The Hemp Connection:
vegetarian

One of my litmus tests for how healthy a vegan's diet truly is, is to listen to how they describe what they eat. If they focus on telling me what they DON'T eat, and have a limited list of what they DO eat, I start to consider that what we're describing is an eating disorder, not a vegan eater.

Here's a challenge to encourage you to be more vegan and less disordered. It comes from the blog http://www.lunchboxbunch.com/., and it's a list of 100 vegan foods. I've been instructed to italicize foods I'd never try, and bold face foods I have eaten. And to encourage you to share the challenge on your own blogs.

I'm a pretty adventurous eater so there are no italics. I did better than I thought I would, actually, since I am not 100% vegan myself. I now have some great items to add to my own list!

Have fun!
1. Molasses

2. Cactus/Nopales
3. Scrambled Tofu
4. Grilled Portobella Caps
5. Fresh Ground Horseradish
6. Sweet Potato Biscuits
7. Arepa
8. Vegan Cole Slaw
9. Ginger Carrot Soup
10. Fiddlehead Ferns
11. Roasted Elephant Garlic
12. Umeboshi
13. Almond Butter Toast
14. Aloe Vera
15. H and H Bagel NYC
16. Slow Roasted Butternut Squash
17. White truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Freshly ground wasabi
20. Coconut Milk Ice Cream (not store bought)
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Orchard-fresh pressed apple cider
23. Organic California Mango (in season Sept-Oct only)
24. Quinoa
25. Papaya Smoothie
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet (habanero) pepper (just a bite!…hot!
27. Goji Berry Tea
28. Fennel
29. Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookie
30. Radishes and Vegan Buttery Spread
31. Starfruit
32. Oven fresh Sourdough bread
33. Sangria made with premium fruit and juices
34. Sauerkraut
35. Acai Smoothie
36. Blue Foot Mushrooms
37. Vegan Cupcake from Babycakes nyc
38. Sweet Potatoes and Tempeh combo
39. Falafel
40. Spelt Crust Pizza
41. Salt and Pepper Oyster Mushrooms
42. Jicama Slaw
43. Pumpkin Edamame Ginger Dumplings
44. Hemp Milk
45. Rose Champagne
46. Fuyu
47. Raw Avocado-Coconut Soup
48. Tofu Pesto Sandwich
49. Apple-Lemon-Ginger-Cayenne fresh-pressed juice…with Extra Ginger
50. Grilled Seitan
51. Prickly pear
52. Fresh Pressed Almond Milk
53. Concord Grapes off the vine
54. Ramps
55. Coconut Water fresh from a young coconut
56. Organic Arugula
57. Vidalia Onion
58. Sampler of organic produce from Diamond Organics
59. Honeycrisp Apple
60. Poi
61. Vegan Campfire-toasted Smores
62. Grape seed Oil
63. Farm fresh-picked Peach
64. Freshly-made pita bread with freshly-made hummus
65. Chestnut Snack Packs
66. Fresh Guava
67. Mint Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies
68. Raw Mallomar from One Lucky Duck, NYC
69. Fried plantains
70. Mache
71. Golden Beets
72. Barrel-Fresh Pickles
73. Liquid Smoke
74. Meyer Lemon
75. Veggie Paella
76. Vegan Lasagna (raw optional)
77. Kombucha
78. Homemade Soy Milk
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Lychee Bellini
81. Tempeh Bacon
82. Sprouted Grain Bread
83. Lemon Pepper Tempeh
84. Vanilla Bean
85. Watercress
86. Carrot you pulled out of the ground yourself
87. Vegan In-Season Fruit Pie
88. Flowers
89. Corn Chowder
90. High Quality Vegan Raw Chocolate
91. Yellow fuzz-free Kiwi
92. White Flesh Grapefruit
93. harissa
94. Coconut Oil
95. Jackfruit
96. Homemade Risotto
97. Spirulina
98. Seedless 'Pixie' Tangerine
99. Gourmet Sorbet, not store bought
100. Fresh Plucked English Peas

So you've been told you need to clean up your nutrition act, and you've stopped eating the Fritos. You've decided to stop being the reason the stock price of your local fast food restaurant has weathered the Wall Street willies. Your salad dressing shelf in your refrigerator is now half of what's in your refrigerator.

