T H E 6 T H F L O O R

Life in 6 Land

T H E 6 T H F L O O R - Life in 6 Land

Dough. Sauce. Toppings.

veggie-pizzaDough. Sauce. Toppings. These are the key components to making a pizza or pie. In fact there is no wrong way to build your plant based pizza. Move away from “conventional” pizza you can see at any box type restaurant and get creative. Over the last 10 days or so I have made 5 different pizzas, thanks in part to Mark Sutton’s book, Heart Healthy Pizza. I picked this book up in April and made a few pizzas, but after watching Mark on his first “TeeVee” appearance I was motivated to take pizza making to the next level, skipping the store bought pizza dough flours and jars of sauce. You can watch Mark in action below to be “inspired” when comes to your pizza.

After watching the video I pulled out his book and decided to make a veggie pizza for dinner last week. I had finally run across a great tasting, as well as oil free pasta sauce from Trader Joe’s (Trader Giotto’s Fat Free Pizza Sauce). Not typically a store I shop at because of their prices, but the pizza sauce was relatively thick, easy to spread and had a very mild (not overpowered by spices) flavor to it. One jar allows me to make two 13″ pizzas, all for $1.99! It would only be a few days later I would stumble upon a homemade recipes that is cheaper and just as good, if not better. More on that shortly.

I had not had much luck with pizza crust in the past, always deferring to a store bought bag, usually from Bob’s Red Mill. There is a gluten free pizza crust sold, which I thought made pizza making easier, but I could not have been further from the truth. Thankfully I have no intolerance, allergy or sensitivity to gluten, so I opened Mark’s book to a whole wheat pizza crust (find a basic recipe on his site). It was his video that got me thinking, “hey this is easy, I could do it.” I followed the recipe mixed some whole wheat flour with spelt flour, some water, a little agave nectar and a package of yeast and let it rise for 60 minutes. I was somewhat disappointed when it the dough had some resiliency to it. Little did I know this was normal and was the gluten in the dough, something I had not experienced previously with gluten free flour I had used.

Thinking I had done something wrong, I stretched the dough as best I could on a 13″ pizza pan. I popped open the jar of sauce and started to cover the pizza. Maybe I got lazy, but I just opened a bag of frozen veggies and started placing on top of my pie. I also (thanks to Mark) added fresh cut slices of onion and mushrooms. On top of the veggies I added one of Mark’s signature “cheese-like” sauces, as he refers to it. But these toppings only scratch the surface, there are no limitations as to how or what to top your pie with.

On the topic of toppings, I took a page from Vegan Dad, who’s website I seemed to come back to when looking for meat substitutes. I am not talking about that soy crap that grocers pass off a healthy or alternative meat substitutes, none of which are any better for your than meat because these products are highly processed. Vegan Dad had a niche for real meat substitutes, usually using vital wheat gluten as the basis for his meats.

Now for those who don’t favor a plant based diet or plant based pizza, I would not expect you to understand. For me, it’s not about missing meat, I don’t I missing nothing about the taste (or lack of flavor) or preparing animal flesh for cooking. Especially chicken, always hated that slimy feel of dead foul. Meat was actually easier to stop eating than cheese, regardless of how happy cows were. I had favored a few soy/bean based meatless products from MorningStar, but that was prior to learning more about health and nutrition that lead me away from this hideous products.

Vegan Dad’s website would usually be near the top of an interwebs search as it related to vegan meat or meatless meat. This day I decided it was to be pepperoni, but printed up the homemade sausage recipe without realizing it. It was a wonderful mistake in the end, as I will explain. I had all the ingredients except wheat gluten, which I found in bulk at Winco Foods. I knew this was the basis of saitan or wheat meat but I had never ate it or bought it. Little did I know, once the ingredients were mixed it would be similar to a dough recipe with the resiliency.

The recipe looked simple, so I started combining ingredients and heating water in a steamer that would cook the sausages. I wasn’t impressed with how my “meat” looked when it was mixed. I rolled it out on a cutting board and divided it 6 times, with each link being about 5″-6″ long. I rolled each link up in foiled and placed them in the steamer for 40 minutes.

Back to the pizza I was making last week. After swirling the cheese-like sauce on top, it was off to the oven for 15-20 minutes. I checked the the dough at 15 minutes and was shocked when I had a wonderful looking raised, light brown crust. The first thing that ran though my mind, “okay where did I make a mistake and why did this work?” Remember I had only used gluten free dough and until recently I didn’t know that the gluten was required to help the dough raise. Awesome! I was excited to show someone, since no one was home, so I shared the image on Facebook and Instagram.

