properly label myself, I am more concerned about trying my best to be healthy without adding a huge amount of stress to my life.  Eating with the kids is a bonding experience, and it already is restrictive being vegetarian.  I don’t want to expose them to a huge production of talking to the chef every time we go out and making a big deal out of getting a pure vegan meal.  So what is your opinion on this best effort vegan eating?

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Make Up Your Mind

The first thing you need to do is get your mind set.  Why do you want to be a vegetarian?  If you don’t have a reason behind it, you are already set up for failure.  Do you want to be healthier?  Do you want to lose weight?  Do you have ethical concerns about the treatment of animals?  Figure out why you want this and write down a personal “mission statement” on why you are going vegetarian.  This will help you if you are having a hard time so you have something to refer back to.  It can also help if you get resistance from friends or family around you.  If you can clearly explain why you are doing this, then they may be more understanding or at least less resistant.

Use Available Resources

There are plenty of resources out there especially on the web.  Follow these steps as just a beginning and you will get tons of help and reference material out of it.  Here is a very quick list of some places to start:

• The Vegetarian Resource Group (VRG)
• GoVeg.org (they have a great “vegetarian 101″ section)
• VegWeb.com – recipes and cooking tips
• Vegetarian recipes on Allrecipes.com
• PETA’s website – for animal cruelty information (watch a few of their videos!)

Create A Plan

Once you have done some research, come up with a plan on when you want to start and what your expectations are.  Will you switch cold turkey (pun intended) or will you start by having meat-free days and gradually increase those days?  The main goal here is to do what you feel comfortable with and let it be good enough.  During your planning you should come up with some simple meal recipes that you can create so you always have available food.  It also helps to scope out your town to find vegetarian restaurants or vegetarian dishes at your local food places.

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The process for this 7 day cleanse is pretty easy to follow.  There is a packet you take in the morning, capsules you take with breakfast & lunch, and a powder you mix with water and drink before bedtime.  One thing I didn’t like was that the directions are not clear about what else you can or should ingest while doing the cleanse.  I discussed with one of the employees at Sprouts and also researched online.  I found that it is recommended to drink plenty of water, eat mostly fruits, vegetable, and nuts, and add some healthy fat like coconut oil or flaxseed oil.  Also, it is recommended to eliminate high allergen foods (wheat, dairy, soy, etc.) and eliminate sugar, refined flour, processed foods, and caffeine.

Step 1 - Toxin Defense

Step 1

The first step is a little packet that you take first thing in the morning.  The instructions are to open the packet and dump it in your mouth.  Then add a little bit of water and swish it around your mouth.  Finally, swallow the whole thing.  The idea of this step is to balance out your mouth – which is the first point of access to your digestive system.  It contains probiotics that work in both the mouth and the intestinal tract.  It is a defense against toxins at the entry point into your body.  I like the idea of this “point of entry” defense and haven’t seen this idea in other cleanses.

The taste of this packet isn’t bad at all.  I did find that it clumps up pretty easily and sticks to the insides of your mouth.  My suggestion is to put some water in your mouth first and then pour the packet in.  That seems to help the powder mix a little better.

Step 2 - Organ Detox

Step 2

The second step is capsules that you take throughout the day.  These are marked as organ detoxifying and contain things like milk thistle for liver function and green things like chlorella and spirulina as antioxidants.  You take 6 capsules each day.  The directions recommend taking 3 capsules with breakfast and 3 with lunch.  The idea of this step is to support liver function so that your body can better eliminate normal and environmental toxins.  It also contains a range of antioxidants to help with this as well.

Being capsules, obviously there is no taste to discuss.  The capsules themselves are fairly large, but I found them fine to swallow and didn’t notice any aftertaste or refluxed taste.

Step 3 - Digestion & Elimination

Step 3

The third and final step is powder that you mix into a glass of water and drink down. This is done about an hour before bedtime.  The container comes with a little plastic scooper and you add two level scoops to a tall glass of water.  The powder doesn’t really fully dissolve, so you are left with a large glass of thick chunky liquid to drink.

I use the term “drink” loosely – it is more like “chug while trying not to gag”.  The taste isn’t very good, and it is hard to deal with the thick consistency.  This was the worst part of the cleanse.  While it doesn’t taste great, it isn’t terrible and if you just gulp it down quickly it goes fine.  This is the most noticeable step because the contents act as a fiber bulk and your bowel movements the next day will be decidedly larger and bulkier.  It is made up of natural fibers like coconut fiber, flax seed, and chia seed.  The product material claims that the fibers used are less harsh on your digestive system than things like psyllium which many other colon cleanses contain.

Final Thoughts

I did the whole 7 days of this cleanse and it was a good experience overall.  While I did not notice anything drastic, it did feel like my digestive system was a little more settled and happy.  As I mentioned above, the 3rd step of the powder noticeably affected my bowel movements and it seemed to clean me out a little.  Compared to the Master Cleanse, the results are far more subtle.  It was a positive experience, but I’ not sure how often I would repeat the process.

