It is so nice to walk up to a counter to order food and tell them that you’re vegan and they point out everything on the menu that you can eat. Blossom Tree on Peachtree Street (across from Woodruff Park) offers this vegan-friendly attitude.
Blossom Tree is all the rage among downtown workers and students. The line keeps getting longer and the tables are more full every time I go in there. I’ve been to several Korean taco joints (they are popping up all over Atlanta, it seems like) and this one is hands-down the best one. Their ingredients are fresh, their sauces are spicy and their sweet potatoes are to die for! And, it’s awesome to have friendly servers that are willing to talk to you and help you out with your dietary needs.
Pictured above is their tofu taco plate, which includes 3 tofu tacos, Korean salad and sweet potatoes. I got all of this for $7.50. You seriously can’t beat the quality of their food and the prices!
I went with my friend and ate outside at Woodruff Park. The fountain was flowing, the sun was shining and my belly was thanking me for the amazing food.
Heat oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add all remaining ingredients, except hot sauce, to the pan and mix well.
Simmer until vegetables are tender, or about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Serve warm with hot sauce.
To make breakfast burritos, follow the same steps and add vegan cheese and roll up in a whole wheat tortilla shell. Bake in the oven on 350 degrees until warm.
Working in downtown Atlanta has its perks with one being the proximity to the Sweet Auburn Market. Recently, a restaurant opened up in the marketplace called Rawesome Juicery. I’ll kill the suspense and tell you right away that it lives up to its name. It’s rawesome awesome.
I got the Rawesome Remix salad with no cheese and lemon pepper dressing. It was light and fresh tasting, yet very filling. To wash it all down, I got the Nurse Jackie juice that had beets, celery, carrots, spinach, cucumber and lemon in it. The juice was perfect – not too sweet but not too bitter.
I love how the owner, who was also working behind the counter when I went in, states the power of juicing on her website:
The answers lie within…nourishment should come in the form of organic based foods, not processed foods. When we allow processed foods into our body, it makes the digestion process more complicated. Our system has to break down substances that are unfamiliar, into familiar forms, in order to properly absorb it.
When we consume whole foods our system immediately recognizes it as familiar and can utilize its nutrients immediately.
This is the number one reason why everyone should juice! It allows the system to rest and catch up on other issues in the body that need repair. Fresh pressed juice is absorbed within minutes, giving your system a reboost of vital vitamins and minerals.
Finally, I thought, someone gets it. Someone is willing to be bold and open a store like this in downtown Atlanta. I’m thrilled to have discovered this place and hopeful this will start a trend with the Atlanta food scene.
Update: The pita served with the salad is vegan. The owner was very gracious in checking this out for me and emailing me the ingredients of the pita.
I’ve had some friends recently express interest in trying a vegetarian diet and they had a few questions that I thought I’d answer on my blog to share with everyone. Since there are so many expert resources out there on how to start a vegetarian lifestyle, I’m going to link over to their sites. I also wanted to share what my typical weekly meal plan looks like, so you can find that in this post as well. Keep in mind that I’m a creature of habit, meaning that I’m completely fine with eating oatmeal and a banana every morning. For those of you that don’t do this, I’ve added some variety to this meal plan to show you all the wonderful ways you can eat like a veg-head for every meal. Also, something to note is that I make dinner for two people and we always have leftovers, which makes for a great lunch the next day. With all that being said, let’s get started…
Choose Veg partnered with Mercy For Animals to create an amazing and vibrant website. They provide a wealth of information that range from tips on how to start eating vegan that includes a 7-day meal plan to issues on animal rights and the environment. They can even send you a free starter guide! Another great resource comes from PETA, who tends to get a lot of flack for being extremists, but I just see them as passionate people who want to make a major change. They also have a great website with tons of information, including a two-week vegan meal plan with recipes. And of course, Oprah has to one-up everyone with a three-week vegan menu from Kathy Freston’s “The Veganist.” There are more websites out there, but those were my favorites with meal plans that I think would be most helpful.
Another great resource of information is Dr. Joel Fuhrman. He’s appeared on several documentaries that my husband and I have watched and we recently bought his book, “Eat to Live.” We just watched his video called “3 Steps to Incredible Health” and it’s definitely worth watching. It’s only an hour and provides so much insight on how to eat healthy and how to make this lifestyle change (this is not a diet, people, this is a way of life!). Here’s the video that we watched:
Some of you may be wondering how I transitioned to not eating meat. I would say that I experimented with tons of different recipes and used alternative meat at first. It’s OK to use the fake meat when making the initial switch, however I wouldn’t recommend eating it all the time because it’s highly processed and extremely high in sodium. Now, I know what’s on the forefront of your minds and that is, “How do you get your protein?” The reason I know this is because this is hands-down the number one question that all vegans and vegetarians are asked. The short answer is that you don’t even need to think about it. Honestly, you don’t need meat, or even tofu, to get your daily amount of protein. Grains, beans, nuts and leafy greens provide plenty of protein. The No Meat Athlete wrote a great article on this topic and articulated everything I’d ever want to say about protein.
Before I share my weekly meal plan, here’s some of my advice…
Be willing to try new things because you never know what you might end up liking. My friend hates pumpkin, but she loves my veggie chili that calls for canned pumpkin.
Give it some time for your palate to open and for your body to repair. It will take days or even weeks for your taste buds to change and for your body to respond positively. Your body will go through withdrawal because you’re basically getting rid of a food addiction. In a couple of weeks, though, you’re going to start craving fruits and vegetables – I swear, I’m not making this up!
Watch documentaries like Forks Over Knives, Engine 2 Kitchen Rescue, Vegucated, and Food, Inc., which can all be found on Netflix. These movies changed my life and I will never look at food in the same way again. They provided very resourceful information when I was making the switch to being a vegetarian.
