Tag Archives: vegan

More eating wirelessly

30 Apr

I had a nice breakfast of oatmeal today. It was probably the closest thing to a normal meal I’ve had in a while. I did cook it for a little bit longer than the package directions so that I’d be more comfortable swallowing it without chewing.

As I slurped my oatmeal and tried to plan my next meals, I realized that my refrigerator and cabinets are badly prepared for this diet. I bought several bags of pasta last weekend in anticipation of my upgrade to wireless, but with my no-chew diet, those will have to be blended. This is not to say that it can’t be done, but it will take some time. Somehow, I also allowed myself to run out of soy yogurts, even though I usually keep those on hand  regardless of my diet. My supply of Vega, which I had not intended to continue using after the wires came out, is also very low.

For lunch, I packed a smoothie. Not having soy yogurt, I used soy protein powder, almond milk, peanut butter, and frozen berries. It was a very chalky, which I attributed to the soy protein powder, although I don’t recall the powder doing that to the smoothies I made before my supply of Vega arrived. I also planned on using a serving of Vega upon my arrival in the office. With the smoothie and the Vega and a few leftover brownies from yesterday, I made it through the long teaching day. I was certainly hungry when I got home just before 7:30, but not unbearably so.

For dinner, I had a can of refried beans. Yes, I had the whole can, and I ate it directly from the can with nothing to accompany it. It took almost 40 minutes to eat the can of beans because I can still only open my mouth wide enough to take very small spoonfuls. Occasionally, upon sucking on a spoonful of beans, I’d feel a little bit of pain in my left jaw. I washed the beans down with another smoothie, this one containing almond milk, frozen blueberries and mango, and peanut butter. With my dinner, I also started taking the calcium supplement I bought before the surgery. I didn’t take it while I was wired because I figured I was getting enough calcium between the Vega and the enriched milks. Now that I’ll probably be taking less of the Vega, and I can swallow tablets, I decided I might as well take the calcium supplement.

For dessert, I had some more brownies leftover from yesterday and a whole lot of Purely Decadent. The brownies seem to be getting a bit harder, so I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to eat them. I really don’t have all that many left (perhaps a third of the recipe), but I don’t feel the slightest bit ashamed of my gluttony.

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Wireless eating

29 Apr

In anticipation of my upgrade to a wireless jaw, I went to the office this morning with a number of foods I thought I’d be able to eat. For a late lunch, I had brought the remains of the tamarind lentils–unblended–that I made on Saturday. For snacks, I brought some golden nugget mandarins, a couple of mangoes, a bag of Tings and some brownies I made early this morning to celebrate the occasion.

The lentils, I realized were too solid to eat without chewing. Had I used brown lentils, I might have had a chance at  slurping them, but I had used French lentils, which keep their shape better.

The first thing I actually ate wirelessly were the brownies. I used a recipe from Don’t Eat off the Sidewalk, which I had made once before. It was a perfect recipe for the occasion in that the brownies, aside from being delicious had a melt-in-your-mouth consistency, which was perfect for somebody unable to chew. I hadn’t anticipated the difficulty in opening my mouth, but I found that by breaking the brownies into large crumbs, I was able to enjoy them.

I then had a few of the Tings. They aren’t particularly soft, but, they’re full of air, so they dissolve after sitting in the mouth for a few seconds.

That was all I ate before I took all of my leftover food home. At home, I had some pasta with sauce, but with a little bit less sauce, and blended slightly less than yesterday. While eating the pasta, I realized I was out of practice with using a fork. Often, I’d raise a forkful of food to my mouth, only to have the fork stop when it hit my teeth. After finishing the pasta, I blended the lentils, but not quite as much as the last few days.

For dessert, I had some brownies with Purely Decadent vegan ice cream. I had stocked up on the ice cream at the Grocery Outlet (for $1.49 a pint!) while I was wired, but found that the flavors I had gotten (So Very Strawberry and Chunky Mint Madness) were not suitable for consumption through a straw.

At least so far, it seems like the expansion of my diet with the removal of the wire is not particularly great. I may even end up having another smoothie tonight.

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Introduction

18 Apr

Just under two weeks ago, I fell off of my bicycle and sustained a number of injuries, the most serious of which was a mandibular fracture. I plan to use this blog to share various musings related to these injuries, as well as things I’ve learned that might be helpful to other people in similar situations.

At various times, it may be helpful for a reader to know that I am a vegan and a graduate student in mathematics. I suspect that anybody who knows me and finds this blog would recognize that I am the author, but I don’t plan on identifying myself at this time.

Obviously, I’m getting something of a late start on this blog, with the accident nearly two weeks behind me already. I’ve been meaning to start this blog for some time now, but life has been busy. I have quite a number of entries that I’d like to write, and I plan on back-dating some posts according to when I first thought to write them.

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A culinary success

17 Apr

For dinner today, I had a smoothie which I might actually want to make again after I’m able to open my mouth again. Then it won’t be a meal, of course, but it was really quite good. I didn’t write down exact amounts of ingredients, but I’ll call it a Peanut Butter Apple Cinnamon Smoothie. I made it by blending a So Delicious Cinnamon Bun soy yogurt with a few tablespoons of peanut butter and maybe 1/3 cup of applesauce, a little bit of soymilk, and a generous sprinkling of cinnamon. After that was all blended, I added more soymilk until the volume was about three cups, and blended some more.

The smoothie felt as though it was just thin enough that it could pass through the straw, and the flavor was really very good. Something about the flavored soy yogurt made it particularly so.  The peanut butter has plenty of fat and protein, so it was nice and filling, too.

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The wired diet, with Vega

17 Apr

It’s been a couple of days since my supply of Vega arrived, but it’s already changed my life for the better. I already mentioned that it allowed me to go a few hours without eating while I taught back-to-back sections yesterday. A Vega meal replaces at least a couple of smoothies, and it offers more nutritional balance. It’s also a major convenience in the mornings because it’s one meal for the day that I don’t need to prepare before leaving for the office. The taste isn’t great, but it’s at least tolerable. My container of soy protein powder has gone back into the cabinet, so I don’t feel like I’m living off of a monoculture anymore. When I was deciding whether to try this stuff, I had a little bit of trouble coming to terms with the price tag, but so far, it’s definitely worth it.

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The wired diet

10 Apr

Now that I’ve been wired for a couple of days, my nourishment habits are starting to fall into a pattern. I drink a lot of smoothies, perhaps four to six (each about 3 cups) per day. The ingredients of the smoothies aren’t exactly the same each time, but usually I use soy milk, soy protein powder, and some soy yogurt. I have some frozen fruit and some bananas, but they tend not to blend well enough to pass through both the straw and the small gaps between my teeth. I’d like to get some rice milk to use instead of soy milk so that I’m not taking in so much soy.

I’ll usually also eat one can of soup per day. This requires the soup to be pureed in the blender. I wish that I could eat a bit more soup in a day, but I’m hesitant to try because of the sodium content.

Much of my perishable solid food has gone into the freezer. This includes some pasta, a loaf of bread, and some Chickpea Cutlets from Veganomicon that I made on Saturday. The red bell peppers and salad greens in my refrigerator will unfortunately probably rot before I can eat them.

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