Have you done this cleanse or any others?  If so, or if you have any other feedback or questions, please comment and let me know.

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So Delicious Coconut Bars

I recently discovered coconut milk and have been drinking it and using it in smoothies. It is awesome for that, but these vegan coconut bars are awesome!

They are by So Delicious (yes, that is the brand name!).  The inside is ice cream made out of coconut milk and they come in either plain chocolate (on the left) or coconut almond which has flakes of coconut and slivered almonds in the chocolate crust.  Both flavors are awesome and I have stocked up and always keep a few boxes in my freezer.

If you haven’t tried coconut milk, it is a great-tasting alternative to cow’s milk and to other non-dairy drinks like soy milk.  The coconut also has great health benefits.  This quote is from Why Coconut on their website:

• Coconut represents a vegetarian-sourced saturated fat consisting of medium chain fatty acids (MCFA). Scientists have long recognized MCFAs such as lauric and capric acid for their anti-viral and anti-microbial properties. The body utilizes MCFAs as energy instead of storing them as fat.

Here is the list of ingredients on the frozen coconut bars

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Gluten Free Pasta Types

The main two types we found are rice based and corn based.  While it does depend on the brand, we found the rice pasta held up better to cooking and tasted better.  The rice pasta also tastes more like typical flour based pasta.  Corn pasta has very different strong corn flavor.  This can be a nice change, but is less like a pasta substitute.

Rice based gluten free pasta

Corn based gluten free pasta

3 Cooking Tips

1. Don’t over cook.  We found that gluten free pastas do not hold up well to boiling and can easily get overcooked and turn mushy.  Follow the directions on the package and err on the early side – check the pasta early and often and make sure not to overcook it.
2. Use lower heat.  Usually I cook regular pasta on a full rolling boil.  For gluten free pasta, I use medium-high to medium heat and a slower boil.  This helps to keep the pasta intact.
3. Rinse with cold water.  Most gluten free pastas will have a starchy residue on them.  A good rinse with cold water removes this and improves the taste and texture.  I throw the rinsed pasta back in the pot to heat it up again.  Then you can serve it from there, or if you are serving the pasta with sauce you can add the sauce and heat it all up together.

Best Bet

Tinkyada Brown Rice Pasta - Best Bet!

These bags of brown rice pasta from a company called Tinkyada are the best bet that we found.  They are available in a bunch of styles and taste great.  They have spirals, elbows, shells, spaghetti, and more.  Many of them are available in organic varieties as well.  This pasta holds up great to cooking and can even handle a little over-cooking.  It passes for regular wheat based pasta and can fool people and they most likely won’t realize it isn’t regular pasta.

I have found this brand in several stores around us like HEB, Central Market, and Whole Foods.  They shouldn’t be too hard to find.  Look in the pasta section and the specialty gluten free section of your stores.  I hope you find these tips and recommendations useful.  Be sure to comment and let me know.

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Thanksgiving Meal

I find it unfortunate that there is so much focus on turkey for Thanksgiving.  With all the other traditional side dishes we never miss the turkey and always feel full.  We have made an effort to create our own family traditions around the meal without the turkey.  We have the typical fare of cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, stuffing (if using store-bought, check the ingredients – not all are vegetarian), and green beans.  One year we tried to cook a tofurkey and it was a unanimous failure – we all hated it.  Our vegan friend swore that tofurkey really was great and that we needed the tofurkey gravy, but I don’t think any of us are willing to try it again.  I have also heard of other families that make a tradition out of trying new recipes for main dish turkey-replacers.  What ever you choose to do, it is a good opportunity to build family traditions.

Holiday Hype

I also find it unfortunate that Thanksgiving now gets overshadowed by the beginning of the Christmas holiday season and the hype of the black Friday shopping.  As a non-Christian it seems like we are overwhelmed by people who think that everyone celebrates Christmas.  I’m not looking forward to another month of cashiers wishing me a merry Christmas and having to decide to either tell them I don’t celebrate or just grit my teeth and respond with a yielding nod.

Staying Positive

Anyway, the real think to focus on for Thanksgiving is exactly what the holiday is named for – giving thanks.  It is a wonderful time to stop and think about what we are really thankful for.  I suggest you take this time to think about what you are thankful for, what you want from life, and how you can get there.  Stay positive, and be thankful.

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Build your own taco bar

Build Your Own Tacos

This is a very simple idea and was a really big hit with the kids.  I called it a “build your own taco bar” and they were sold instantly.

I think the idea that they got to choose and assemble the tacos themselves really worked.  After a particularly hard period of at least one child complaining about something I tried to serve, I decided to put the choice into their hands and it worked well.

I found hard taco shells that are flat on the bottom so they stood on the plate while we filled them up.  This would also work with tortilla shells as well.

Taco Filling

Taco shells, rice and beans, black olives

Find something good for the main filling.  I had some leftover rice so I mixed in part of a can of black beans.  My kids really don’t like black beans so this was barely passable, but the rice made it ok.  If yours like beans, then cooked black beans or other beans would make a good base filling.

Also pictured here are black olives.  These would make an acceptable main taco base in a pinch.

