Food Tracking Website Reviews

Posted on August 22, 2011 by

Recently I have been shopping around for an online food journal, and there are a lot of choices out there!   Food tracking is a great tool for people like me who know how to eat healthfully, but tend to let the portions get out of hand.  Here’s my take on some of the websites that I have tried:

Livestrong

I tried this site a few years ago when it was called The Daily Plate, and the navigation has improved a lot since then.  This is one of the free sites, and it is one that I would recommend.  The cool thing is, users can add foods at any time to its database, which means that the minute any sort of product comes on the market and you get it home and try it, someone has probably already added it to the database.  The downside, of course, is that the accuracy of the information is not guaranteed.  The navigation of the site is just okay – it’s not the best I’ve encountered but also not the worst.  I was excited to see that they have an app for my Blackberry phone, but then disappointed to find that the app is horrible and does not sync well with the online site.    I give this site 3 spoons out of 5.

Weight Watchers Online

Okay, so I only used this site for less than a week a few years ago, and I cancelled before my free trial period was up.  But I really want to review it because it is so popular and it is also one of the more expensive food tracking websites out there.  I honestly wasn’t very impressed by this site.  It was far more difficult to navigate than Livestrong, and if I had actually paid for it, it would have been $18/month, and that’s after a $30 joining fee!   With weight watchers, everything is categorized with points values, not by calories, and you get a certain allotment of points to use per day, as well as weekly points that you can use at any time.  My favorite feature was this weekly points allotment, because in real life, there will be days when you splurge a little (birthday parties, weekends, etc) and then you can balance it out by eating less on other days.  Also, apparently there is a new Points Plus system that assigns a 0 point value to all fresh fruits and vegetables, so you can eat them to your heart’s content.  I think that’s pretty cool.  I’ve always believed that there is no such thing as too many fruits and vegetables!  The downsides:  an incredibly small database of foods, difficult navigation, no good mobile app, and last but definitely not least, the price!    I give it 2 spoons.

My Food Diary

This is the very best of the paid food tracking websites out there.  At $9/month, with no joining fee and a 7-day free trial, it is reasonably priced.  The navigation is fantastic, the food database is huge and accurate (for example, every single brand of nondairy milk I could possibly think of was in there), and there is a setting for nursing mothers.  At the end of each day, you get a daily report with smiley faces for things you did well that day (like exercise, consume enough calcium, vitamin C, vitamin A, fiber, breakfast, etc) and frown faces for things you could work on (not enough essential nutrients, too much sugar, etc).  It also has a really good recipe builder – you enter the ingredients and how many people it serves, and it calculates the nutrition facts for you.  That’s a great feature for someone like me who cooks a lot of food from scratch!  The downside:  no mobile app, just a mobile website.  I give it 4 spoons…I would give it 5 if it just had a good mobile app!

My Fitness Pal

Out of all the websites I tried, this one is the winner!  First of all, it is FREE.  I love free.  And second, it is almost as good as My Food Diary.  So, it is free AND awesome!  The database is enormous.  Users can add foods to it, so like Livestrong, just about any food you can imagine is in there, and for some reason the accuracy seems a bit better on this site.  The recipe builder is just as good and easy to use as MyFoodDiary.  And the navigation is incredible.  The site has a very clean look and is super easy to use.  You can easily add and delete foods from your day, and you can edit quantities without navigating away from the page.  You can set up your own food diary structure, deciding how many meal and snack subdivisions to put in and what to name them.  You can choose which nutrients you want to monitor.  And the best thing is, this site has a fantastic app for both my Blackberry phone and my husband’s Droid.  The only downside:  there is no specific setting for nursing mothers.   This one gets 4 1/2 spoons…almost perfect!

Sparkpeople

This is another free website.  There are a lot of cool features on Sparkpeople, including a recommended calorie range rather than a specific number, and a sister site called BabyFit.com for pregnant and nursing mothers.  But the database is not very comprehensive and the navigation could be better.   There are a lot of articles about healthy eating and weight loss on this site, so someone looking for information and motivation might enjoy that.  I confess I only used this for about a day because it was more difficult to use than other sites.    3 spoons.