Since then I have made 4 other pizza crusts, two of them with the whole wheat and spelt mix, but the other 2 with another Bob’s Red Mill product, Gluten Free All Purpose Baking Flour. The two pizzas made with this flour made a nice full crust, but nothing like the whole wheat/spelt combination I was using because of the lack of gluten in the flour. So now I had a foolproof dough recipe that would make a great crust, the basis of any pie you plan to create.

As for the sausage, when the timer went off I lifted each link out of the steamer to cool. I was anxious to unwrap and cut up the first sausage that I only waited 5 minutes. I sliced off the end and then sliced a narrow piece of sausage and took a bite. I was shocked at the flavor and texture of this meatless creation. If I didn’t know better I would have thought it was some sort of sausage. I had another bite and another. This stuff was good and would make an excellent pizza topping. The nutritional information was well within allowable tolerance: 177 calories, less than 1 gram of fat, 17 carbs and 24 grams of protein. The sodium was high at 577 milligrams, but that could be reduced.

The true test would be my son, wife and mother-in-law. My son was a bit hesitant when I asked if he wanted a bite. I broke the piece I was giving him in half and his first comment was, “it’s hot” (as in spicy). He then asked for a bowl of sausage. My wife is not a bit fan of spicy foods, doesn’t agree with stomach and leads to heartburn, but she did try a bit. My mother-in-law was highly impressed with the flavor as well. The next day I brought a link to work and shared it with 4 other co-workers, including a manager who is renown in the art of smoking meat and BBQ. He was impressed with the flavor of the sausage, which led me to believe I had a winning food here. Another co-worker took two home for dinner the following day. Now the final test, will they grill? I have a sneaky suspicion they will, but haven’t confirmed it. Next BBQ I attend I will give it a shot.

Since meat and dairy products are no longer a healthy option for my plant based pizza the options seemed limited at first, but that is not the case. Nearly any food can act as a pizza topping. Look past veggies, I made a Pad Thai Pizza a few weeks back, which featured peppers, rice noodles with a peanut sauce. The crust was made from brown rice and chickpea flour (another recipe from Mark Sutton). Cheese used to be a common denominator for all pizza I ate. Now, it’s not needed for a pizza to be successful. With that said, I have made a few different “cheese-like” sauces to drizzle on the toppings. Many of these sauces are based around nutritional yeast, but much like toppings, expand your horizons and get creative. Many grains can be the base for wonderful sauces for pizza, as highlighted in Heart Healthy Pizza.

You don’t have to be plant based to enjoy a “heart healthy” plant based pizza. Dump the hot box, forget the frozen and spend some time creating a great tasting pie. Look past dairy and meat as your only options for toppings and see what you can create. I’m off to treat myself to cold, leftover pizza.

Point Blank Review: Heart Healthy Pizza

sutton_healthypizzaI have been on a pizza kick recently thanks in part to Mark Sutton’s book, Heart Healthy Pizza. It was a book I had been looking to buy for a few months, but I seemed to get sidetracked and would end up order other cookbooks. Prior to finding Mark’s book I was creating healthy pizza recipes, but they were more of a “traditional” pizza . I had tried to create my own version of a veggie pizza last year. It’s wasn’t anything overly impressive, I used a package of Bob’s Red Mill GF Pizza Crust, substituted my spaghetti sauce as pizza sauce (mistake) and piled on the veggies. I even added Daiya to the top of the pizza for those I were feeding who were not plant-based eaters.

While the pizza came out okay it was still lacking. Pizza as I knew it growing up came from Round Table Pizza. It was usually sausage or pepperoni or cheese, obviously full of fat, highly processed and dripping with oil. Pizza in college was all about what was affordable. “Pizza. Pizza.” was usually the cry and their 2 for $5 deal. Again, not a healthy option, but it was how I knew pizza. Over the years my mom made some pretty good pizza and I have experienced pizza from California and Chicago to New York. Everyone has their own idea as to what makes a good pie.

It was December, 2012 when I first learned about Mark Sutton and his book. It would be April before I finally purchased Heath Healthy Pizza I was thrilled to look at all the different options I had at my fingertips. To be honest I had to ask Mark on Facebook, his recommendation for my first pie. Not only did I have to select the crust, but sauce(s) and toppings I was going to us. It appeared a but more complicated that just unrolling some processed dough, squeezing sauce and tossing cheese and pepperoni on it.

