Convenience Eating: Microwaveable Meals

Eating at work can be hazardous. How many times have I attempted to take a lunch and left it in the heat to rot? Or brought a homemade dish in a plastic container only for said container to leak all over the floor of the car or the car seat itself? Its horrendous. Now I know what you’re thinking: “Hannah, why don’t you just take those handy microwaveable meals they have nowadays?” My reply is simple… microwaveable meals are processed—meaning they are full of soy protein isolate, soy lecithin or soy flour (or all of the above). Its has been a hard road finding a soy free, handy, affordable microwaveable alternative so my soy free lifestyle.

But the hard road has hard won rewards! After digging around in the internet and then my local Kroger (which has the best options for organic foods which are often subsequently soy free) I found Amy’s. Now, I’ve had amy’s in the past. Their soups are fabulous and I’ve eaten them on and off over the years. But I’d only ever found them at Whole Foods and the closest one to me is about an hour away (tragic I know). But after my said digging I found that Kroger has a host of Amy’s variety and Amy’s has a large variety of soy free options.

Keep in mind though that you will have to check the labels. Amy’s does employ the use of Tofu in some of their dishes (an obvious soy no no) but some of the burritos and even a few of their meals (though not a whole lot of ‘em) have some variety of soy in their ingredients list. But they have a boat load of soy free options which are equally delicious as they are convenient and relatively affordable. By “relatively” I mean that they will be slightly more expensive than the Lean Cuisine counterpart but less expensive than the organic options you would find at Whole Foods.

Everything from their Tamale Verde to Paneer Tikka Masala and Pizza Bites are fair game to the soy free eater. All of their options are also vegetarian so I’ve begun having a protein smoothie in the morning (more on this in my next episode) to make sure I have enough protein in my diet. Over all though the meals are filling, nutritious and tasty.

Whats more, I wrote in to Amy’s via their website (which by the way has a host of information about their products including which ones are soy free and which ones are not) and let them know how excited I was about this new discovery of mine. They promptly thanked me via email and then mailed me a book of coupons. Their company supports health care at work (they have a clinic onsite for their 700+ employees) and seem concerned with their community and their contribution to society. In short, besides their decision to sell their products at walmart (a limited variety but its there) I find them a company I can get behind. I budget my lunches around their meals and enjoy them on a consistent basis.

Restaurant Review: Panera

It’s been a while since I’ve written. Life has gotten in the way but the journey for soy free living continues. Of the few restaurants I can eat at in Gainesville Panera is the one I eat at the most. There are a few reasons:

1   1)   A large soy free selection

2   2)   Amazing service at the Gainesville location

3   3)   Great prices for what you get

Panera’s large selection of soy free items comes mostly from inhouse baked breads. There are quite a few that I cannot eat (I will provide a large list) and a lot of their desserts are off limits due to the presence of soy lecithin.  But I can routinely sit down and order a sandwich, soup or salad combo and be able to eat everything that comes on my plate—a rarity indeed.

            What’s more the service at the Gainesville location is excellent even during the crowded lunchtime hour. It’s even better that the staff at the Gainesville location now know me, my normal order and are incredibly prompt with service and a smile. My order has never been wrong, they make sure I get what I need and, at times, have even checked their enormous ingredient book to see what desserts I could actually consume. Just delightful.

            I can easily get half a sandwich, a bowl of soup, a drink and a dessert for under $12 bucks. The bread is quality and edible, the soup is hot and delightful and the oatmeal cookies are the best. I also like the fact that I can eat the cheap-ish meal (for eating out anyway) and not feel guilty about the caloric intake. The restaurant has the calories listed on the menu up front so I know how much I’m spending and how many calories it will cost me.

            All in all I make Panera a stop on my lunch schedule at least once a week. Their service and food make it will worth the $12 I shell out to eat it.

Soy Free Bread:

Sesame Semolina

Stone Milled Rye

French Bread

Country Miche & Loaf

Three Cheese Loaf

Asiago Cheese

French Crossant

French Baguette

Sour Dough

White Whole Grain

Tomato Basil

All Natural White

Soy Bread:

Focaccia

Ciabatta

Cinnamon Raisen Bread

Honey Wheat

Whole Grain

Soy Free Desserts:

Wild Berry Scone

Raisin Oatmeal Cookie

Shortbread

All other desserts (sadly) are soy sullied.

Happy (soy free) eating!

Bread of Life... and Crazy.