CalorieKing

I did a very brief free trial with this site.  It normally costs $12/month.  The navigation was pretty good and the database seemed very complete.  Like Sparkpeople, there are a lot of articles to read on the site and goal-setting features that could be very motivational for some people.  The site is bright and clean and seemed easy to use for the short time that I tried it.  I couldn’t find anything to complain about, but I just didn’t like it as much as My Food Diary, which is slightly less expensive.    3 1/2 spoons.

After all this shopping around, I’ve decided to stick with MyFitnessPal.  It is the best of the free websites and compatible with my phone, which is a pretty important feature as it allows me to stay on top of things when I’m not home.  Even if I am home, it’s nice to be able to track my meals on my phone while I’m sitting in the backyard watching the kids play, instead of having to get on the computer.

So, what am I missing?  Many of them, I’m sure – as there are a lot! – but is there some incredible website out there that I haven’t tried yet, that blows these all away?  Please share!

Posted in Product Reviews, Vegan Weight Loss | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

10 Ways to Make a Vegan Feel Loved

Posted on August 15, 2011 by

In the past week, my post “10 Things Never to Say to a Vegan” has been re-posted and shared quite a bit, generating an unprecedented amount of traffic.  And while I think it is fun to giggle about the crazy questions and comments that are directed toward vegetarians and vegans, I’ve been feeling a little sheepish about it.  You see, I happen to be surrounded by incredible meat-eaters who are never anything but respectful and accommodating when it comes to my family’s dietary choices.  If you would like to learn from their example, here are 10 ways to make a vegan feel loved:

10.  Employers, provide vegetarian options at work functions.  My husband’s workplace has come such a long way since he started working there many years ago.  At the last family picnic, they BBQ’d both Gardenburgers and Boca Burgers.  When they order in lunch for their employees, they always have a veggie option.  They even keep soy milk in their refrigerators now, which he enjoys in his coffee every morning.

9.  Bring a vegan dish to a potluck when you know a vegan will be attending.  One of the moms at my son’s preschool did this.  I was blown away.  What a sweet, sweet thing to do!  She said she wanted to make sure I had something substantial to eat.

8.  Ooh and ahh over the food that a vegan brings to an event.  Nothing delights me more than having my vegan desserts appreciated.  I had so much fun watching my aunt enjoy my chocolate cream pie (secret ingredient: silken tofu).  I had even more fun watching the reactions of family gobbling up an avocado-based, raw chocolate pie.  In my family, it’s never, “ewwww…vegan.”  It’s “cool, this is vegan!”

7.  Sometimes, cook a vegan meal for the whole group!  My brother made a fantastic vegan chili one year when the whole family was staying at a cabin on the beach.  He even bought some Tofutti Better than Sour Cream alongside the dairy sour cream.  Everyone can enjoy a hearty bean chili, and nobody has to feel like they are eating “vegan food” when it is so delicious and familiar.  In fact, it was so good I think everybody ate until they were stuffed that night!

6.  Provide lots of food for your vegan house guests.  When we traveled across the country last fall to visit my sister and her family, she went out of her way to stock up on vegan staples as well as fixing a vegan option for every single meal.  When she made a chicken curry for dinner, she made a butternut squash and veggie curry along with it.  She lives in a rural community where people raise their own chickens and she drives to a nearby farm to get her milk in glass bottles, returning them on her next trip.  So she had to drive out of her way to find Earth Balance, but she did it just for us.  She has a huge backyard vegetable garden and bakes all of her own bread, so we got to enjoy a lot of fresh veggies and delicious, warm bread.  On our first night there, she served a homemade mango macadamia nut-based ice cream along with her homemade dairy ice cream.  It was better than any non-dairy ice cream I’ve ever bought at the store!

5.  Same as above…even if you live in Texas!  When I think of Texas, I think of meat.  But when we visited my husband’s side of the family in Texas, my sister-in-law made a vegan jambalaya (it was the first time I’d ever tried okra and I loved it!) and a spectacular vegan pasta dish for us.  Her mom even whipped up a vegan birthday cake for my husband!

4.  Look out for your vegetarian guests during the holidays.  Holiday celebrations often center around food, and no vegetarian or vegan wants to feel deprived on those occasions.  Sometimes vegan-izing a dish is so easy, nobody at your table will notice – except for the happy vegan who gets to partake!  My mom makes her classic stuffing recipe using Earth Balance or olive oil instead of butter, and vegetable bouillon instead of turkey stock.  It tastes just like I remember it from my childhood, and I’m always so grateful that she makes a veggie version just for us.  And of course, she always welcomes my contributions to the meal.  But there’s something about eating someone’s food that you didn’t make yourself, it gives you that warm fuzzy feeling.  Need recipes?  I’ve posted my mom’s vegan-ized stuffing recipe as well as a classic vegan pumpkin pie recipe on this blog.