You could get fancy and cook up some meatless ground beef or something like crumbled tofu or seitan as well.  I was going for speed and using what I had on hand.

Taco Toppings

Then I put out bowls of taco toppings for them to choose from.  Here are guacamole and lettuce.  I made a rule that they needed to pick at least one green item for their tacos.  One of my sons loves guacamole, but the other two kids hate it.

Finally, some cheese (or cheese substitute if doing vegan) and some salsa.  Here I’ve got some Pace organic which is really good and has been popular with the kids.  They aren’t big on spice, so this is the mild, but after they rejected several other salsas, I was happy to find one they liked.

Thoughts

This was simple and involved no cooking at all.  I mixed beans in with the leftover rice and heated it in the microwave.  The rest was just assembling the different ingredients.  It wasn’t all that different than burritos that I serve fairly often, but the kids really liked the do-it-yourself aspect.  From that point of view it seemed like a completely new idea to them.  I plan on using this one again, and also using the “assemble yourself” idea for other meals as well.

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Junk Food Vegetarian

Relying on junk food instead of real meals and healthy food because it is too hard to eat vegetarian.

Overcoming this problem is a two part solution.  First you need the willpower to not eat so much junk food.  You need to learn to say no and slow down your eating.  Yes it is hard at first, but it becomes easier as you eat less and less.  Second, it helps to have better alternatives.  The best way to accomplish this is to learn to cook more and keep healthy foods on hand.  Another backup is to find healthy restaurant options and eat out or get take-out more often.

Frozen Foods

Relying too much on frozen foods like meatless offerings from Morningstar Farms and Boca Burger.

This solution falls into a similar category with junk food regarding having better options.  I still keep Morningstar Farms foods in my freezer and they certainly have a place in our meals when we are just too busy and exhausted, but they play a smaller role.  I have made a big effort to use them sparingly instead of relying on them.  I’m actively trying to cook more and also just seeking out healthier options both fresh and frozen in the grocery store.  I have found really good tasting veggie burgers that don’t have wheat, dairy, or eggs in them.  I’m planning on including them in my veggie burger roundup coming up.  While not as bad as pure junk food, the key here is moderation and not relying on frozen food with huge ingredient lists for every meal of every day.

Child Care

Having children in child care accidentally being served meat.

The solution to this one comes down to being very vocal about what your kids can and can’t eat and making sure you talk to everyone involved in your child’s care.  For us, this was a matter of going into the kitchen and talking to the chef to make sure he/she knew our kids and their restrictions.  We also made a point to go in at different times so we talked personally to all the staff on both morning and afternoon shifts.  One school had nameplates on the tables that indicated the vegetarian restriction and even this wasn’t enough.  Talking to everyone and stressing the importance was our solution.  Another way to solve this is to bring your own food for your child.  Some child care places don’t provide meals or don’t provide vegetarian meals, so this may be your only option.

Final Thoughts

Unfortunately, mistakes happen and that is part of life.  Our lives are always too busy, but we need to make eating healthy and eating vegetarian a priority and make sure that we do for our selves and our children.  When everything else is stripped away, is anything more important than health?  Does anything really matter if we are sick and unhealthy?  Ask yourself that and make the time to avoid these vegetarian mistakes.

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Junk Food Vegetarian

This is probably the easiest and most common pitfall that us vegetarians can fall into.  When you can’t easily get fast food and don’t have time or the know-how to cook much, it becomes all to easy to grab for the nearest bag of potato chips and soda.  I was (and occasionally still am) a junk food vegetarian for far too long and managed to pack on about 35 pounds.  This becomes a dangerous cycle because then you have less energy from the junk food so you feel even less like making healthy things.  Also, your body adjusts along with the amount of food you consume – as you consume more food you get hungry quicker and want to eat more and create another bad cycle.

Frozen Foods

This is a step down from pure junk food, but I feel it is still a mistake.  While frozen foods from companies like Morningstar Farms and Bocca Burger are great, I spent too many years relying on them to feed myself and my family.  The Morningstar Farms Chik’n products have been popular with my kids, but they have a long list of ingredients and are full of wheat, dairy, soy, and eggs.  As I discussed in another post on food sensitivity testing, one of my sons and I discovered we have wheat sensitivity.  Relying on these foods and consuming them too much I feel has contributed to ear infections and congestion problems for my kids and myself.

Child Care

My 3 kids have all been vegetarians from birth and all have been in some amount of pre-school child care.  We had several situations where they were fed real chicken nuggets, fish sticks, and spaghetti with meat sauce.  I can’t do anything to change this, but I consider it a mistake that I wasn’t more on top of who was feeding my kids.

Final Thoughts

While eveything in life is give and take, I can look back and clearly see things I could have improved about my vegetarian eating.  I am very glad that I have chosen a vegetarian lifestyle and feel that even with my mistakes I am better off, and the world and the animals I have saved certainly are better off.

Do you have any vegetarian mistakes you have learned from, or things you just don’t know how to fix?  Be sure to comment and let me know.

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