Still no luck.

Hey, isn't eating better supposed to be the answer?

Depends on how you define eating better.

I'm noticing with my inCYST classes that a disproportionate percentage of women coming for information have adopted vegetarian practices. And I'm beginning to wonder if it isn't part of the problem.

No, the problem isn't that you're vegetarian. It's how you're defining vegetarian, and it's how you go about being one that matters. Here are my simple rules for being the healthiest (potentially fertile) vegetarian you can be.

1. Define your vegetarianism by what you DO eat.

Most people I know who become vegetarian after eating meat, define that practice in terms of what they DON'T eat. They DON'T do red meat. They DON'T do dairy. They DON'T do fish. DON'T, DON'T, DON'T.

Therein lies the problem.

A most important rule of nutrition is, when you eliminate an entire category of food, for whatever reason, be it meat or wheat, you are also eliminating crucial nutrients that this category contains.

My definition of vegetarian is someone who meets all of their complete nutritional needs without using animal products.

Do you know what fertility-related nutrients you're likely short on if all you've done is cut out meat? If not, read on!

2. Zap yourself with zinc!

Zinc is needed for oodles of reactions that keep your body running, from your brain to your ovaries. Are you eating whole grains? Beans? Pumpkin and sunflower seeds? Nuts? Oops…go get your shopping list, right now, and put them down!

3. Forgetting folate can be fatal

You likely know about this nutrient since there has been so much publicity about its role in pregnancy. Put spinach on your sandwich instead of lettuce…make sure your morning cereal is fortified…eat more beans and split peas…and become savvy with sunflower seeds!

4. Cultivate a copper attitude

It's not as famous as folate, but it still is important to remember. Outside of red meat, its vegan sources are rather random: molasses, green olives, cocoa, nuts, avocadoes, black pepper, sunflower seeds…hopefully at least one of these sounds tasty!

5. Try to remember tryptophan

Tryptophan is a building block for serotonin, one of the major neurotransmitters regulating the brain's hormone center. For vegetarians, there are still a lot of options even if you're not using dairy products or eating turkey. Does your pantry have…cocoa, mangoes, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, oats, dates, chickpeas, peanuts, bananas, and sunflower seeds? It needs to.

6. Allow for algae

If you're vegan, chances are you're not getting enough DHA and EPA, the omega-3 fatty acids primarily found in fish. Become friendly with an ingredient known as Life's DHA, a marine algae source of DHA (unfortunately not EPA), that is being added to vegan-friendly foods. The link I'm providing gets you to the most recent list of foods containing this ingredient that you may want to become proficient at finding.

7. Not all vegan products are created equally healthy. Be sure if you've gone vegan, that you are aware of oils that can interfere with healthy balance. These oils are all vegan, but tend to be pro-inflammatory: safflower, sunflower, soybean, corn, cottonseed, sesame. (Remember my"S and C" rule from previous posts. If you're eating absolutely no meat at all, but you're eating a salad doused with soybean oil-based dressing…that could be a problem. Become familiar with brands that are made with olive or canola oils, or learn to make vinaigrettes. (Canola is the"C" oil exception, by the way.

8. Be happy without hydrogenated.

Hydrogenated = trans fat. Enough said.

9. Forget the fructose…high fructose corn syrup, that is.

It's been connected to insulin resistance in more than one study. And despite what marketers would really like you to believe, more than one nutrition expert does not endorse its use.

10. Be pro-protein

This is the most obvious one…know your complementary proteins and be sure your diet includes them. One caveat…soy may be hard on your thyroid function and is not a good choice if you have a family history of breast cancer. Be sure you are reading labels, as soy is a filler in many, many foods.

I like to look for patterns that make nutrition recommendations easy to recommend. In this post, it didn't work out that way. A lot of these foods are random. If I'm not giving you ideas that seem easy to work into your food plan…think of consulting with one of our experts! That's what we excel at, and that's what we're waiting to help you with.

After all, you became vegan to be healthy, let's work together to do it correctly.

I recently had an animated discussion on our Facebook Fan Page with a woman about protein for vegans. Her argument is that women with PCOS simply need to eat less carbohydrate and that their protein intake is adequate.

