Vegan Cleansing Recipes

Today Was the Last Day of the Vegetarian Festival

This is a basic seaweed salad with cucumbers, tomatoes, garden greens and red peppers. I soaked the seaweed once in water as it tends to be too salty otherwise, then drizzled it with oil and soy sauce and squeezed lemon on top.

Today was the last day of the Phuket vegetarian festival. I have been partaking in it, though I’ve been quite easygoing this year, i.e. I’ve been consuming things with milk, cheese and eggs and even tried some 160 proof Scottish whiskey on Sunday night, Lord forgive me. The purpose of a cleanse is somewhat different than taking on a longer time lifestyle choice, tough it does involve an effort to think about what and how you eat.

I’ve had short stages in my life when I was vegetarian, though I was most commonly pescetarian, which means I would eat seafood but no other meat. This struck me at the time as most morally consistent with where I was, i.e. I was willing to kill snails, clams, oysters, crabs, shrimp and even fish that I had captured myself, but was unwilling to kill a chicken, cow, or pig. I likewise remain willing to gather unfertilized eggs or milk say a cow or a goat, so I have never been vegan except for during short term cleanses.

As I’ve grown older I’ve become less concerned, perhaps because I see death as a part of the circle of life. I still think that periodic cleansing of the body through conscience eating and abstaining is important for spiritual growth. I do not judge anyone regarding their dietary choices. Heck the newest hot diet trend is all meat!

He Only Ate Meat For 30 Days! This is what happened:

It’s a little rich for me, in more ways than one. But I do understand the value of it. After my husband Oh was diagnosed with IBS-D and pancreatitis doctors had a list of no go foods that would have made life extraordinarily difficult if he had been vegan: no beans, no nuts and no cruciferous vegetables. My uncle who had part of his colon removed likewise restricted himself to a lot of heavy meat. A vegetarian or vegan diet, for a lot of cultural and individual reasons, is not for everybody long term. Attempts to save the world by imposing such an authoritarian measure are thankfully outdated since Covidcon. And can somebody tell me if insects are a vegetarian or vegan food or not? Perhaps we can lab grow meat from cells from dead people and stamp it with a vegan label. It sounds like an expensive form of cannibalism to me.

My guess is most of the benefit of an all meat diet is related to the detox to ketogenisis, which involves your body switching over to burning fat. It probably helps if you have fat to burn. There will definitely be a detox if you switch off that many things, and yes animal liver is good and high in nutrients. I don’t think I would recommend that narrow of a diet for a healthy person long term anymore than I would tell them to eat all citrus fruits or all ramon noodles. That’s just me.

Over the years I have done colon cleanses, liver cleanses and kidney flushes. I am the worst at giving up coffee I always cheat with a little of the stuff, even if just one watered down clear brown cup in the morning. I’ve done water and broth fasts (use colonics to get your bowel working on this one), carb free, gluten free, vegan and keto. I think the big problem is that many do not address colonics at all, i.e. you are trying to eliminate toxic accumulation from your body. Most people are not eliminating well enough as is, so when you add a restrictive diet that backs things up even more, you’re just reabsorbing toxins. You want that crap out of your system. Literally.

So just a few quick recipes during my cleanse. I’m sure I could make something edible out of this.

Eggplant is one of my favorites (apologies to those with allergies to the nightshade family): it’s vegetarian, vegan, gluten free and low carb. It can be used across so many restrictive diets and I have many recipes for it. In this case I did something simple: I fried it with oil, white pepper and salt and drizzled lemon juice on at the end. Then I added it to sandwiches with cheese. In the past I have baked mini pizzas in the oven on it and used it as a substitute for breads and pasta in various recipes.

A simple Thai curry that I think is great involves banana flower. Take one tablespoon of cooking oil and brown one small diced onion in it. Add 1 tablespoon of yellow curry, 1 teaspoon of sugar, and lightly salt. Add two cups of diced banana flower. Add one cup of water and let simmer. Add one cup of coconut milk and let stand. Serve over rice.

I don’t think you’ve gone full vegan until you’ve made cheese though. In my case, this is jackfruit cheese. These are some jackfruit seeds.

I like to add about 3/4 seeds with 1/4 immature jackfruit and boil them all together, along with one tablespoon of oil, salt, and three cloves of fresh garlic. I peel the shells off of the jackfruit seeds and blend them with oil, 1/4 cup nutritional yeast, fresh squeezed lime juice and soy sauce. The end result is a soft vegan cheese that makes and incredible dip or compliment spread on bread, crackers or just as a mix in other foods.

It is well past my bedtime but I thought I’d share. Happy eating, whatever that consists of…