To be vegetarian shouldn't be expensive

The last time I went to Hong Kong, we had dinner in this restaurant.  The menu made me very excited and I wanted to try everything.  How I wish the price was in Philippine peso though.  Sigh.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not complaining about the price as the food was really good and the effort put to prepare each dish was tremendous.  I've spent a good amount of time in the kitchen preparing food for friends and family, and let me just say that it takes a lot of time, energy, and focus.

Yogas citta vritti nirodhah - Part 1 of 2

Yoga is control of the energies of the mind

It was in November 2001.  We won the UAAP cheerleading championship for the third straight year a couple of months back and were still high with cheer spirit when my teammates  and I found this poster announcing free yoga classes every Sunday at the COD Shopping Center in Cubao.

“That’s cool, maybe we can learn some new moves and use that for next year’s routine,” we thought.

A year back, I was already reading this Sivananda Yoga book that I found at the library and sporadically tried to practice the asanas in the living room of a 2-storey-2-bedroom apartment in Katipunan that I shared with six other friends.  Three of us shared one tiny room and I could only have my privacy in the toilet.  For a state university instructor who earned less than USD300 per month, the privacy of my own room was beyond reach.

Fritz and Jill went one Sunday to the free yoga class.  Both said the class was awesome so I joined them the next week to experience my very first yoga class.  The class was taught by this hippy-looking-red-haired mestiza.  Her name was Sandy Carmona, one of the frontrunners of mainstream yoga in the country, who later became an influential person in my own journey.  She instructed us to lie down in a pose called, savasana which means corpse pose.  You were not suppose to move any muscle in the body until the end of that segment because it was in itself is an asana, or yogic posture.  The idea is to remain motionless and as still and steady as possible observing each sensation that one feels in the body.  You’re not suppose to scratch your nose or your butt, nor slap that mosquito that’s enjoying your Type AB blood.  Sandy then led us through a 90-minute long of moving meditation that made me sweat like I never had even in my years of movement and sports training.

“Whoa!!! So this is yoga.” (If there was already Facebook, I would be “like-ing” this status many times over.)

I would later learn from Sandy that yoga is much more than what we were doing on the mat.  Yoga is a way of life, a discipline, and a holistic approach to health and wellness.  Oh, and did I tell you that you couldn’t buy sticky yoga mats from Toby’s back then?  You have to order it from the US.  I’m not even sure if Lululemon had already reached the Philippine shore.

“What’s a Lululemon?”

You don’t know “Lulu?”  Hmnn... let me put it this way.  If you think Nike is expensive, then you’ll think that Lulu is beyond expensive.  One Lululemon top is already worth 1/3 of my salary in UP when I was still an instructor.  Of course now that I’ve been promoted to assistant instructor level, that’s equivalent to ¼ of my current salary.  We’ll discuss this whole Lululemon-thing in another post.

For now, let’s go back to yoga and I will let you ponder upon the meaning of yoga according to Patanjali.

“Who the hell is Patanjali?”

Dude, do  your research.  You can check him out on wikipedia later.  Just sit, close your eyes, and repeat this 108 times.

Yogas citta vritti nirodhah...

Yogas citta vritti nirodhah...

Yoga citta vritti nirodhah...

To be continued...

Baby steps to a vegetarian diet

Earlier this week, I saw the word "vegetarian" in the pile of new books while I was looking for a reference on statistics at the CHK library.

"May I see that book, please?" I asked the librarian.

"Have the College acquired this?"  Suppliers leave a number of books for the faculty to review on a regular basis and the librarian will make the purchase order once the faculty give their recommendation.

"Yes."

"Oh, that's great.  That will be on my to-read list.  I'll postpone borrowing that until the end of this semester."

I quickly browsed through the pages and found this box on page 11, "Steps for an easy transition to a vegetarian diet."

Allow me to share with you those steps.  Below the text box, the Vegetarian Nutrition Dietetic Practice Group, a group under the American Dietetic Association was cited as the source of those suggestions.

• Take stock your current diet or look at your what you eat on a regular basis.  What do you eat for breakfast, lunch, snack, or dinner?  What's inside your fridge?  The first step is to be come aware of what you eat.
• Add more vegetarian meals by revising favorite recipes that are meat based.   My first yoga teacher, Sandy, is not a big fan of fake meat. Eating fake meat is simply "cheating" and may not really teach a person how to eat proper wholesome foods.  I guess instead of substituting the meat with a fake one, use a fresh alternative instead, like tofu or tempeh.  Another way to recreate the meat based dish into a vegetable dish.  For Filipinos who love their sinigang, sometimes the focus is on the meat.  So instead, add more veggies and highlight the greens instead.
• Expand your options by finding new recipes and trying different products from the store. Have you tried pasta with roasted vegetables?   Or pasta with green vegetables and nuts?  These are healthy and delicious recipes which is a good alternative to the Pinoy ultimate favorite - spaghetti with meat sauce.
• Make a list of vegetarian meals that you can eat away from home.  Crackers and cheese, Chinese vegetarian fresh lumpia, vegetable bibimbap, fresh fruits, Cheese-pesto-sandwich.  
• Eliminate meat at breakfast. Although Jessica wrote a very informative article that yoghurt+muesli+fruit for breakfast might not be for you, this easy to prepare breakfast is packed with nutrients that can help you start your day right.  Except of course if you're lactose-intolerant.  I have several books on Ayurveda but I'm not really applying it yet to my diet because I have to address my hunger first.  And with the workload and communiting stress that I experience here in Manila, I don't have the time and the resources to be too picky about what I eat.  I am an ovo-lacto-vegetarian and in my present situation, that's the best way I could go.  I never felt healthier though.  So for a typical mobile Pinoy who wants rice for breakfast, how about garlic rice, fried egg, tofu, and steamed kangkong sans the alamang?
• Take stock of your menu once again.  Do your meals include a variety of grains, legumes, soy, vegetables, and fruits?  Yes.  Do you eat 5 different fruits and vegetables day?  I don't or atleast not very aware that I should have 5 different produce.  Do you eat 6-11 servings of primary whole grains with little processing a day?  Hmnn... 6... yes... I think.  For more information on nutritional guidelines for vegetarians, visit the Vegetarian Diet.

My usual diet is here.  Hope this helps.

Cheers.

Bahay Kubo Diet

Copies are available at Pulse Yoga.