Gone are the days of processed ingredients, everything I make for my pizzas now are all homemade; from the dough to the sauce to some of the toppings. Mark’s got all the bases covered, sometimes not the most conventional of ingredients, but surprisingly enough they come together nicely and taste amazing. For example, the Pad Thai Pizza (pg 23) I made had a simple, yet delicious Sweet & Spicy Chili Corn Sauce on top of a brown rice, chickpea and cilantro crust. As I said, truly unique combinations.

I was not too confident in working with dough and creating my own crusts. Yet last week I had the best success and honestly I thought I made a mistake, but one that worked to advantage. It was no mistake though, it was a basic whole wheat dough recipe from Mark’s book that demonstrated how quick and easy making homemade pizza dough truly was. I was so thrilled with the result I made pizza the next night, just to make sure what I experienced wasn’t a mistake on my part. Lo and behold, the dough worked and came out amazing!

I never really looked outside the box when it came to pizza sauce. If it’s red, then call it pizza sauce. I mistakenly used my spaghetti sauce recipe for my pizza. It wasn’t the right sauce to use, but as Mark demonstrated sauce doesn’t necessarily need to be tomato based. A quick look of the book index shows you wide array of sauces, including non-cheese sauces including ingredients such as tofu, beans, rice, quinoa, oats, barley and millet. Each of these comprise a variety of sauces to top your pizza with. As I said, it gets a bit overwhelming when you start thinking how you are going to combine your sauce and toppings.

Thankfully he does provide you with some “power pizza possibilities” in order to get you started. Prior to making my first Mark Sutton original, the Pizza Margherita (followed by the Nearly Nouveaux Mex), I actually make a BBQ Chicken Pizza from The Effervescent Vegan. A few Facebook comments made mention of Mark’s book and the rest is history. Let your imagination go, forget traditional pizza, give the ‘Really Reubenisque’ or ‘Clever Curry’ a try. There are no limits on pizza combinations. So many choices I am looking forward to expanding my pizza repertoire thanks to Heart Healthy Pizza.

I’ll be honest, while I have gone through the entire book, I haven’t read each recipe in detail. I do believe Mark uses vegan sausage, like MorningStar Farms, Light Life and Gimme Lean in some of this recipes. I tend to skip the highly processed vegan sausage, even the crumbles since these are not any better for your than their meat counterparts. I did however have excellent luck in making my own pepperoni last night.

Yeah, you heard me, pepperoni (it was actually the sausage). While Vegan Dad is no longer active, his blog remains and he ventured into the “mock meat” arena with some very good success. Whenever I have an inkling for a “meatless” meat I always check his site. I mistakenly used the homemade sausage recipe with excellent success last night, but called it pepperoni. Even from the first bite, my brain said, “this is sausage!” It was that good! Yet posting my success on Facebook I continued to refer to it as pepperoni, my mistake but it does give me a chance to make pepperoni tonight.

So far everyone who has tried a slice thought it was tasty. The first test was my 7 year old son. He was a bit hesitant, but I cut him a small piece. His first comment, “can I have a bowl?” followed by “it’s spicy!” I will count that as a success. Next came my mother-in-law and wife. I was thrilled to have them taste test, as my wife is very picky and my MIL is a fantastic cook. My MIL raved about the flavor, alone and one a slice of pizza. My wife, much like my son thought it was a bit spicy, but good. She has never been one for really spicy food. At work I have given pieces to 3 co-workers and all have commented positively on the flavor and texture.

While it wont’ be an every day food it’s great to know I have this meatless recipe as an option. As for Heart Healthy Pizza, well that is all I make these days. Thanks to a Mark Sutton for all his hard work and dedication to pizza. If you miss a slice or a pie now and then but don’t miss the cheese, oil and fat, his Heart Healthy Pizza book is the way to go.

The 6th Thought: Plants vs Animals

“To wrongly suggest that people need to eat animal protein for proper nutrition encourages consumption of foods known to contribute to the incidence of heart disease, diabetes, obesity, many forms of cancer, and other common health problems.”

-Jeff Novick, MS., R.D.
The Myth of Complemtary Protein – ForksOverKnives.com

Something I hear all the time on the weight lifting forum I frequent, “you are getting incomplete proteins” since I don’t include animal protein in my diet. This is a myth “inadvertently promoted and popularized in the 1971 book, Diet for a Small Planet, by Frances Moore Lappé.” Unfortunately this myth doesn’t seem to die, as Dr. John McDougall found out in a response to the medical journal Circulation, the Nutrition Committee of the American Heart Association, which wrote :Although plant proteins form a large part of the human diet, most are deficient in one or more essential amino acids and are therefore regarded as incomplete proteins.” Barbara Howard, Ph.D., head of the Nutrition Committee, replied on June 25, 2002 to Dr. McDougall’s letter, stating (without a single scientific reference) that the committee was correct and that “most [plant foods] are deficient in one or more essential amino acids.” Clearly, the committee did not want to be confused by the facts. So don’t worry about my protein intake and I won’t comment on your poor diet choices.

