Brown Rice is Nice

I’ve been a fan of Jay Robb Whey Protein for years—it tastes delicious, is sweetened with Stevia and it is hormone-free. But a few months ago, when I decided to eliminate animal products from my diet as best I can, I was not a fan of soy protein powder, and in fact, did not see that Jay Robb was offering Soy Protein anymore. Checking the web site for a recent blog post, I saw they listed Brown Rice protein powder as their vegetable-based product. Having never heard of it, I asked them if I could try it and give it a write-up. Beth Napolitano in their PR office sent me a nice package of Jay Robb products that included the Brown Rice protein powder in Vanilla, Chocolate and Strawberry. Not being a fan of strawberry flavored drinks, I gave that one to my police officer son to try for his night-shift snack.

I used to drink lots of chocolate milk back in the day (even up until December), so I tried the chocolate packet first. When I first tried Jay Robb’s chocolate whey protein drinks, I didn’t think they had enough chocolate flavoring and I always added my own cocoa powder (and a banana, raspberries or cherries). The Brown Rice chocolate protein drink was similar in that the chocolate flavor was not strong. But the brown rice gave the drink what I thought was a nutty flavor, and it reminded me more of a maple nut taste, but not chocolate. So I added cocoa powder and it tasted like a chocolate hazelnut or almost a mocha flavor. When using the vanilla powder, I added it to freshly squeezed orange juice, with a banana and a few strawberries and it was almost the same as the whey vanilla, but a little nutty flavor was noticeable. The shake is substantial and thick, which I have not found to be the case with egg protein. I add flaxseed meal ( I use Bob's Red Mill) for fiber and Omega 3 benefits, but also find that adding Flax Seed Oil gives my protein shakes a creamier consistency, as well.

My son, on the other hand—not a fan of the brown rice protein. He tried the strawberry protein mix and said it did not taste at all like strawberries. When I suggested he add real strawberries, he said he wants the powder to taste like strawberries without having to add his own flavor. He felt it was chalky – I would say gritty or nutty. He and his brother both like and use Jay Robb’s vanilla whey protein powder – and when we all lived together, we used to order the 5 lb. bucket. Now I notice they have eco-friendly packaging that is available in 24 and 12 ounce sizes and small single-serving packets. I like that better than the big plastic containers—when I used to take my protein powder to Europe, I had to put it in a zippered plastic bag and it looked like I was carrying illegal substances, so Jay Robb’s new packaging eliminates that problem from my travels, especially if I want to buy a larger size than the small individual servings.

The site has lots of other products and the shaker cup with wire mixer was one of the things that Beth sent me. I gave it to my son to try at work (since I am working at home lately, and I have a blender). He tells me that it does a good job mixing the protein drink. The site also sells stevia powder and books and supplements, as well as protein bars and YAMMIT—a sweet potato based product. For those who are willing to use whey protein powders, they also sell pina colada and tropical flavors in addition to the vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. I did like the pina colada when I had it—mixed with crushed ice.

What I like about Jay Robb, the person and the company , is the mission to keep the products made from healthy ingredients – hormone-free, preservative-free, earth friendly, and good tasting products. Whether I personally like the taste or not, they put a lot of effort into giving customers something they believe will be good tasting and good for their health. Jay Robb also has a spiritual focus that impresses me as giving the company a higher purpose, as well.

Sparking My Interest in Staying Healthy

When I began my vegan quest, many people asked how I would get enough protein without meat, eggs and dairy in my diet. Everything I had read indicated that there was not a real measure of protein to go by, and that certainly there was not a protein shortage in the American diet. If anything, I was being told that too much protein can cause calcium to leech out of our bones, leading to osteoporosis. I’m not a doctor so I don’t know that this is true, but the other health benefits seemed to indicate that cutting out the animal products would not hurt, and that protein was available from plant-based sources.

So I decided that the best way to satisfy the naysayers and prove to myself that I was making a good choice in my decision was to be more definitive about my diet as well as accountable. A few years ago, I joined the *free* website www.sparkpeople.com to track calories and exercise in an effort to lose weight. Lots of life changes and responsibilities – and a major move – caused me to fall behind on my posting to the site. But I logged back on this week.

