Day 4: The Vegetarian Project

Today was another good day for my experimental 30 day vegetarian diet. I've noticed another interesting development which I believe to be a direct result of this diet: the circles under my eyes aren't so dark anymore. I've had dark circles under my eyes for as long as I can remember. After four days, that darkness is starting to fade. I'm sure my Shaolin Cosmos Chi Kung practice is also speeding this progression along.

Today's breakfast menu consisted of three whole-wheat "buttermilk" pancakes along with a single scrambled egg using rice milk and half a wedge of Laughing Cow herb & garlic cheese. I got the recipe for the pancakes from Nava Atlas' book, The Vegetarian Family Cookbook. They have a texture reminiscent of pancakes from IHOP, which is great, because IHOP's pancakes are my favorite.

For lunch, we used some Morningstar Farms original grillers crumbles to make sloppy joe's which we had with mixed vegetables. Delicious! Many tasty snacks also ensued.

And for dinner, we had some breaded tofu nuggets. This was my first experience with tofu, and I must confess that I enjoyed it! I prepared these from a recipe from the same book that I got my breakfast recipe. So simple and so tasty! The texture was a bit rubbery; I'm not sure if that is just because that's how tofu is when baked, or if I just didn't drain and blot the tofu well enough. Any thoughts on this one?

I know I said I was going to try something using TVP today, but that just didn't happen. The Morningstar Farms crumbles are essentially TVP that's ready to go, though.

I'm looking forward to seeing what other positive health effects this diet holds for me. Hey, maybe I'll even lose some of my excess poundage!