I challenged her on that. First of all, if she is vegan, she has PCOS, and she is a member of our Facebook page, it suggests that maybe there is a piece she is missing. I am not telling anyone who is vegan with PCOS that it is wrong or impossible to have and do both…but if that is your choice, it is super important that you be informed and diligent in order that the choice not backfire on you.

Here is why I say that.

Women with PCOS are insulin resistant; most of them are going to be diabetic at some point in their lives. We know that insulin resistance makes it hard to maintain muscle mass. Diabetics as they age, in fact, lose their muscle mass twice as rapidly as people who are not diabetic.

Part of the way to maintain muscle, is to regularly exercise muscles. You all have a nice friend, your testosterone levels, that can help you out in that department…PROVIDED YOU DON'T OVERDO IT.

The other part you need, because all of the strength training in the world is pretty useless if you're not eating enough protein for your muscles to incorporate with those workouts, is protein.

If you are losing muscle mass at twice the rate of the average person, the amount of protein you need to eat in order to account for that accelerated loss has got to be higher. I'd love for us to study this someday when we've raised the funds to do so.

For now, assume that the recommendations made for vegans are made for healthy vegans, not vegans who are struggling with a complicated hormone balance.

I can tell you, from my experience, women who come for help with their PCOS are not eating enough protein. And the vegans I work with, as well-intended as they are, are often not eating in a way that accounts for the fact that most vegan protein sources are also high in carbohydrates. You really have to know what you are doing and look specifically at your own eating to see if the balance is good.

We have also noticed here at inCYST, that a pretty high percentage of women we work with, at some point in their lives, were vegan. There is clearly something about eating vegan that sets your hormones up to rebel. Don't let assumptions get in the way of making your vegan eating a component of your path to health.

If you're getting your vegan information from someone who doesn't work with PCOS, it may not be the right information.

You need more protein than you may be aware of. If you're not sure if you're getting it, let us work with you to figure it out.

One of the most frustrating things for me, when working with people who want to eat healthier…is their focus on wanting me to tell them what NOT to eat. The fact is…when you're eating healthfully, you're likely to be eating many more foods than you do when you're out of balance. Most people get into ruts and eat the same few foods over and over, because it's easy and convenient.

I always like to tell clients that my job is to get them eating a whole lot more variety, and to make eating FUN, not about deprivation. That way, if there ARE foods you need to cut back on, it will be a little bit easier because you're adding new and fun foods in their place.

So…I thought that challenging blog readers to incorporate a new food a week might be a fun way to move them (that means YOU) gradually toward more balanced eating.

This week I chose hummous. Way back when I was in college, this was pretty much a food that you could only find in esoteric vegetarian restaurants and middle Eastern grocers. Now, I see it in my local grocery store. And I see it in many new and different flavors…garlic, black bean, jalapeno/cilantro, sun-dried tomato…I know I'm leaving out some good ones, but you get the point.

From a medical/nutritional standpoint, I like hummous, because it shows up low on the glycemic index scale (means your blood sugar will like this food!). It's also typically made with olive oil, which is a better fat than the fats you'll find in some other processed foods. From a practical standpoint, it's cheap and it's ready made. On baked pita chips or with vegetables, it makes a great snack.

Last weekend I was doing a demo for a client at Whole Foods and the local hummous guy was down the aisle. His samples were flying off the table faster than he could serve them up, and practically everyone walking by MY demo had a box of pita chips and a package of hummous in their cart. So I'm not just pushing something because of my personal taste. I know that if you've never tried this gem, it's worth being curious to see what the buzz is about.

You can make hummous yourself if you plan ahead and have the ingredients on hand. There are a gazillion recipes to Google, so I'll let you do that legwork.

But for the next 7 days, I challenge you to try hummous. And if you think of it, share your comments. They might make it easier for another blog reader to try something new. What's your favorite brand? How do you like to eat it?

I recently read a blog entry about omega-3 fatty acids, in which it suggested that adequate DHA could be obtained from spirulina and chlorella, two supplements

found in most health food stores. I was surprised to read this, as I'd never run across any information in all the DHA research I've read to suggest that these were appropriate sources.

