Working on Diabetic Vegan Diet Plan now

      
Started work today on the Diabetic Vegan Diet. My Dietician wants me to go on a “special” Vegan diet for 90 days. If you recall my previous post regarding our Dietician Consult, the diet plan she is asking us to follow is:

A Vegan diet.. with no wheat, no nuts, no sugar-free pudding, no Jell-O, no animal products (dairy, meat), no oils at all (Canola oil cooking spray used sparingly is okay), no yogurt, a salad a day with fat free dressing, no milk or other dairy products, no creamer for coffee, lots of fiber(beans), sea salt instead of regular salt, low sodium, gluten-free, ground flax seed, a daily protein shake, no rice, no potato.

My wife and I are going to start it January 1st, 2013 and so, I am planning the diet now.
First, we know that we’re having a protein shake for breakfast. We’ll have it with soy or almond milk or water. We’ll blend various types of fruit with it to ensure we get some variety. This will be daily - every day for 90 days.

Second, we are being asked to have a salad a day. So it figures that a lunch salad will be good. It’s easy to grab one at the office or if I have to go to lunch with a colleague or client, then I can always have a salad. No meat, no eggs, nothing animal and fat free dressing.

That then, leaves the dinner…..

Since this is for 90 days, I first starting reviewing and finding at least 120 Vegan / Vegetarian recipes that I think my wife and I would enjoy. I copied and pasted each into a table in a Microsoft Word document.

The next step will be to go through each recipe and change them. For instance, if there are potatoes, then I’ll substitute cauliflower or tofu. If there is regular pasta, then I’ll substitute vegetarian vegetable-based pasta. If there are ingredients I know we won’t like, I’ll eliminate it or substitute something else. If there are ingredients that are hard to find, then again, something must be done since I am living on the ingredients I can obtain from our local grocery. If there are any dairy products, then I’ll substitute almond or soy milk. and so on…..

The next step will be to have my wife go through the table of recipes and mark the ones she does not think she’ll like. These will be eliminated. Since we’re both going to be following this diet plan, we both have to enjoy the food we’re going to be cooking and eating. If I need to rinse and repeat this step until I get 90 recipes that we believe we’ll enjoy then that’s what has to be done.

The objectives of this exercise:
1) Create a diet plan that contains one dinner meal for each of the 90 days.
2) Identify Vegan side-dishes and sauces that can be used to enhance the food.
3) Create a diet plan that includes as much quality, healthful and “normal” foods as possible so that the 90 days is tasteful and enjoyable from a meals perspective. I will NOT be sitting around with a stalk of celery in my hand and craving anything else!

The next to last step is to submit the diet plan to our Dietician for review and comment. That will ensure we have a good plan, to last us for 90 days, where we eat foods that we believe we’ll enjoy and that are within the specifications the Dietician has asked us to follow.

The final step will be to combine the agreed upon entrées with side dishes and fruits according to the Diabetic “Plate Method”; which includes half the plate in Vegan (vegetable) entrée, then a quarter of the plate with a meat substitute like Tofu or other protein substitute and finally a quarter of the plate fruit, beans, or other starchy veggies such as corn.

If any of you are Vegetarians or Vegans and you have suggestions or if anyone would like a copy of the 90 day plan once it’s done, just let me know. email = infinityman@cox.net