Bread, or a type there of, has be a staple food in the diet of the west for over a millennia. As we know bread today there are only a few ingredients… flour, sugar, salt, yeast, butter and water. The recipe can change here or there but for the most part that is how bread is made. Yet, when you go into a grocery store today the bread ingredients read a little like this: Enriched Bleached Flour [Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Iron, Thiamin Mononitrate (Vitamin B1), Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Folic Acid], Water, Whole Grain [Whole Wheat Flour, Brown Rice Flour (Rice Flour, Rice Bran)], Wheat Gluten, Skim Milk, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Sugar, Yeast, Butter (Cream, Salt), Contains 2% or Less of Each of the Following: Calcium Sulfate, Salt, Dough Conditioners (May Contain One or More of the Following: Mono- and Diglycerides, Ethoxylated Mono- and Diglycerides, Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Calcium Peroxide, Datem, Ascorbic Acid, Azodicarbonamide, Enzymes), Guar Gum, Calcium Propionate (Preservative), Distilled Vinegar, Yeast Nutrients (Monocalcium Phosphate, Calcium Sulfate, Ammonium Sulfate and /or Calcium Carbonate), Corn Starch, Vitamin D3, Soy Lecithin, Soy Flour. Holy mother of God. That is all I have to say.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not a huge raw, non-processed food junkie or anything. But there is something quite polarized about 5 ingredients next 25. I mean, what the hell is ethoxylated Mono- and Diglycerides?! My word processer doesn’t even recognize those words!! Anyway, the point is that bread, in this country, is slightly skewed from its simple counterpart. Three of the ingredients in that bread cause me insanity. Both Soy Lecithin and Soy Flour but also vitamin B2 is grown (yes grown) on soy based products. So, as stated in an earlier blog I don’t know if it makes me go nutty but I eat it as little as possible.

The sad state of affairs is that basic soy free bread (soy lecithin and soy flour and soy oil) let alone vitamin soy free bread (free of enriched flour containing B2) is impossible to find. There are a few out there that are basic soy free. The only bread I can find on a shelf at a grocery store that is basically soy free is sourdough bread. That’s it. There is no soy free alternative on the shelf unless it is sourdough and because most basic bread shelves don’t have sourdough I am left breadless. I love bread.

One of the few places that has loaves of bread in my area that are edible (though they still contain enriched flour) is at Publix. Not only do they have two different types of sourdough bread baked fresh daily, their staff has gone to great lengths too look at their oils, mixes and oats to ensure that the bread IS in fact soy free. They have never made me feel like I’m a problem. Jacob, who works at the bakery in Publix on Enota St. is my favorite. Good kid, hard worker and incredibly thorough. Anyway, the point is that they have a five grain sour dough (quite delightful) and a regular sour dough (equally as good though not as hearty) that are nice and inanity free.

The sad part about bread though is that I can no longer consume regular doughnuts, most pastries or a hamburger bun at a restaurant. There are two places where I can eat a regular meal. Big City Bread Company in Athens and the Nachoochie Grill near Helen are both restaurants that have an offering of fresh baked bread in-house that is edible. Both have staff that were knowledgeable and worked through my food issue. I recommend them both for their amazing breads.

I have tried my hand at making homemade doughnuts. It was a reasonable effort that ended in some lovely doughnut whole concoctions. Whole wheat biscuit mix and some oil and some butter and VOILA! You have a tasty treat. It ain’t no krispy kreme but it gets the job done. I shall be perfecting the recipe over time and will keep you all posted. Until then my friends, home make your bread or check out some good sour dough at your local grocer bakery. Happy Sunday!

Target: The Land of Plenty... Snacks that is.

One of my favorite places to shop for snack foods is Target. This may seem a little strange but Target’s own food brand, Archer Farms, is organic and usually pretty healthy. I can actually eat about 80% of their offerings (at least at my Target). My particular Target is a smaller one but they still have a pretty large Archer Farm selection—though after looking online I have found that they don’t offer near what’s really available.

Speaking of their website, if you’re looking for nutritional information or ingredients online to make the in-store shopping experience easier than you will fail miserable. Target does not have a habit of listing any of this information on their own website. There are some forums that have ingredients and such listed but they aren’t coming from the source.

Overall though, their snack selection is off the chairn. Their corn chips for example are amazing and fried in corn oil and come in a large variety (the blue corn is my favorite). Their salsa is amazing, their fruit snacks are wonderful and they have a kickin’ orgranic nut section.  Archer Farms is one of the few companies that offer a fruit snack variety that is soy lecithin free. They are quite tasty… try the blueberry flavor. They have a large variety of breakfast cereals, which are also soy free. The ones at my local Target were all soy-free but check the label to be sure.