Total DHA content of pure algae, by percentage total fat, is as follows:

Life’s DHA™ from Schizochytrium – 37%
Life’s DHA™ from Cryptocodidium cohnii — 40.0%
Isochrisis galbana 17.16%
Chlorella vulgaris 13.32%
Spirulina platensis 7.53%

As far as total DHA content, it is clear that the Schizochytrium and Cryptocodidium cohnii provide more bang for the buck; the total volume needed of the former is far less than isochrisis, chlorella, and spirulina. Whichever supplement used, the total amount of DHA consumed is important.

Another benefit to using schizochytrium and cryptocodinium is that Martek has FDA approval to sell their DHA to companies who then incorporate it into foods.

By making a few simple changes in your grocery list, you can increase your DHA intake without having to use a supplement. If you want a supplement, those are available as well. A list of available foods and supplements can be found at this link.

Thanks to colleague Connye Kuratko, Ph.D., R.D. of Martek Biosciences, for being able to find a study (referenced below) that helped clarify this issue. Martek's Life's DHA marine algae supplement, found both in capsules and in foods, contains Schizochytrium or Cryptocodinium cohnii.

Ö. TOKUS¸OGLU AND M.K. ÜNAL Biomass Nutrient Profiles of Three Microalgae: Spirulina platensis, Chlorella vulgaris, and Isochrisis galbana. Journal of Food Science 68:4, 2003, 1144-1148.

Senanayake SPJN and Fichtali J. Single Cell Oils as Sources of Nutraceutical Specialty Lipids: Processing Technologies and Applications. in Shahidi F Nutraceutical and Specialty Lipids and Their Co-products. CRC Press, Taylor and Francis Group, Boca Raton, FL, page 268.

One of the more frequent searches bringing readers to our blog is"vegetarian" and"fertility"…and"vegetarian" and"pcos". I've also noticed when doing Fertility Friendly Food Tours at Whole Foods, that a disproportionate percentage of women attending these classes, are vegetarian. And, in my individual counseling, it's not uncommon to learn during an assessment that if a client is not currently vegetarian, she was at some point in her life.

So I wasn't surprised to find this study reporting that women with PCOS tend to be deficient in vitamin B12.

I often teach that PCOS is a counterintuitive illness. By that, I mean that what often needs to be done is the opposite of what you might think. In this case, rather than immediately assuming that the most important strategy is to restrict food choices because your appearance suggests overnutrition, it may actually be to add foods back into your diet to correct underlying deficiencies.

This B vitamin is found almost exclusively in animal products, including fish, meat, poultry, eggs, milk, and milk products. It is also found in some fortified breakfast cereals, but if you're avoiding carbohydrates as well as trying to be vegetarian, you're likely not getting enough vitamin B12 in your diet.

Some fermented soy products, namely tofu, tempeh, miso, and tamari, may contain vitamin B12, if the bacteria, molds, and fungi used to produce them were vitamin B12 producing. This is a project I'll look into and blog about in a later post.

Finally, some nutritional yeast products also contain vitamin B12. Lucky for you Aussies reading this blog, that means Vegemite and Marmite, made from yeast extracts, can be excellent choices to include in your diet!

It is possible to obtain vitamin B12 by taking a vitamin supplement, but the amount of the vitamin that is actually absorbed through the digestive tract may be very low. For this reason, physicians who note a low vitamin B12 level may recommend an injection, to bypass the digestive tract.

Women over 14 years of age, if not pregnant, should be consuming 2.4 mcg of vitamin B12 per day. They should aim for 2.6 mcg per day when pregnant, and 2.6 mcg per day when breastfeeding.

It's clear, if you don't do vegetarian eating in a thoughtful, proactive way, it carries considerable health risks. As you've seen before in this blog, inCYST believes that healthy vegetarian eating is about what you DO choose to eat, more than what you DON'T choose to eat.

It is a good idea, if you're vegetarian, or ever have been, to ask your physician to check your vitamin B12 levels. A low status is easy to correct and that can be part of your strong foundation for managing your PCOS and improving your mood, insulin function, and fertility.

Kaya C, Cengiz SD, Satiroğlu H. Obesity and insulin resistance associated with lower plasma vitamin B12 in PCOS. Reprod Biomed Online. 2009 Nov;19(5):721-6.

