The Protein Question

I am always (read: ALWAYS) getting asked about protein as a vegan, and that became a question posed with even greater intensity and looks of alarm when I transitioned to a 100% raw-vegan diet. Despite decades of available information (think Frances Moore Lappe and John Robbins) and an ever-increasing exposure to a variety of cuisines, there still seems to be some sort of block on the protein "issue". Recently I ran across this thread on a favorite raw forum I hit up for recipes (when I have the time!), containing an excellent -- clear and concise -- summary by contributor 'Evigail' on just how our bodies utilize amino acids (the building blocks of proteins) from the food we ingest and how a plant-based diet can meet our needs. So I'm posting it -- in part to share useful information, but selfishly to have a post to direct the questioners to when I don't feel like having to explain myself over and over and over and over again...

Teacher Sarah polkas to Dennis Murphys

My ceilidh teacher Sarah at the weekly Bozeman Celtic music session, 317 Irish Pub on Sunday night... she kicks butt. Literally.

Warm! Sort of...!

I was up the stairs and prepping myself to bear against the cold for my morning run, dreading the icy sting at 6 am, when.... the icy sting wasn't there. It was 38 degrees. 38 DEGREES! I never thought I would get so excited by anything so ridiculous (though I'm sure I must have, and sort of vaguely remember doing so, when I lived here before...but that's what cold-climate-living-induced Post Traumatic Stress Disorder does: it blots out the past, and rather effectively at that. No need to remember such things as blue toes and 9 months of winter and endlessly scraping windshields and endlessly shoveling off driveways.... ). I joyfully BOUNDED through my run (the most variable striding and non-gingerly-marathon-shuffling in at least 2 weeks...), opened all the windows, walked around outside downtown as much as possible in California-worthy clothes while still getting lots of productive work done at my favorite organic tea spot, as all the warmth and humidity (it actually rained) did absolute double-take wonders for my energy level and attention span...

This confirms it: I do NOT belong here. All the local-yokels were bitching all day about how it was "damp" and "slushy" and "awful" and the cause of their "ruined skiing plans"... Well, this former local-yokel will personally take comfortable temps and breathable humidity levels over freezing herself over anything so inconsiderate as to think of involving snow any day of the year -- and most importantly, even if it was just for one day, it has sure made the prospect of making it through to Christma-Chanu-Kwanza-Ramadani-Solsti-Festivus-ica Break in California a lot more something like doable.

Wonders Really Will Never Cease...

Well, the impossible (at least one of them, anyway) has happened: the 45-75F gypsy vegan runner has become an often-sub-zero Montana-winter gypsy vegan runner, and still a night-runner at that (have to keep earning the rights to my other trailnames, Jerry!). I'd counted on the indoor track at MSU getting me through this reverse-migration stint in Bozeman, but, alas (read: BUGGER-BLAST-BOLLOCKS), they do their renovation projects backwards here and are working on the indoor track in the winter so that it can be open by summer. Right...

After the 24-hour run, I had tendinitis in one foot and a flare-up of a old left-knee ITBS that I've been playing tag with for the last few years, and so between PT and rehabbing hadn't really been running enough (or at all, at times) to really notice the coming potential dead-stop with the change in weather on the way. Then it hit like a ton of bricks (or a #*@$load of snow and negative temps) just as I was ready to start testing out some real distance... and not only could I "not run", I didn't want to leave the indoors at all. But it wasn't too long before I was going nuts and needing to run or completely lose any marbles still left upstairs, so thanks to about 20 lbs of polar fleece, my trusty running buddy Kermit the Second, and -- the real star and savior of this story -- the YakTrax PRO I found via my favorite Zombies Don and Gillian before leaving dear California that seemed like they might come in handy sometime down the road, I am, indeed, back on it (and yes, beloved trailrunning friends, off it too :).

I've run every evening and/or night this past week and a few the week before, and and even taken to my old Bay Area practice of run-commuting to and from errands, appointments, etc in the past few days (ran through the drive-up ATM at the bank last night!). Getting my mileage back up looking toward running with Catra and Jerry over Christmas and Franklin's Fat Ass 50K back up here in January... and in the meantime am getting to know the whole part and parcel of this running-in-winter mess, like eye-cicles (icicles that form, after about 3 minutes some nights, in the corners of my eyes) , the need to keep fingers moving (and the yowl-producing consequences if I forget), what happens if I forget to "clear" my YakTrax whenever I get the pavement to do it and then run onto a shitload of ice...only made that mistake once so far with nothing more detrimental than me looking a twit trying to stay upright. And yes, I hate it, I dread going outside before every run and have to talk myself into it and psych myself up for it and put really, really good music on Kermit the Second... but as much as I absolutely hate the cold, and as much as I ABSOLUTELY hate snow, I simply love running more. And as long as I have a say, nothing -- not even Kelvin -- will get between me and all those miles (or kilometers) still left to cover.

24 Hours All Over Again

I am doing the San Francisco One Day 24-Hour Race again this year... and THIS year, I plan to RUN, not let my knee get some weird idea of it's own to have some problem that makes me walk for 51 miles and end up with tendinitis in my right shin. Sounds like a good plan, ja?!? An even better plan: this year I'm not just running for myself. I am asking for sponsors-per-mile to raise funds for my friend Jenny, who became a quadriplegic in a bicycle accident in July... and someone who was there for me, many times, gunning for me and showing me that I could do and be more than I thought. Now it is her turn to receive that support from her friends and extended family... and bolstering the Fund will help her continue her critical therapies uninterrupted when she leaves Craig Hospital at the end of this month. If you can swing a few cents (or even a penny, everything helps!) per mile, send me an email here at gypsyvegan@gmail.com; for more information or if you need more convincing, check out the post at the Jenny's Twenty blog for more details and information.

Pickle Dilled

Perfect socks found: the Asics Kayano Low Cut Foot-Specific socks. Tested on road and trail, short distance, long distance and ultra, dry and soaked, powdered and un-powdered, BodyGlided and un-BodyGlided feet. Ultra thin most everywhere, thicker in the places that keep them from sheering through on long runs and where a little extra padding helps, no blisters so far, zero heel slippage, and totally 100% cruelty free -- Asics is even certified free from sweatshop labor. And the added bonus of the socks making my feet look like bumble-bees. Brilliant.

Eating for Peace

In looking back through John Robbins' website for his brilliant article on the slave labor ubiquitous in the chocolate industry, I found a talk he had posted some time ago by the Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh on Mindful Consumption entitled "Eating for Peace". He is an eloquent speaker, and it is a beautiful talk, well worth reading.

It is easy, for many of us, to look upon our fellow beings with the level of compassion that says: you are worthy of life, and I will not eat you. It is also a relatively easy deduction that in this critical time of impendingly-irreversible climate change, making dietary choices that promote rather than prohibit the health of the environment is a pretty good idea. And to those for whom both of these concepts seem difficult or inconvenient, and to all of us, here is the point:
It is a moral outrage that ANYONE, ANYWHERE should have to suffer the pain and despair of malnutrition and death due to starvation when there is a simply ridiculous amount of food on this planet. Yes, there are political and social-instability factors that play into the distribution of global food resources -- but when the largest nations on Earth transform unthinkably vast amounts of inexpensive nutrition into comparatively little product that is not necessary for human health and out of reach financially to all but the top 5% of the world's population simply because of a preference for the taste of animal flesh, then something is terribly wrong. Isn't it?