What I find most amazing though is that their frozen pizzas are soy free! This is the only brand outside of a Whole Foods that offers this type of wonderment. I haven’t had a chance to look at all them as, again, my Target’s selection is smaller. But the Mediterranean Tomato Arugula variety is fantastic and paired with their blackberry lemon juice… BAM. So awesome.

If you dive into their bread section however you will be greatly disappointed. All of their breads are soy-filled disaster areas. A lot of their granola bars also have soy in them and anything with chocolate is off limits. Other than that you can have a field day! Go get that wonderful soy free goodness.

The Loves and Landmines of Eating Soy Free at Home

Let me start this by saying I love to eat. This is why I started this soy blog. To figure out what things I can eat. So these are a few of my favorite things I eat at home that are soy free and both awesomely healthy and not.

First off, I’d like to thank the God above that skittles are, in fact, soy free. I have a slight (ok ok… huge) obsession with skittles. I eat them constantly. I’ve cut down to 2-3 bags a week. Sometimes 4. But only sometimes.

Secondly, both Capt’n Crunch AND Coco Puffs are soy free. This means that my mornings are saved by these wonderfully sugary concoctions of glory. They are highly processed and both contain Riboflavin. I have just found out that this particular vitamin is often made by fermenting petrochemicals in soybean oil. It is the by-product of this process that is used to make Riboflavin, also called B2. So while the cereals are soy free the riboflavin might not be and may or may not affect me. The bad thing? There is no way of finding out which plants that make B2 use soybean oil and which ones don’t let alone figuring out which companies use which plant. The good thing? Riboflavin is usually in cereals and breads in miniscule amounts. It’s possible that even if the kind I eat was processed through soy that the amount is so small I don’t have a sensitivity to it.

My favorite breakfast though is Fage (pronounced Fah-yae) yogurts with Stacy’s cinnamon sugar pita chips. Fage has a wonderful assortment of flavors and my current favorite is the Blueberry Acai berry one. It goes really really well with Stacy’s pita chips. Those pita chips are the shit and handle a sweet craving. They’re only mildly processed and they are soy free. There’s lots of flavors but I happen to like those cinnamon ones best.

For a quick dinner get a tube of morning breakfast sausage in the sage flavor (be sure to check labels.. Jimmy Dean rarely uses soybean protein isolate but recipes for sausage can change by region).  I use about a quarter of a tube. Get a can of Amy’s veggie lentil soup, a box of instant mash potatoes, some butter and some parmesan cheese. What you have my friends, is amazing.

            Pan-fry your sausage while you have your soup warming up in a little pot. Put a tablespoon of butter in the bowl you will be using along with about a half cup (more of less depending on how thick you want it to be) of instant mash potatoes. Grate your parmesan (about a quarter cup) and put that in the bowl too. Put, your now bubbling, soup (about half the can) in the bowl with the cheese, butter and potatoes and stir. The soup will thicken up and the butter will melt. Put in the sausage and what’s left is a veggie, sausage, cheesy, mashed potato bowl of awesomeness. It might actually change your life.

Over all I’m finding my way around the kitchen quite nicely. There are land mines though… any dressing (just about) that comes in a plastic container is usually made with soybean oil. If I ever want to eat mayonnaise again I will have to make it myself. Breads must be bought from the baker section of nice grocery stores (walmart doesn’t cary any soy free bread except for the occasion sour dough) and tortillas are nearly impossible to find soy free. Other than that though life is settling down into a nice pace of soy free eating. What’s next on the list for my blog you ask? The best place to buy excellent snacks. Stay tuned!

Restaurant Review: Five Guys

When you walk into any Five Guys restaurant in America you might think it’s the typical burger joint. One that fries in crappy oil, has frozen fries and icky burger meat. One glance at their website or chat with any of their employees however sets the record right.

Their website, opposed to many other chain restaurant websites, is incredibly helpful. You can check out their frequently asked questions page which, addresses basic allergen information here: http://www.fiveguys.com/about-us/faq.aspx. They also address basic soy questions too.

There are a few restaurants in the world where I can eat 90% of the menu. Five Guys is one them. This is due, in part, to their relatively simple menu and frying oil choices but still… its just wonderful.