Yesterday I was a home remodeling whirlwind. I spent much of my morning at IKEA, Lowe's, Home Depot, the paint store, you name it, spending all my money, and I spent most of the afternoon repairing, painting, installing…and before I knew it, the sun had set and I was starved!

I ran out to Trader Joe's to get a sushi dinner. I grabbed the California rolls with artificial crabmeat that said"brown rice", without reading any further. It was only when I got home and was enjoying the meal that I realized I was eating vegetarian sushi that was omega-3 supplemented with Life's DHA. This is omega-3 from marine algae that is being used as an omega-3 supplement in many foods, which you can read about elsewhere in this blog.

As much as I work to reassure pregnant women that eating most seafood during pregnancy can be safe, I know some of you will still opt not to eat it. This product, which tasted just like fish (even my cat couldn't tell, he loved it too!) and can provide the omega-3's that are essential for both mother and baby that can be challenging to get if you aren't eating seafood.

The label said that a serving contained 32 mg of DHA, but I ate the whole 280 calorie box which gave me 64 mg.

For more information about this product, and its nutritional content, visit the Fujisan Foods website.

A significant percentage of the women I counsel, whether their issues are officially related to PCOS or not, are vegetarian. They get in trouble with their vegan lifestyle because it eliminates the essential nutrients DHA and EPA.

Not any more!

Marine algae is an up and comer in the omega-3 world. It's been increasingly incorporated into foods, which I've written about before. Now, the people who developed this ingredient are reporting that this algal DHA is as effective as salmon in increasing the body's DHA levels.

You can either take it as a supplement, or you can find it in popular foods. The best place to go in order to get the list of foods you can use is the Martek website. I'm also including the"Life's DHA" logo here, because it's on the packaging for these products for easy identification.

No more excuses, all you vegans! You can make choices that help you to be healthier while honoring your culinary code of ethics.: )

Arterburn LM, Oken HA, Bailey Hall E, Hamersley J, Kuratko CN, Hoffman JP. Algal-oil capsules and cooked salmon: nutritionally equivalent sources of docosahexaenoic Acid. J Am Diet Assoc. 2008 Jul;108(7):1204-9.

We're launching a new program, and Phoenix residents are the first to be able to try it---

Eat It! Well! (TM) is designed to teach you how to eat your chosen food philosophy in a way that includes essential nutrients and promotes optimal health. Our philosophy at inCYST is not to steer everyone into the same way of eating, but rather to help you to identify what works best for you…then show you how to do it.

Because such a high percentage of our clients seem to have some sort of history of imbalanced vegan eating in their past, we wanted to start with a vegan event.

And because Sapna Cafe has such tasty, healthy food, they were the natural partner with which to launch our concept.

Here is the event information.
Location Sapna Cafe
1301 NW Grand Avenue
Phoenix, AZ

Have you recently become vegetarian? Not sure how to do it?

Have you tried being vegetarian and become bored?

Or do you just love eating vegetarian so much that you can't get enough of it?

We have a special evening store at Sapna Cafe…for all of you!

Come enjoy a special vegan meal prepared by Chef Ana Borrajo:

Quinoa — Brown Rice Chili
Seasonal Dinner Salad (so seasonal, in fact, we can't even tell you what it will contain until we've been to market that week!)
Spanish Baked Apples

BYOB**

(While the topic of this class is not gluten-free eating, the dinner is entirely gluten-free.)

Registered dietitian and health expert Monika Woolsey, MS, RD, will be providing information about how to eat healthy as a vegan:
--basic principles of vegan eating
--the top 5 mistakes vegans make in the diets and easy ways to avoid them
--where to find the best vegan in Phoenix (that is, if you can't get yourself to Sapna!)

In addition to this hearty and delicious meal and informative class, participants will receive a special $5"Sapna Cash" certificate that can be redeemed for a future vegan cooking class, with Ana, in the Sapna kitchen.

**You can bring your own alchoholic beverage. Please check back with us for some wine pairings you can pick up at the Phoenix Downtown Public Market on your way to dinner.

Cost for this event: $30 per person includes dinner and presentation. Tips for the restaurant staff are optional but encouraged.