3.  Restaurants, put several vegetarian options on your menu!  I feel like we can eat out just about anywhere now and have some good choices of what to eat.  No longer do we have only a single option at most restaurants, but we have choices.  My favorite Mexican restaurant, Taqueria Guaymas, has an entire page of veggie options, including burritos, enchiladas, chimichangas, fajitas,  black bean soup, and many more.

2.  Offer vegetarian food to your guests, even if you’re allergic to vegetables!  I kid you not.  We have a friend who is allergic to almost all fruit and vegetables.  It’s something to do with a severe pollen allergy.  Sometimes she can eat a fruit if it’s been cooked slightly, but even most cooked vegetables and beans are off her menu or she’ll have a severe reaction.  But that doesn’t stop them from having us over for dinner.  These friends make this fantastic green bean and potato dish that we devour and she can’t even enjoy.  Now if that’s not going above and beyond, I don’t know what is.

1.  Stock your kitchen with vegan items.  I was raised in a meat-eating family and my mom and dad are still meat-eaters.  Yet, you’ll find things in their kitchen such as soy milk (it’s all my dad drinks now), Tofurky slices, Vegenaise, Earth Balance, Ener-G Egg Replacer powder, vegetarian burger crumbles, and soy ice creams and fruit sorbets.  Why?  Because we spend a lot of time at their house and they want to be sure that we always have something to eat.  My mom cooks up such yummy vegetarian meals when we’re over that sometimes I forget that they even eat meat!

The truth is, I’ve never expected meat-eaters to do any of the above things for us.  But they did it anyway.  Not only have friends and family accommodated us, but they continually exceed all of our expectations.

I’ve been thinking about how vegetarians and vegans cringe when they hear about some self-righteous vegan, screaming at strangers who are eating meat or wearing fur.  How we want to say, “we’re not all like that!  Most of us aren’t like that.  Most of us are nice people!”  I think it’s the same way with meat-eaters.  Every now and then you encounter a meat-eater who thinks it’s a fun game to try to find the flaw in the vegetarian’s logic, to argue with us over our morals and dietary choices.  But most meat-eaters are not like that.  Most want to accommodate when they can, and most of them respect our choices even if they don’t agree with them.  I have the good fortune of being surrounded by these kind of meat-eaters, and I’m very grateful for it!

What have the meat-eaters in your life done to accommodate you?  How have they surprised you?

Posted in Vegan Issues | Tagged , , , | 10 Comments

When There’s no Food in the House…Make Tortillas!

Posted on August 9, 2011 by

The other day, lunchtime was approaching and I had no food in the house.  Look at my sad, nearly-empty refrigerator!   It was Friday and I was determined to make it to my usual Saturday shopping trip to buy groceries again.  I’ve been trying hard to stick to a strict grocery budget and those in-between shopping trips always get me.

A quick look in the pantry showed that I had two cans of re-fried black beans.  Well, that was something.  Too bad I didn’t have any tortillas to make burritos.  Wait…I had flour…I could make tortillas!  Okay…but we had no fruit.  What could we eat with our beans and tortillas?  Oh, look, one tiny zucchini in the crisper drawer!  I could chop that finely and add it to the beans, along with an onion, for more flavor and nutrition.  Oh, and two tomatoes in my hanging basket!  Those would complement the burritos perfectly, and add vitamin C and a fresh taste to our meal.  Guess I had food in the house after all!

Often I find that “no food in the house” really means that I have no fast, easy food.  No bread or tortillas.  No fresh fruit to grab and eat.  No prepared hummus or Tofurky slices.  No leftovers from the night before.  But I usually stock a lot of bulk staples, that, with a little bit of work, can be turned into lots and lots of great food.  My refrigerator may have been almost bare, but I always have plenty of dried beans and whole grains in my pantry.

Here’s a great tortilla recipe you can make with only a few bulk staples.  Tortillas can be used in so many ways, and freshly made they are delicious to eat on their own, too!