The Things I cannot eat at Five Guys:

·      The Bun

·      Mayo

Things I can eat at Five Guys:

·      The Burgers

·      The Hotdogs

·      Cheese

·      Fries

·      And ALL their fixins

Five Guys’ saving grace is that they fry in peanut oil. So their fries, which are hand cut and made fresh daily, are not only wonderful they are soy free. Their grill is soy free too. So their superb grilled mushrooms and onions are edible as well.

For the vegetarians out there Five Guys does have a Veggie Sandwich, which I hear is pretty awesome but I haven’t tried it myself. The Five Guys website says they do their best to make these on meat free grills. So check with your local institution to see if they can accommodate you.

The staff is usually pretty helpful (at least at the one in Gainesville, Ga) and they happily checked to ensure the hot sauce, A-1 sauce and Bar-B-Q sauce were all soy free too. Overall, the staff is pretty obliging and ensures the dining experience is a good one—I can be sensitive to asking staff or a waiter a billion questions about their food and making them run around nilly willy figuring it out. So their helpfulness coupled with an informative website made my eating experience really wonderful.

Over all grade of Five Guys: A-

The Beginning.

The Reality:

The American diet is pervaded by soy. It is in many many processed foods, fast food and chain restaurants.  Soy makes it way into our mouths without a hint of most of the nation knowing it.

Now, many of you may be asking, what’s so wrong with that? Isn’t soy a super food or something? Well, some studies do show soy helping everything from heart health to eyesight, but studies once showed that smoking was healthy for your lungs so who really knows? Not I. What I do know is that I have sensitivity to the stuff.

The Story:

At one point in my life I ate a significant amount of soy. I liked soymilk and tofu and even thought about going vegetarian and in doing so increased my soy intake to substitute for other meat products. Now, I have to admit, during this time my caffeine intake was out of control and sugar intake could sink a ship. What happened as a result was a state of emotional anxiety that bordered on the unmanageable.

I was never the type to take much stock in the idea that my food intake could really change my emotional state. However, after changing how I lived, what activities were in my life and started therapy my anxiety was still unmanageable and getting worse. I had two options left: take a look at my food intake or go on medication. I decided to go with the latter first before resorting to medications. With the help of the Know Thyself Nutritional Program (you can look at their website here: http://knowthyselfnutrition.com/main.html) I began my journey into the concept that food could and would drastically change my life.

Within a few short days I had taken out all processed foods from my diet along with soy, citrus, wheat and fried foods. In short, I ate organic meat, rice, some fruit and a host of veggies. Long gone were the days of skittles (of which I am obsessed), caffeine or any of my favorite morning cereals (Capt’n Crunch, CoCo Puffs and Cinnamon Toast Crunch). Now this period of eating only fruit, veggies, rice and meat only lasted two weeks. This was to detox my body back to all non-processed foods and take out all foods, which are known to cause allergic reactions or sensitivities (gluten, soy, peanuts and citrus to name a few). After the first week of eating this way me entire emotional spectrum changed. I hadn’t had a panic attack in nearly a week! By the end of the second week I had been panic and anxiety free the entire time and this hadn’t happened in YEARS.

In short, I knew one thing: the way I was eating was causing my anxiety. Now I just had to find out WHAT food was causing it and get it out of my system. In short order soy was put back into my diet. After a glass of soymilk at breakfast and lunch I began feeling irritable but I fluffed it off on all the schoolwork I had to do. By the next day however, I was in the fetal position. The thought of going outside or having to talk to someone was so overwhelming I panicked. I was in a full out panic attack. I realized it must have been off the soy, stopped eating it and over the next few days returned to my normal state. It was just that simple.

Since that time I have never eaten the amount of soy as I once did. It is however, it the vast majority of easy access foods in the U.S. and because of this I have, at times, eaten it on a regular basis in small amounts in processed foods (like at a fast food establishment or in cereal). The result is nothing like ingesting soymilk but I do have consistent irritability, emotional shifts and often feel paranoid and perceive judgment. Off of soy these go away almost completely. I do occasionally have “normal” panic attacks but I can actually feel the difference in my brain when they’re happening.

The Purpose:

The purpose of this blog is not to convince you that you might have sensitivity to soy. The purpose is not to convince you that soy is evil nor is it my purpose to try and change your eating habits. My purpose IS to let you know how rampant soy is in the American diet and let you in on the adventures (and misadventure) of my eating habits.

I will let you know the best restaurants to eat soy free are or, at least, let you know what foods at what restaurants you can actually eat. I’ll let you know the best grocery stores to shop, the best bakeries and keep you up to date on recipes that you can try.