You've got questions...
Q: I have been dancing around the vegan diet for years. I seem to be good for a few months and then I slowly start sliding back into the SAD diet. It starts off innocently enough, with just a little sushi or a small bit of cheese and then before you know it I'm hitting the drive-thru and ordering pizzas because I'm just too tired to cook dinner. I will be the first person to tell anyone and everyone why they should follow a plant-based diet. But I can't seem to make it stick. It's been a long pattern that I really need to break. Any advice on making it permanent would be greatly appreciated!
A: Your story is not uncommon. I wrote a post recently about how my clients that had scheduled “cheat days” found themselves on a slippery slope back to SAD more so than my clients who committed 100% to a change for life but occasionally (sporadically) indulged.
My best advice is to try our meal plans . They take all the guesswork out and they make sure you always have healthy meals ready and prepared, so you have no excuse to go to the drive-thru. I find having a plan in place makes it so much easier to stick with it, especially in the beginning. You just have to build new habits.
Q: Do you have any advice to staying plant-strong with braces on? So far, I've just stuck to softer foods, but I'm not liking the idea of not having many raw veggies for the next year and half. Thanks again!
A: I just had jaw surgery — accepted bone into my jaw, and I'm doing pretty well with foods as long as they are cooked — or if they are raw, they are cut thinly or small.
Q: Do you have any recipes that use coconut flour? Or advice on how I can use it?
A: I’ve never used/eaten/worked with coconut flour, so I’m not going to be much help, but a friend of mine that has a gluten-free bakery uses coconut flour in a handful of her desserts, so perhaps look for some gluten-free recipes.
Q: On the weekly meal plan , if a recipe calls for rolled oats, can I substitute steel-cut?
In an oatmeal recipe, you could use steel-cut, but note that steel-cut oats take much longer to prepare and I think need more liquid as well, so you can't follow the recipe directions in the meal plan (which are intended for rolled oats only). You'll have to make the steel-cut oatmeal according to the directions on the packaging, then add in the other ingredients once the oatmeal is done.
In a non-oatmeal recipe, such as a bean burger recipe that uses rolled oats or instant oats, you CANNOT use steel-cut.
For more information about the different types of oats , see this post.
Q: Do you have an iPhone/iPad app for your recipes?
A: You can view my cookbooks on your iPhone/iPad with the free app software by Kindle/Amazon, or you can buy them in iBooks. The digital version of my books is about the same price as an app — but so much better. They look really great. I have them on my iPad and iPhone, and I love it in the grocery store.