What's for Breakfast?

Before adopting a vegan diet, I literally ate eggs every morning with some sort of starch -- normally with unsalted rice cakes but also liked a buttered bagel or an English muffin with butter and raspberry jam. Sometimes I added turkey sausage to the mix. My last cholesterol blood test was 250. I am waiting for my most recent numbers since cutting out meat, dairy, and eggs two months ago.

When you're in that kind of a habit, you don't even have to be fully awake to prepare breakfast -- just go to the fridge and crack two eggs on a frying pan. You don't even have to think about it. I LOVE the taste of eggs. I loved eating eggs every day. But within a half hour of eating them, I would become congested deep down in my throat and cough so hard I thought I was choking. And people around me would ask if I was ill ("Are you getting a cold?"). No, this happens every time I eat eggs (and cheese, and milk, and butter). My Asian friend said, "Then why don't you stop eating them--they obviously are affecting you negatively." I liked eggs despite the fallout afterwards.

But I've been really good -- only ate eggs on two occasions in the last two months. The best substitute I've found is potato patties from Trader Joe's. specifically Lamb Weston Home Browns.
They do contain oil and flour, but they do NOT contain eggs or egg whites, as did most other potato patties I looked at. If I don't get a chance to get to Trader Joe's, I make my own version--a little more time consuming--by grating a potato and a half an onion together and mushing them into a patty shape, spraying my cast iron skillet with some cooking spray, and heating it up. It has the nice hot, tasty sensation that eggs do, and if I add in a soy sausage or two, it does feel like a normal breakfast sans eggs. These can also be eaten at other meals. Once in awhile I will eat one of these with some vegetarian refried beans. Yum!

I have tried a tofu omelet (there's a good recipe or two in the Engine2Diet cookbook), and my feeling is, it tastes okay, but if you want an omelet, eat eggs and save the tofu for a recipe that is more suited to tofu. The omelet recipes DO have a nice flavor, but they are not eggs.

I also make pancakes with egg replacement products and soy milk instead of the animal-based products. And spray Smart Balance spray on my food instead of using the hunks of butter I used to use.

If I am awake enough, and have the time, I will make my breakfast shake extraordinaire! My nutrition counselor -- a doctor from the Columbia Weight Management Center--did advise me to eat fruit rather than to drink juice, but one of my favorite weight management authors and product producers -- Jay Robb -- indicates that fresh squeezed fruit juice is better than store bought. Since for me orange juice is easier to manage than eating a real orange (I am a messy fruit eater), I juice a bunch of oranges and refrigerate the juice. I then add a cup of fresh squeezed orange juice (my favorite oranges for this are the normally unavailable Mineola oranges--or honeydews) to a blender with a banana, and something strawberry. Here I either add some strawberry soy yogurt, real strawberries, or V8 Fusion Light strawberry banana juice (which includes vegetable juices, as well). To this I add a scoop of Jay Robb protein powder.

Jay Robb's Whey protein (vanilla) is the most delicious tasting protein powder I have tried. It is sweetened with Stevia, a natural herb sweetener which is the basis for Purevia and TruVia sweeteners. It is also hormone free. It does make me cough, though, the way dairy does to me. I notice on the web site for Jay Robb products that he has a new Brown Rice protein powder, which I was not aware of. I will have to try it and compare.

Finally, before blending, I add either flax seed meal (I use Bob's Red Mill) or I add Metamucil (orange flavored is nice) with a shot of flax seed oil. This adds fiber and Omega 3 fatty acids.

I blend it all together and even if I am on the run, I can bring it with me in a disposable cup (which I try to use more than once, to make it less wasteful), or a water bottle. Tastes like a creamsicle, but the banana and strawberry adds some punch. It's a nice late-morning snack or meal replacement if you're not really hungry.

The great thing about the shake is that I can make it up in the blender when I have the time and put the blender pitcher into the fridge until I am ready for the shake later in the day, when I may be less free to go through all the steps. Then all I have to do is put it back on its base, give it a whirl, and pour it out -- a nice, chilled mellow fruit shake with fiber, protein, and other nutrients.

So while I sometimes miss the eggs for breakfast, these other options are opening my eyes to plant-based alternatives.

Next up on The Vegan Virgin -- desserts.