You can register at this link:
http://yhst-34497545168533.stores.yahoo.net/eat-it-well---vegetarian-eating-class-at-sapna-cafe.html

For more information contact Monika Woolsey, 623.486.0737

Thank you to Christine Marquette and Michael Keele for such an informative program this morning!

If you're interested in hearing our discussions about vegetarian eating, home design for better health, and farmer's markets, please visit our show archives. It is the second show on the list. (I'm still learning how to work the software and didn't properly title it.)

August 15 on our new radio program, we'll be talking to dietitian Christine Marquette about vegetarian eating. Christine is vegetarian herself, and she'll be talking about common mistakes well-intended vegetarians make, as well as tricks for making vegetarian eating healthy.

Also, our show has a co-host and he'll be coming on board tomorrow. Michael Keele of Central Slope Ecomarket in Phoenix, Arizona, will be introducing himself and talking a little bit about how his work in design has pertinence to your health.

Our program is archived at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/incystforhormones/2010/08/16/healthy-planet-health-hormones if you can't make it live.

Please join us!

I had enough requests to do more of this class that I have decided to turn it into a webinar. It is a fundraiser for the inCYST Research Institute.

Tuesday, August 9 · 7:00pm — 8:00pm TIME LISTED IS EASTERN DAYLIGHT TIME.

SPACE IS LIMITED--THERE IS NO CANCELLATION OR RESCHEDULING--IF YOU REGISTER AND MISS THE CLASS, YOUR REGISTRATION WILL BE CONSIDERED A CHARITABLE DONATION.

Have you recently become vegetarian? Not sure how to do it?

Have you tried being vegetarian and become bored?

Or do you just love eating vegetarian so much that you can't get enough of it?

Vegetarian eating has its benefits for PCOS…but only if you do it well. Many women we're working with at inCYST are compounding their problems by not wisely managing this choice.

Registered dietitian and health expert Monika Woolsey, MS, RD, will be providing information about how to eat healthy as a vegan: --basic principles of vegan eating --the top 5 mistakes vegans make in the diets and easy ways to avoid them --ideas for eating out, as well as easy vegetarian cooking --recipes.

Cost is $15, and you can register at this link (shipping fee that shows up at checkout will be removed before your card is charged.)

http://yhst-34497545168533.stores.yahoo.net/webinar--healthy-vegetarian-eating-with-pcos.html

*****WE INTERRUPT THIS BLOG POST FOR AN IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT***

So excited to announce that starting this week, the Nutrition 101 series will be co-written in conjunction with PCOS Diva Amy Medling, of Nashua, NH. Amy, a professional health coach, is currently completing the inCYST training. She also loves to cook, and has a great series on her own blog with a week's worth of menus. You all are always asking for those, so I like that Amy likes so much to take the time to prepare them. The theme in her menus will be the nutrient I feature over here. It's so fun to see what she did with this first round…and I like that you get suggestions more diverse than what I would eat myself. Increases the likelihood that you'll find something between both blogs that works for you.

OK. Back to what I was saying about riboflavin.

*********************************************************************************

Riboflavin is my favorite vitamin. Not for any nutritional reason, but because in my senior year of college I was lucky enough to work in renowned nutrition researcher Daphne Roe's laboratory, as a lab assistant for a riboflavin study. I was one of the people who prepared the food for female subjects in a study evaluating whether riboflavin requirements increase with increased activity (turns out they do).

It was a most unique job, because riboflavin is destroyed by ultraviolet light. In order to keep it stable to increase the accuracy of the experiment, my entire work shift was spent weighing and measuring all of the subjects' food IN THE DARK. Yes, for a semester, I dished out rice and poured milk with the shades pulled and the lights out.

As you can see in the bio I linked to, Dr. Roe was highly intelligent, hugely curious, and very high energy. She completely intimidated many of her students, as she loved the Socratic method and thought nothing of stopping midlecture, looking a student straight in the eye, and asking their opinion on the subject of the day's lecture. It is in her class that I developed a keen ability to avoid eye contact and feign complete focused interest on the notepad on my desk.

I was so very fortunate to be able to work side by side with Dr. Roe, because I had the honor of seeing her other side, that of someone who was intensely curious about problems affecting real people. She had questions she needed to answer, and did her best to do that. She didn't have patience with messing around, because she had important things to do. It is because she was an MD (a practicing dermatologist of all things!) that I become somewhat impatient with physicians who do not appreciate or take the time to understand solid nutrition principles. Sorry guys, Dr. Roe set a very high standard. It would serve you well to follow in her footsteps.
(On the flip side, I do my very best to work well with those who DO appreciate nutrition, like our own dermatologist, Dr. Van Dyke, who took time out of her busy schedule to take our training, much of which is not directly related to her personal medical specialty.)

I love riboflavin because by the end of the study I hated the tedious work so bloody much I decided I never wanted to be a researcher. BUT…I also gained such an appreciation for people who have the capacity to think about those questions and piece together the details of such a study to get answers that make the world a better place. I credit Dr. Roe for planting the very first seed of the inCYST Institute in this college senior's heart.

And since you all are working to increase your activity level, it's important that you benefit from Dr. Roe's research on the influence of exercise on how much riboflavin you need.

If you're vegetarian, vegan or dairy-free, be sure and take the time to analyze your diet to see how you measure up with this vitamin. You may be falling short.

Got milk? That's a good start.
Look for the following in your next shopping trip.
asparagus
popcorn
bananas
persimmons
okra
Swiss chard
Cottage cheese
Yogurt
Meat
Eggs
Fish
Green beans

Thanks, Dr. Roe, for all of what you did that rubbed off on me. I was pretty humbled by your presence and am grateful for your passion and enthusiasm for instilling excellence in budding nutrition experts like myself. I hope if you're looking down on your students, like me and fellow classmates and researchers Valerie Duffy at the University of Connecticut, and Karen Parfitt at Pomona College, you're smiling. You laid the foundation for many professional passions and successes.

Belko AZ, Meredith MP, Kalkwarf HJ, Obarzanek E, Weinberg S, Roach R, McKeon G, Roe DA. Effects of exercise on riboflavin requirements: biological validation in weight reducing women. Am J Clin Nutr. 1985 Feb;41(2):270-7.

One of our vegan readers wrote and asked if I had a list of options for protein. This is a copy of a list I compiled for a local vegetarian eating class I teach. Hope it is helpful! Numbers in the far right column are in grams. This is not a comprehensive list. I recognize that nuts are not on here, for example. The purpose of this list is for you to become familiar with a collection of foods you may be familiar with but not know the protein content, and to be introduced to a few new players.

Have fun!

Blackeyed peas 1 cup 14
Cannellini 1 cup 17
Cranberry bean 1 cup 17
Fava bean 1 cup 13
Garbanzo beans 1 cup 15
Great Northern 1 cup 15
Green peas 1 cup 9
Kidney beans 1 cup 15
Lentils 1 cup 18
Lima beans 1 cup 15
Mung beans 1 cup 14
Navy beans 1 cup 16
Pink beans 1 cup 15
Pinto beans 1 cup 14
Soybeans 1 cup 29
Split peas 1 cup 16

Amaranth 1 cup 7
Barley flakes 1 cup 4
Barley pearls 1 cup 4
Buckwheat groats 1 cup 5
Cornmeal 1 cup 3
Millet 1 cup 3
Oat groats 1 cup 8
Oat bran 1 cup 6
Quinoa 1 cup 7
Brown rice 1 cup 5
White rice 1 cup 4
Wild rice 1 cup 4
Rye berries 1 cup 7
Rye flakes 1 cup 7
Spelt berries 1 cup 6
Teff 1 cup 5
Triticale 1 cup 6
Wheat berries 1 cup 25

Cous cous 1 cup 6
Bulgur wheat 1 cup 5
Boca burger 1 13
White wave seitan 3 oz 31
Corn grits 1/2 cup 6
7 grain cereal 1/2 cup 8
Bob's 8 grain 1/2 cup 8
Bob's 10 grain 1/2 cup 12
Bob's Kamut 1/2 cup 10
Bob's Triticale 1/2 cup 8
Cream of Rye 1/2 cup 10
Kashi 1/2 cup 12
Mother's Multigrain 1/2 cup 10
Quaker Oats 1/2 cup 10
Quinoa Flakes 1/2 cup 6
Roman Meal 1/2 cup 10
Wheatena 1/2 cup 10