Join groups on Meetup to find other vegetarians or vegans to try new places to eat out or to pick their brain about eating a plant-based diet.
Start slowly by either committing to Meatless Monday or a meatless week so not to create too much anxiety or stress with changing your lifestyle.
And without further ado, here’s my weekly meal plan – once again, nothing spectacular, but food that I absolutely love cooking and eating.
Have you ever seen someone bundled up in several comforters on a cold morning begging for a cup of coffee to warm up? Or have you ever seen someone sleeping under a bridge or in a doorway in rags? Or – one that most people who have seen this wish they never had – have you ever seen human feces laying in the middle of the sidewalk on the hot pavement?
Unfortunately I’ve seen all of these things. Working in downtown Atlanta for the last six years has exposed me to the inconvenient truth of how the homeless suffer each and every day. I’ll be honest, I used to downright ignore the homeless and pretend they weren’t talking to me when they were begging for change. Growing up in New York as a little girl, I was taught to be tough and look down when walking, never looking anyone in the eye when they were trying to talk to me. I’ve carried that mentality with me throughout my entire life. When I first saw that feces on the pavement, I was disgusted and outraged. I questioned who in their right mind could have done that. But as time progressed I started answering that question with ‘a desperate person, that’s who.’
Something has shifted in me and I’m not that tough little girl that blatantly ignores others anymore. Now, I look around me and wonder what I would do if I had to walk a mile in a homeless person’s shoes. Instead of turning my nose up at them, now my heart aches when I see someone pushing their life’s belongings in a shopping cart down Boulevard.
There used to be a homeless man that would stand outside my building and ask for money – or even ask for my personal travel mug of coffee. One day last year, I passed by him like I always did, shaking my head saying ‘no, not today.’ But this time was different. I had an overwhelming feeling of sadness for him. So, I stopped dead in my tracks, turned around and handed him a $5 bill. I didn’t feel good about it afterwards either – and not because I was worried he was going to buy drugs or alcohol with it, but because that $5 is really nothing in the grand scheme of things. My head was buzzing with questions. Where’s he going to end up the next day? What’s he going to do for food or shelter? How is he going to survive? I thought a lot about this particular homeless man to the point where I was brought to tears. This world can be such a cruel and unjust place for some people, and I couldn’t see any positive side of the situation.
As I’ve been reading more nonfiction books and articles about animal cruelty and human rights, I’ve learned that you can do one of two things when presented with upsetting facts; you can get depressed and mope about the bad affairs occurring in the world (which is exactly what I did when encountering this homeless man), or you can take a stand and do something about it.
Food Not Bombs Photo courtesy of Favor Freedom
Which is exactly what Food Not Bombs is doing – they are taking action and feeding the homeless, helping them out a little bit each week. My friend recently wrote a wonderful blog post about this organization, which you can find here on her site Favor Freedom. She describes her experience of volunteering with Food Not Bombs and her awakening to the issues of homelessness. This organization hit a soft spot with me because they feed the homeless all vegan and vegetarian meals. Groups like this one are performing amazing selfless acts of kindness all the time. Reading Favor Freedom’s blog post made me pause to reflect on how I can help the homeless, whether they be human or not.
Right around the same time of discovering Food Not Bombs through my friend’s site, I also found out about My Dog is My Home, thanks to Our Hen House. This blog is dedicated to telling the stories of the human-animal bond between the homeless and their pets. There are so many touching stories on this blog that showed me that the homeless and their pets are just like me and Dali and Scotch. I would do anything for my sweet dog and cat, and so will the homeless. They will forego a place to live if it means they will be with their animals, their loved ones. I honestly can say I would do the same because life without my girls is no life at all. After reading these stories, I’ve decided that it’s time to stand up for the less fortunate and treat them like fellow Earthlings.
Here’s a poem I wrote when I first started working downtown that’s about a homeless woman on Ellis Street:
There’s treacherous turmoil written all over her beautiful face
Yet she sits on the scorching sidewalk with such poise and grace
Shoeless, filthy and only her suitcase by her side
She’s fearlessly contemplating how to stay alive
Who’s this mystery woman alone on Ellis Street?
What brought her to this dirty place, in the deadly heat?
Was she a successful businesswoman months ago?
Or a drug abuser that hit an all-time low?
How did she slip and fall among the homeless each day?
What’s stopping her from finding a home, a place to stay?
Embarrassed for her, strangers avert their judging eyes
They dismiss her so not to witness her pitiful demise
No passersby offer her a single slice of hope
They make the mere assumption that, on her own, she can cope
She pays no attention to the soulless people walking by
Instead she gazes off with a sudden spark in her eye
Standing up tall, she snaps her bags in her right hand
She quickly walks toward her own destiny, an unknown land
This mysterious woman is never again seen on Ellis Street
It’s solely hopeful that she conquered her own defeat
Mercy for Animals recently posted an article that celebrates all mothers on Mother’s Day. It has sweet pictures like the one above with little facts about how animal mothers care for their young, just like humans. The pictures on their website reminded me of old photos of me and my sisters affectionately curled up in my mom’s arms.
In my mom’s honor, I’m cooking an all-vegan meal to show her how much I care. I’m cooking my dish called Moroccan Eggplant and Couscous and my sister is making falafel and veggie wraps with fruit salad. My mom is a special lady who is so kind and caring. She is an inspiration and I love her very much. Happy Mother’s Day to my mom and all the wonderful and amazing moms out there!
Update: here’s a picture of the food that we cooked for my mom. My husband wound up making a mango and bean salad from Dr. Fuhrman’s book Eat to Live. De-lish!