Sparkpeople is an amazing resource, which is touted as a free diet website, but it is really so much more. Users can not only log in what they eat, but to make it easier to continue doing so, the site will save favorite foods and favorite recipes with calorie and nutritional breakdowns so if you eat the same thing frequently, after the first time you eat it and plug it into the daily calorie counter, you can save it and just click on the food to add it on another day. If you eat pretty much the same meals regularly, you can also click on a button to place that meal on other days of the week or month.

Tracking the calories alone is an eye-opener, but Sparkpeople will also make suggestions for meals in your calorie range – and that is something other online and off-line diet plans charge for. What is more, Sparkpeople breaks down the nutritional value of the food choices and creates reports in the form of tables and graphs that make it easy to see just how healthy your meal choices are and when you are going overboard on things like salt, fat, cholesterol and carbohydrates, or not getting enough fiber, calcium, protein or folate, among many other nutritional options. And it reminds you to drink enough water each day too, by showing an empty glass that you can “fill” by logging in 8 glasses of water consumed.

This go-round, when I started plugging things in to see if I was nutritionally in good shape, and not so focused on weight loss per se, it opened my eyes to the fact that I was eating close to 2000 calories a day when I did not pay attention to my food intake. Not only that, my fat and carbohydrate choices were through the roof even though I was eating a lot of vegetables and had cut back on my cholesterol intake. What I now am doing is plugging in my meal plans and seeing how they add up. If I don’t like the numbers I see, I plug in other options until I get a good balance and as close as possible to the ideal numbers.

I’ve cut out a few hundred calories a day overall and made better choices to keep the fat and carbs at reasonable levels. It was no wonder I wasn’t losing any weight while eating my favorite veggie dumplings. They are high in calories, fat and carbs, and I thought the choice of vegetable filling was healthier. So I allow myself to eat them when I cut back on other treats. My Green Market puree comes in handy as a filling, low calorie, low fat, high protein option and when paired with vegan “cheese” melted on whole grain bread, along with a salad, it’s a large and filling lunch for under 500 calories.

While I did lose a good amount of weight in the beginning of my quest to eat a plant-based diet, I was also in the middle of a winter move across town—which meant lots of physical activity. Packing, lifting, carrying, and unpacking boxes; shoveling snow to get to the truck; going up and down three flights of stairs to my new apartment; and not having time to eat mindlessly allowed me to easily burn off calories and not eat unless I was really hungry. Since the move, I have been writing so much that sometimes I barely move away from the computer. With sparkpeople.com, I can plan a fitness regimen by choosing what type of activities I want to do each day (cardio or strength training) and add my own extra goals, which for me is to walk about 5 miles a day in addition to a 30-minute minimum workout. The web site makes suggestions for exercises that I can do, and for strength training will demonstrate them with computerized animation. It calculates the calories burned for cardio and gives me a goal per day.

Since my pedometer didn’t survive the move, I don’t know how many steps I am walking each day, but Sparkpeople has a great feature, especially for someone like me who lives in a big city. They have a mileage calculator with a map that allows me to designate my starting point and my route and to estimate the time I expect to take walking that route. The program will tell me how many miles I will cover and based on my estimated time spent walking, it will calculate calories burned.

Today I plugged in a walk to and across Central Park and back and logged in more than 2.5 miles. In addition, I did a core workout laid out by the site, and made up cardio that I had not done on Monday. In total, I burned more than 1,000 calories and only ate 1700 calories.

The site offers the chance to interact with others based on interests, age, location, goals, etc., as well as articles that are informative or inspirational. There is a point system that allows you to earn avatars based on how much effort you put in and how involved you become on the site. And every day you get to spin a wheel to earn points just for logging on—anywhere from 1 to 25 points. While I know I am not getting anything in exchange for my points, I find I am motivated to do something to earn more points. I suppose it is like playing a video game to try to up my score each time I play.

Sparkpeople also offers trivia questions, polling opportunities, a place to manage your budget, ways to share with social media, and many other options, like appointment calendars, journaling, blogging, and goal setting—all of which can earn you points toward new avatars.

This free site was set up by Chris Downie, who made a lot of money in developing another online site that he sold to E-bay. He has put millions of dollars of his own money into this website for the sole purpose of helping others. There are some small ad spaces on the site, but they are very discreet and certainly not overwhelming in the way that many other sites have to do to stay profitable. I like the idea that a man who succeeded in making himself rich is giving back to the rest of us out of the goodness of his heart without expectations. Just for that alone I want to spread the word and keep on logging in.