Measure My Health

measure-healthHow does one measure healthy? If you are skinny, you might consider yourself healthy. Some who claim to “eat clean” seem to think they are health. Eating low carbo or low fat, selecting “lean” or “grass fed” animals possibly makes one believe they are healthy. I now measure my health in terms of my blood work results. I have been doing this since I changed my diet back in 2011.

No doctor, diet or article can replace the evidence for changing my lifestyle to a plant-based, whole foods diet. The results have been nothing short of amazing! Some individuals I communicate with claim any change in my diet would have shown positive results in my blood work. Maybe they are true to a degree, but I don’t believe I would be at the same level of health if I were still eating a diet that consisted of animal products, dairy and oil.

When I was 39 years old I decided to start getting yearly physicals, as I had a myriad of ailments that were causing my problems. Along with an ACL replacement in my right knee I had abdominal pains, as yet undiagnosed Plantar Fasciitis, constant migraine headaches, what was thought to be arthritis in my left hand and lateral epicondylitis or “Tennis elbow.” It wasn’t until I was 41 that I realized I was sick, overweight and in considerable pain.

Previous blood work results revealed I was not seeing any improvement in my health. My weight, blood pressure, heart rate and cholesterol continued to rise. No longer was diet the solution. Enter statins (Read LDL is Bad). These were short lived, as I suffered leg cramps, which is a common side effect along with headaches (possibly related to the continual migraines), gas, heartburn and stomach problems. Who knows what else this medication was doing to me! Without consulting my doctor I stopped taking simvastatin and attempted to make further changes in my diet, but found myself feeling hungry.

As I continued to look for alternatives to medication, I started to change how I cooked. Just one month after my physical in July, 2011 I wrote, “Since my physical I am reevaluating how I eat. I’ll be honest, my diet is not good, but it’s not too terribly bad. I know, I don’t eat enough fruits and vegetables on a daily basis and probably drink a bit too much beer on my days off. But I really avoid sweets and don’t over eat, which seems to be a common problem in the U.S.”

While changing what I ate helped, seeing some early success (dropping 4 pounds) was really nothing but a facade, as I continue to use cheese and oils, while looking for vegetarian offerings that my wife would enjoy. I had limited success with a few casseroles, pasta dishes and soup. They were “lighter” but honestly not much healthier than how I had been eating. It would be 3 months later before viewing Forks Over Knives and making radical changes in my diet that would change my lifestyle forever.

Now some 19 months later I continue to reap the benefits of a plant-based whole foods lifestyle as taught by Dr. John McDougall. This journey of “enlightenment” has been nothing short of amazing on the road to health. I probably overstate this every time I speak about the improvements in my health. Every day I feel better than the last, no longer eating to live, but living to eat.

Blood work still plays a major part in my health, as it does many like-minded individuals I communicate with in certain plant-based circles. Since changing my diet I look forward to getting blood drawn and more important wait like a kid on Christmas Eve to get the results and see how my numbers have changed, hopefully for the better.  I haven’t had much luck getting my physician to sign off on blood work other than my physical. Thankfully he has wanted to follow up on a few other numbers (Vitamin D) and I had a few additional tests outside my yearly physical.

Last month, at the insistence of my wife I finally decided to look into life insurance. Being in good health it was something that I figure I did not need, but she wanted the reassurance that IF something went wrong (not health related) that she and my son would be taken care of. I guess that is something I take for granted and don’t really think of. So I started researching life insurance and the companies that offered it. When I settled on a company I called and spoke with a representative, who provided me with the details on term life insurance.