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups whole wheat flour
  • 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 cup Earth Balance margarine
  • 1 cup lukewarm water

Preparation:

Whisk flours and salt in a large mixing bowl.  With a pastry cutter, cut in the Earth Balance margarine.  Add warm water and mix with a fork until it forms a ball.  Knead for a minute or two until well mixed.  Shape into a ball, cover with a clean towel, and let rest for 30 minutes.

Divide into 8 equal balls.  Preheat skillet to medium-high heat.  On a lightly floured surface, roll each ball into a thin tortilla.  (Keep other balls covered as you are rolling).  Preheat a heavy frying pan, such as a cast-iron skillet, to medium-high heat.  Place each tortilla in the pan.  Almost immediately, blisters should appear.  Use a spatula to gently press all over the top.  Turn and cook to brown the other side.  Yields 8 large tortillas.

Don’t overcook these, or they will become hard and crisp!  You want them to be nice and soft and pliable.  As you finish cooking the tortillas, wrap them in a clean kitchen towel to keep them warm and soft.  It takes a little bit of trial and error to figure this out, but I usually roll the next tortilla right after I’ve placed one on the griddle, and as soon as I’ve rolled it out, it’s nearly time to flip the first one.

These make nice large tortillas that are perfect for burritos or any other kind of wrap.  They are also irresistible on their own!  If you have any leftovers, wrap them tightly in foil and store in the refrigerator.  I also recommend filling leftover tortillas with beans, tucking in both ends and rolling to make closed burritos, and freezing them for a quick and healthy lunch.

What do you do when you have no food in the house?

Posted in Lunch, Side Dishes | Tagged , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Sweet Kids and Salty Snacks

Posted on August 5, 2011 by

Lately my sleep has been getting interrupted.  Halfway through the night, our toddler comes pitter-pattering into our bedroom and climbs into bed with us.  Then our kitty decides to join in.  The other morning I actually woke up, scrunched down below my pillow, to find our cat, Sebastian, sprawled out across my entire pillow!  I may have a kink in my neck, but how can I complain when I get to wake up to this?

I’m the luckiest mom in the world.

Baby was gently resting his head on kitty’s belly so that he could hear him purring.  He adores Sebastian, and “kit-tee” was one of his first words.

Later in the day, my 8 year old came to me and asked if he could cook something.  Cooking has become a new hobby for him lately and he is becoming more and more independent about it.  He will sit down with a cookbook and browse recipes, asking questions like, “Mom, do we have artichokes?” until he finds something to make using ingredients that I happen to have on hand.  Come to think of it, that sounds a lot like how I spend my leisure time!

He finally decided on roasted chickpeas, a recipe which has made before.  He loves this one because he can really play with the spices.  I love it because it’s such a nutritious snack that all the kids can enjoy.

He also decided to make some Ragin’ Cajun Popcorn from Robin Robertson’s 1000 Vegan Recipes.  He was very happy with his accomplishments – and had spices all over his shirt to prove it!

His younger brother was just happy to be an eater.

And I’ll be happy to share the roasted chickpeas recipe with you.

Chili Roasted Chickpeas

Ingredients:

  • 2 cans chickpeas (garbanzo beans), drained and rinsed
  • 2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 2 Tbsp Bragg’s liquid aminos (or tamari, or soy sauce)
  • lots of chili powder and garlic powder (he didn’t measure)
  • salt and black pepper to taste

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.  Pour drained and rinsed chickpeas into a 9 x 13 baking dish.  Drizzle olive oil and soy sauce over chickpeas, and sprinkle with spices.  Mix well to coat.  Roast in the oven for about 30 minutes, stirring several times during baking.

Allow to cool slightly before serving.  Serve warm or at room temperature.  If you have any leftovers, these make a great addition to salads.  Enjoy!

Posted in Appetizers & Snacks, Kids, Recipe Reviews | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Palak Paneer – sans Paneer!

Posted on August 3, 2011 by

One of my favorite vegetarian dishes at our local Indian buffet is Palak Paneer.  There is something miraculous in heaping a dark green mushy dish on your plate, chock full of spinach, and having it taste so delicious that you keep going back for more.  When I hear people say that they don’t like vegetables, I always think of Palak Paneer – who doesn’t love that?!  (At some restaurants, you can get basically the same dish called Saag Paneer, the only difference being the type of greens used.  Saag can include spinach and mustard greens as well as other leafy greens, where as Palak means spinach specifically.)

