Dear Caroline,
You wrote: "By the way, Mary, are you a vegetarian? That I ask is because I am
a vegetarian. But it seems so hard to be a vegetarian here in my city. Yesterday afternoon after arriving in Suzhou, I told my sister that I didn't want to have KFC for supper when she suggested so. She thought I was going on a diet, but actually I am not. I just get sick of KFC, and all other food except vegetable."
Caroline: "I read an article the other day, which said that appetite is of vital importance. Though the writer meant more than just hunger for food when saying
appetite, but I wonder if I go on like this, my appetite for food, and all other things will lose desperately."
Caroline: "Like Dragonfly, I am striving to be a postgraduate next year. Every
day I set myself at the desk and won't relieve myself until the scheduled task is done. It's pretty energy-consuming. So what can I do? I try to do sports twice
a week, like going swimming. But I wonder if my stomach continually fails me like this, how can I go on study without being disturbed.
Mary: No, Ben and I aren't vegetarians. Vegetarians can become very low in some necessary nutrients, especially B-12 and iron. Lack of these could be the reason for your great tiredness.
We generally eat fish three times a week for its value to our brains. This is
usually tinned wild salmon. We also eat a piece red meat with all fat removed before cooking, once per week, usually at lunch on Saturday or Sunday when we have more time to prepare it. The meat is especially so we get our B-12 and iron.
You could cut it into thin slices and cook it lightly in your wok with a little
good quality soy sauce and a bit of olive oil. Then add the vegetables cut into little pieces and saute until the vegetables are crisply tender.
Caroline: Do I have a problem? After last year I had a stomachache and was checked out to have a chronic stomach disorder, I ceased gradully to have meat and all other heavy food. It went all right until I left school later this June.
Mary: Maybe you lived on your iron stores until then. A vegetarian always needs to find a way to make up the B-12 and iron in particular. Maybe you ate sometimes in the school cafeteria then, and now you aren't making up that missing variety of foods? Foods need to be eaten in variety. You should eat a combination
of fruit and vegetables daily which, when counted, amount to from 5 to 12 varieties of both fruits and vegetables. An apple, carrots, peas, beans, and a piece of watermelon = 5. This is a minimum requirement of these fresh things. In addition you need some grains, some protein food and some healthy kind of fat, such as olive oil. Drink enough simple beverages to equal about
eight glasses per day, at least. Always drink when thirsty. "When nature calls
, never wait. If you do so, your body will become regular and it will work and
feel better.
Caroline: Now I live in Shanghai, alone. It's so hard to find a vegetarian restaurant which could meanwhile offer a reasonable price. I try to cook for myself,
but my cooking skill is so bad that every time I all want but to throw the food
I cook away.
Mary: It is best not to eat in restaurants. If you do, be sure they don't use
additives and dyes to make meats look red and fruit and vegetables stay fresh for a long time. Also that they don't use MSG. When you prepare your own food you know how clean it is, how pure it is, and how healthily it was prepared. It is very easy to make food that is edible and healthy. I will describe to you how
we do it, especially about how to get your vegetables.
It pays always to have on hand a little stock of healthy foods you can eat immediately without any preparation. For instance, every morning we have some raw almonds in their skins which we soaked in a little water overnight. We slip off the skins. We also eat a few roasted cashew nuts at the same time. Usually we eat some kind of whole grain, such as wheat bran cereal, and something to drink such as tea or coffee.
Do you have refrigeration available in your apartment? If so, you can buy or cook up a pot of whole grain rice to eat in the mornings. Always have fresh washed fruit available, and eat some at breakfast. Right now our fruit is often watermelon. Sometimes it's a fresh mango, a whole apple, a little handful of apricots, or whatever is plentifully in season.
We eat only whole grain products, such as mixed grain breads or brown rice.
Here's the most easy way to eat a number of kinds of vegetables at a meal, and enjoy them, too. Cut them up and put into a broth or stir fry. It is easily possible to buy good heated broth or soup from street stands in your cities, according to my brother David. If I were in your busy situation I would buy some good clear broth every day from a stand I found had good broth. Heat it at home, add as many pieces of various kinds of cut fresh vegetables as you have, and a little
rice. Simmer on the stove until vegetables are still a little crisp, then serve. It's a tasty and easy way to get sufficient vegetables into your diet. When
you are especially pressed for time buy a fully made soup fromsuch a stand. Soups with beans and vegetables are very good for you.
You could also make a little salad of some vegetables at home. Be sure to use good olive oil to dress your salad and maybe a little of some kind of vinegar and
few chopped herbs, such as cilantro or parsley if you want them. Parsley is a
very nutritious herb and you can just wash it and eat it as a finger food without putting it into a salad. Don't bother with fancy cooking, or sauces. Good quality soy sauce fermented in the old way is a good, healthy addition to soup broth, stir fried vegetables and meat, or purchased broth, or even hot water.
If you eat something like the small lean steak we have on weekends, eat it at noon so it is well digested and gone by bedtime. (The size of the little piece of
lean pork or beef should be about the size of a deck of cards.) Eat more lightly and easily at supper. For instance, have a peanut butter sandwich with a banana sliced on top, and have some more fruit or cooked left-over vegetables.
And a pot of tea. You could have made more than you needed of whatever you ate
at lunch or ate yesterday. If it was safely stored it will be still healthy for
you to eat, even cold, the next day. Be careful how safely you store your prepared foods, though. If you don't have refrigeration then make them up and eat them soon enough.
Before you buy, read all ingredient labels on tins or packages and don't buy any
that have sugar, hydrogenated oils, or chemicals in them. The simpler and closer to nature the better, needs to be your eating rule.
Always have some food in your apartment that you can eat without preparation, such as washed lettuce leaves, avocados to be sliced in half and eaten with a bit
of salt, or mashed and eaten with a whole grain cracker. An egg or two per week (you can keep them hard-boiled), and some tofu also make good, healthy additions to your diet.
Avoid KFC, or other heavy, greasy, breaded foods. No wonder you became so sick.
Your vegetarian's stomach is not used to having to digest greasy food, let alone the meat of the chicken. If you had eaten beef or port you would have felt even worse. So begin with a very small amount of your weekend piece of low fat beef or pork, and built up. Any full vegetarian who doesn't ever eat meat will not feel well even after eating only lean meat.
Remember that your body likes to be a creature of habit. Eat at the same times
every day. It likes to have little snacks in between meals, such as some peanut
butter on some celery sticks, or an apple, or a small piece of cheese. The piece of cheese or the meat should not be larger than a deck of cards. That is a way to judge how large a piece is alright for you to eat.
Try not to drink much fruit juice. It's better to eat the whole fruit which contains many things in their full strength. Don't drink cola drinks at all. In fact don't drink any pop at all as the carbonation isn't good for you, either. Also, pop has far too much sugar in it. Don't use any artificial sweeteners or buy drinks or food that contain them. If you need some sweetener in some of your foods just use a little bit of honey.
The traditional Chinese diet is very healthy. I understand from David that good
, freshly prepared traditional foods are sold from street stands. When they contain fresh vegetables, a bit of meat or fowl or fish, and are traditionally prepared, buy them and thrive on your diet. Don't eat ANY deep-fat fried foods. Avoid all animal fats.
If you must go to a fast food place like KFC or McDonalds, try to order salads with fresh vegetables in tahem. If dressings are supplied with salads you order,
always ask for "dressing on the side" and only use a very little of it by dipping ends of your pieces of vegetable delicately into the dressing. Also, ask for
sauces on the side, and only use a little of them in the same way. Don't ever
allow the restaurant people to deliver your food covered with dressings or sauces. Always ask for these two things "on the side," and you should have a lot left over when you finish your meal. Don't eat *any* ground beef products. There are the parts of very many animals (even thousands,) in each patty, and this is not good, especially now that there is "Mad Cow Disease" correctly known as new variant CJD in the world. When you eat meat it is always wiser to eat a whole
piece from one animal.
Order simple, uncoated chicken when available when you have to eat in a fast food place. If it isn't available, at least scrape off as much of the coating as you can from any chicken or fish dish. Try never to buy coated food and deep-fat
foods of any kind.
Keep whole, washed fresh fruit at hand where you study or work so you are tempted to snack on them. Also have nuts available. Only eat about six nuts for any
snack. When you go out, tuck some nuts and an apple or two in a bag and take them with you in case you get hungry, or need to avoid eating KFC! ;->
You can take half an
hour occasionally to wash fruit and vegetables that can be eaten raw, and to cook your brown rice if you can refrigerate it for a few days's use so that you can
take a little tightly covered container of that with you if you are going to eat it in two or three hours. You can also keep containers of cut up hard vegetables for snacking and for your broth. Don't keep cut up green, yellow or red peppers because they will spoil fast. Tomatoes and peppers can also be eaten as finger foods.
I hope this helps you. I think you will find that you will feel much stronger,
your appetite will return, and your stomach problem will settle down if you eatthis way.
I wish you the very best, dear Caroline. My best wishes to all,
Mary