After a series of health and lifestyle questions, she informed me I would be required to get blood work done. Excellent! Another opportunity to check the “health” of my blood. I was excited at the prospect. I received the results yesterday and have started reading through them and comparing them to previous results. Based on my July 31, 2012 results my numbers were trending down. This was the last blood test I had taken. Results from that test:

July 31, 2012
Weight: 172 pounds
Chol: 130 mg/dL
Trig: 162 mg/dL
HDLC: 35 mg/dL
Chol/HDLC Ratio: 3.7 H
LDL: 63 mg/dL
Non-HDLC: 95 mg/dL

The only number last July that was still a concern was the Triglycerides level at 162 mg/dL. It was also the only number my doctor commented on telling me to cut back on carbohydrates, specifically potatoes. Uh, okay doc. Needless to say I did not follow his “recommendation” and continued to eat a starch based diet, as promoted by Dr. McDougall. The big change between July, 2012 and now is the level of exercise. I had gone from 3 days a week with some cardio work to lifting weights 3 days a week and running 3-4 days week. The level of weight lifting has increased greatly since October and running has been routine for the last 2 months.

May 8, 2013
Weight: 175 pounds
Chol: 146 mg/dL (+16)
Trig: 136 mg/dL (-26)
HDLC: 44 mg/dL (+7)
Chol/HDLC Ratio: 3.3 H (-0.4)
LDL: 63 mg/dL (+11)
Non-HDLC: not measured

Starting with weight, it’s no surprise I have seen an increase from my low of 172 pounds. My goal weight was 175 pounds and I have been within a few pounds of that since hitting my goal weight. With any luck I will see an increase in weight as I continue to add muscle to my body, while reducing my body fat. The hydrostatic test is scheduled for June 20.

My total cholesterol increased from my all time low of 130 to 146. I am not sure why or how this number increased over the last 9 months since my diet does not include meat or dairy. The only answer I can come up with is the fact I use nuts and nut butters on a regular basis. Knowing these both contain oils and fats, I do use them in moderation (with my cheese sauces), but have found an acceptable alternative (white beans). Avocados would be the only other culprit of a high saturated fat food. Those are used more infrequent and usually as guacamole.

I am pleased with the drop in Triglycerides by 26 points (now 136), this appears to be well under control. In my assessment it was the amount of alcohol I was drinking that led this number to remain elevated. While I haven’t cut the beer out completely, I no longer drink a 6 or 12 pack while working around the house and finding alternatives, such as Crystal Geyser or La Croix to quench my thirst. I will need to look at the “normal range” provided by my doctor, not quite sure when 136 would fall, but based on the Mayo Clinic anything under 150 is normal. The Chol/HDLC Ratio dropped as well, which indicates a lower risk factor for coronary heart disease.

Overall, I a continue to be pleased with the progress I am making. I continue to follow the plant-based, whole foods way of eating with very little cheating or straying too far away from what got to me this level of health. Like life, there is always room for improvement and I will continue to work towards making myself “heart attack proof” as Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn talks about in his book, Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease.

Both HDL and LDL increased in the past 9 months. I am not trying to get stuck on the LDL (or bad) being increased, as the overall total cholesterol number is still below 150 (146). Interesting to note that even with the 11 point increase in the LDL it is reflected as “LOW” on the results

Marathon in 2013?

 

“Why do you care about running a marathon anyway? What does it mean to you? How hard are you willing to work? What are you willing to sacrifice? Why is it even important and why does it even matter?”

262These are the questions I need to answer honestly before I jump in with both feet and plan on running a marathon. The past week I have been reading Marathon Roadmap: The Vegetarian Guide to Conquering Your First 26.2 by Matt Frazier (NoMeatAthlete.com). Since I am already training for a half marathon in August I thought I would look ahead at what it would take to accomplish a marathon.

While I have been pretty excited about the idea, I selected the California International Marathon in Sacramento, CA on December 2 as my target race. Further reading of the ebook and discussion with a co-worker has me wondering if I am trying to do much too soon. I am in the 7th week of a 16 week program training for my half marathon. The marathon training program is approximately 24 weeks, give or take 6 weeks depending on your ability to put in 12-15 miles before considering a marathon. I fall on the low end, running just over 12 miles a week the last 2 weeks.

A co-worker, who is a marathoner, tri-athlete and avid bicyclist tells me to hold off on the marathon and complete the half marathon first before setting sights on the marathon. Currently my half marathon is set for August 3, as I hope to participate in the Summer Breeze Half Marathon. That gives me an additional 3 months to finish training for the marathon in Sacramento. Looking at both training plans, I can only assume I haven’t trained hard enough through six and  a half weeks to make the full marathon if I were to continue training for the half marathon.

If I were to scrap the plans for the half-marathon, I could ramp up my training to run in my first marathon. Right now, I will continue working towards my half marathon as my goal. If I am successful with the half marathon, I could potentially have training time to make the December 2 marathon in Sacramento. In the meantime, I will come up with answers to the questions I asked to start this post.