FAQ With a Vegan Chef II

Hey folks! Thanks for your wonderful comments and feedback from yesterday's post. One thing I forgot to emphasis is that my eating habits in the last few years were not as great as they could be. I also went through waves of eating way too cleansing of a diet, then binging on sugar. You may need to tweak your diet the longer you are vegan. And I realize now that I could benefit from supplementing since I've eschewed them for the last 9 years. I'm getting back into my healthy routine and my current experiments seem to be working well. I feel really good, sleeping well and waking up refreshed, enjoying lower impact exercise and still feel strong (as seen in the video below), and as long as I have good snacks throughout the day I don't crash mid-afternoon. Also I've been staying away from caffeine, which helps restore the adrenals. 

Here's my second FAQ With a Vegan Chef done video style! Since I had some follow-up questions after this video I will address those questions below the vid. If you have any other questions feel free to leave them in the comments. 

When using full-fat coconut milk from a can, do you just shake it up and use all parts of it or do you let it sit and then scrape the cream off the top? Are there other brands that are bpa-free?

I shake it up and use the whole can. The only time you would leave it sitting and scrap off the top is if you were making a whip cream or something that would need that fatty thick consistency.

Turns out a viewer called Trader Joe's and they said their coconut milk is BPA-free. I knew that some of their canned beans were but wasn't sure if that extended to the coconut milk. So, if you live near a TJ's you are in luck!

I watched today's video about protein, and am a little confused. I thought fruits and veggies gave us enough protein. Is protein powder necessary, or just a choice for you?

Yes, all foods have some form of protein. If you eat a varied diet of whole foods you will not become protein deficient. Whether it's "enough" is really a personal thing. Many vegans overtime find that they lose muscle mass and need more protein to get that back and get strong. I've been doing this over 9 years and recently found that if I do more protein my strength and fitness has improved ten fold. Also issues like candida are very common from a diet based in carbohydrates, bread, sugar, starchy foods. I feel I may have a mild candida issue so I'm having more protein which doesn't perpetuate the problem.

Hope that was helpful! I will try to do these posts and videos more frequently. Feel free to leave your questions in the comments below and I will get to them soon! As always thanks for watching, reading and sharing these posts with your friends. And thank you for being part of these wonderful community where we can openly share and explore!