Unfortunately, when you are eating a vegan diet, palak paneer is off your plate as it contains ghee, cream, and of course, paneer cheese.  Well, thanks to the lovely Dreena Burton, vegans can enjoy all the flavor of this dish without any of the dairy products.  She has named it “Palak Soyabina Panira” — as in, Palak with soy cheese, or, more aptly, tofu. Interestingly enough, the method for making tofu out of soy milk is remarkably similar to the method for making cheese out of cow’s milk.

This dish was amazing.  I used an entire 1-pound carton of baby spinach (the Costco size) and our family of 5 devoured it, leaving only a tiny portion for leftovers.  Even our 5 year old took seconds!  Granted, it helped that I served it over white rice, his favorite food in the world.  Just thinking about our family ingesting that large quantity of spinach tickles me to my toes.  All that iron, calcium, lutein, and beta carotene…woo hoo!

I served this with a simple cucumber and tomato salad with cilantro, garlic, lime juice, olive oil, and a little bit of salt, pepper, and curry powder.   It provided a wonderful cooling element to our meal, though next time I’ll add some chopped onions for more flavor.

If you would like to get this recipe (plus many more fantastic, family-friendly vegan recipes), check out Eat, Drink, and be Vegan, by Dreena Burton.  You’re sure to find something that you like!

Posted in CookBook Reviews, Entrées, Recipe Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

An Open Letter to my blog

Posted on August 2, 2011 by

Dear Blog,

I tried to break up with you.  I admit it, I did.  I was getting tired of your neediness, always demanding my time and attention.  I freaked out and ran away as soon as things got messy and complicated.  I thought maybe I just needed to change you and everything would be okay.  I re-named you, deleted anything even remotely controversial, and changed your whole look.

But then a strange thing happened.  I was no longer interested in you.  I didn’t like the “new and improved” you.  I missed you just the way you were.

I would watch other happy couples – blogger & blog – and sigh as I remembered all the good times we had.  How could I just throw that all away?  Sure, you were demanding.  Sure, sometimes I wanted to just serve food and eat it without having to take it outside into good lighting and snap photos of it.  Sure, sometimes I would rather flop on the sofa and watch Modern Family without the distraction of tending to you on my laptop.

I tried to go on with my life, but you left a gaping hole.  Even my kids noticed the difference.  ”Aren’t you going to take a picture of that, Mom?” they would ask.  ”This is yummy, you should blog this,” they would say.

I’m finally ready to admit it.  I’m lost without you.  I miss you.  I want you back.  I’m sorry I tried to run away from you.  So what do you say, Blog?  Will you have me back?

Sincerely Yours,

Rebekah

Posted in Potpourri | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Peas and Thank You – times two!

Posted on August 1, 2011 by

Hi Everyone!  I haven’t disappeared off the face of the earth – I just hit a wall with blogging and took a little breather.  But I’ve still been cooking as much as ever and now I can’t wait to get back to photographing my food and sharing some yummy recipes with you.

Have you seen this super cute Veggie Tales children’s book called Peas and Thank You – all about using good manners, sharing, and helping one another?   We’ve been reading this since the kids were very little and it is still a favorite.  They’d rather be a polite West Manor Pea than a bean from South Boorish any day!

So when I stumbled upon a vegan food blog by the same title, I got a kick out of it!  It wasn’t long before I was completely hooked, following the lives of Mama Pea and Pea Daddy and their adorable little peas, Gigi and Lulu.  Mama Pea has such a great sense of humor and comes up with some truly delicious recipes.  The only downside of making her recipes was dragging the laptop into the kitchen and trying not to splatter food all over it!  Well, problem solved.  Mama Pea has now published her first cookbook and I am the proud owner of a copy.  What a great book!  Just like her blog, the book is filled with anecdotes and beautiful photos of her family and her food, along with some tried-and-true, kid-friendly vegan recipes.  I’ve already made her chewy energy bars and I have to say, ALL FIVE of us, ranging in age from 1 – 32, loved them.  Now that’s what I call success!

Even if you aren’t vegetarian or vegan, but you just want to eat healthier or find a way to get more veggies, fruit, beans, and whole grains into your kids – go buy this book!

Posted in CookBook Reviews | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments