My Manic Journey on the Road to Health ­ Confessions of a 4-F Vegan

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My Manic Journey on the Road to Health ­ Confessions of a 4-F Vegan

By Starr Lambert

www.livinglargenow.com

 

 

Let me begin by declaring I am NOT a fan of tofu sausage, manipulated turkey

that looks, smells and tastes like bacon, or ever had dreams of becoming a

vegetarian and living ³off the land². I¹m more the ³Let¹s do Tuscany and

Paris² type, sampling every epicurean delight along the way.

 

Faced with a tired, dragging body that groaned every time I pressed it into

service and a scale that dented and audibly groaned every time I stood on

it, I resolutely decided to get healthy. Ugh! Visions of tofu ice cream,

bland, tasteless meals and DEPRIVATION flooded my thoughts. But I knew the

job had to be done, so I began what I fondly refer to as my ³Ode to the

Avocado² period.

 

Armed with pH saliva test strips to check my blood acid level (to alkalize

my blood, recommended by my naturopathic physican) cookbooks on healthy

menus and charts on what supplements would raise or lower ³whatever²

(science isn¹t my strong suit), the food frenzy ensued. Shelves were stocked

with sea salt and exotic herbs, elixirs and dextoxification remedies as I

raced back to health! Every meal became an adventure into the realm of

perfect nutritional balance as I zealously flipped fruit, vaulted veggies

and blended, juiced, diced, chopped, sauteed, steamed and liquified my way

back to health.

 

Amazingly colorful concoctions filled plates and bowls with texture and

flavor, albeit some of it rather questionable and often not reserved for

seconds...avocados became my friends; uncooked tomato sauce crowned portions

of whole-grain pasta; lively, piquant sauces nestled contentedly in my

Œfridge awaiting raw vegies and Œmock¹ crackers. My garbage disposal

resembled a Mexican serape festooned with colorful peelings from red, green

and yellow peppers, cucumbers, red cabbage and melon rinds. My entire

apartment smelled faintly like a lemon and orange grove in southern

California except on the nights when the menu called for garlic and onions

in which case the aroma lingered for days, hanging in the air like a two-day

old Greek festival in mid-summer¹s heat.

 

Week after week I energized and detoxified! My energy improved, my weight

dropped, my blood alkalized and I had triumphedŠ until that defining moment

when I returned to my roots in NYC to promote my new book.

 

It was October, the air crisp, the leaves crunchy and my resistance low. For

three solid days I turned my back on the cuisine of my youth...pizza oozing

cheese and grease from pepperoni; NY cheesecake; Peking duck; enormous

steaks, cooked medium-rare and slathererd in blue cheese; chewy, authentic

bagels that take 10 minutes to chew; real rye bread. But what started me on

my downward spiral into the pit of pH hell was the Reuben sandwich from the

Stage Delicatessen.

 

It is February and I am just now recovering!! You can take the girl out of

NY....but the acid from the corned beef still courses through her veins.