Adventures in vegetarianism

While it's not conclusive proof, I'm even more suspicious of soy now. Last month's period was ten days long; this month's was four. The difference: Last month, I ate soy tacos for a week. This month, no soy. Makes you wonder, huh?

In fact, this month was better all around, though by no means enjoyable. The worst part was this past week; I had a migraine that lasted several days, which may or may not have been period related. (They usually are, but this week was also quite stressful.) Still, a vast improvement over last month. I'm now forbidding myself to eat soy.

I'm also preparing to go mostly vegan (no wheat, no dairy) for a month. Most sources recommend you eliminate one, then the other, but I'm just gonna let 'er rip. If I don't see an improvement after cutting most of the joy from my diet, I'm going to eat whatever the heck I want. I was going to do this for the month of April, but then Mom announced her plan to make apple pie for Good Friday. And there's a cake recipe I want to try as well. So now I'm waiting until after Easter, and doing research in the meantime.

The results of this research:

- I tried Uncle Bob's Red Mill Homemade Wonderful GF Bread Mix. I was dubious about the "wonderful" part...no matter how you look at it, bread made with garbanzo bean flour can't really be expected to taste as nummy as bread made with wheat. What I didn't expect was the first mouthful to send me gagging to the trash can. I don't puke easy, but this stuff is just revolting. A friend has recommended rice bread, though, so I've not given up on wheat-free peanut butter sandwiches.

- I also tried rice milk (purchased to make the GF bread above, but I was also curious). It tastes and smells like...nothing. Compared with soy milk, however (the flavor of which horrified and disgusted me), "nothing" is perfectly acceptable. (I will miss my dairy, though.)

- I've decided (at least for the moment) to loosen my diet plans; since I can't eat that many of them anyway, there's no point in excluding eggs. (Besides, most of the vegan substitutes I've found are mostly soy.) In this spirit, I picked up a can of powdered egg whites, since I can never keep fresh eggs/egg product in the house. Which leads to lesson #2 (same night, unfortunately, as the GF bread debacle):

- Brownies made with egg white powder don't gel. I had to bake those things ten extra minutes before they were even semi-solid, and while they are edible, they're a bit on the crunchy side. One more lesson...

- Brownies don't cure migraines. (It was worth a shot.)

Time for some recipe research. I'll let you know if I find anything good.

Get off yer duff

Confirmed today the theory about movement helping cramps. Bad pain day (Lyrica + Darvocet), yet have been doing some light spring cleaning. (I'm not moving furniture, but I'm doing everything else.) And so long as I keep moving, the pain is tolerable. When I stop (like now), it feels like someone's got my hips in a vice.

So I'll get back to it. Just thought I'd share that.

(Longer post to come...I'm finally going to do the vegan thing. More on that later.)