Side quest: Vegan Comida - Hummus & Soyrizo Quesadilla

Just like collecting pets in WoW or selling Happy Masks as Link, I have a personal IRL (in real life) side quest: Plant-Based Whole Food Mexican meals. 

My first accomplishment (foodie husband approved!) is the spicy hummus-soyrizo quesadilla. The idea came from the blog Love My Vegan Life, who has an excellent recipe. I made a few, spicy, time saving modifications. 

Reference- http://www.lovemyveganlife.com/2012/07/best-vegan-quesadillas.html?m=1 

Ingredients:

Thick corn tortillas

Red pepper hummus

Vegan soyrizo

Diced red tomatoes w/ green chillies 

Chopped Green Onions

Vegan Butter

Directions:

Butter each side of 2 tortillas. On a warmed skillet or griddle, brown one side of each tortilla for just about a minute (till lightly brown). Remove both from heat. Spread the hummus onto a cooked side of one tortilla. Layer the soyrizo, tomatoes, chillies and onions on top. Place the cooked side of the other tortilla onto the quesadilla half. Lower the heat and cook the fully assembled quesadilla on each side until desired brownness is obtained. Enjoy!

P.S. Make it a quick dinner by generously assembling the quesadilla and serving it with vegans refried beans dressed with cilantro. 

If anything will make you vegan...

As a scientist, I can't say this will work for everyone as I only have myself as evidence. 

BUT...

I was vegan and loving it for a few months prior to my wedding in October. Afterward, I "went down" to vegetarian, and kept the dairy minimal. Then, the dreaded time for every college student, finals week! Once returning to a SAD (Standard American Diet and puny acronym) way of eating for the past few weeks, I now want nothing more than to get back on my vegan track! Cheese, my Achilles heel, now just makes me feel like a big slug and meat makes me sleepy. I sincerely miss the satisfied, energized fullness after a delightful vegan meal! 

Also, I am not a fan of food staying inside of me the way (nor as long as) animal products do. If anything made my bowels work like a fine tuned conveyer belt, it's vegan nutrition. A study published in the British Journal of Nutrition (ref. 2) reports that the average vegetarian digestion takes between 27 and 54 hours, while non-veggies take 31 and 96 hours. The median for vegetarians is 40.5 hours while for non-vegetarians it's 63.5. That's a whole day longer! (Which I find gross.)

In 2005, reports Door to Door Organics(ref. 1), Americans ate 12 oz of meat per day. That's just under twice as much as the highest USDA recommended amount! This means that your body is having to process twice the amount of protein it needs and when that protein is meat, it can take days to be completely digested. So hypothetically, if you eat 6 more ounces a day of meat than what your body needs (12 oz is average consumption and 6 oz is average requirement) then in just one week you're carrying around 2.5 extra pounds of meat that your body is taking days to digest and move through you since you don't actually need it. So by simply eating less animal protein and switching to plant protein, you could theoretically lose 2.5 pounds in a week! 

Sugars, salt and fats are another story... ;-)

References:

1. https://blog.doortodoororganics.com/michigan/2012/08/do-you-eat-too-much-protein-infographic/

2. http://www.livestrong.com/article/441273-how-long-does-it-take-a-meat-diet-to-digest-compared-to-a-vegetarian-one/#page=3