[If you're looking for my email address, check the left sidebar. While I appreciate every email I get, I regret that I'm not able to answer every one.]
Who are you?
My name is Susan, and I'm a vegan--in other words, I don't eat or wear anything that's made of or by animals. I went vegetarian in 1988 because I didn't want to eat animals. Then, about 6 years later, I eliminated all animal products from my life, learned how to cook without added fat, and lost over 100 pounds. (Just to be clear, I fell off the fat-free wagon and regained much of that weight, so I'm no "after photo" yet.) For the past few years I've maintained the Fatfree Vegan Recipes website, a collection of over 1400 (and growing) low-fat vegan recipes sent in by hundreds of people.
I live in Jackson, MS, with my husband, D, and our 12-year-old daughter, E, who both test my recipes and offer helpful criticism. Or at least they think they're being helpful! I don't use their full names here because they're easily embarrassed.
What's this "fatfree" business all about?In general, I don't use refined fats (oil, margarine, and shortening) in cooking. This simply means that instead of sautéing in oil, I use water or broth. In baking, I substitute apple sauce or flax seeds or some other substance for margarine, butter, or shortening. I do use a little sesame oil now and then because a little bit imparts a lot of flavor. And once in a very long while, I go crazy and make something with a little olive oil in it, but this is rare, and I don't use whole heaping gobs of it.
Wait a minute...I saw a recipe with coconut milk...and another with walnuts. Those aren't fat-free ingredients!
You're very observant! Yes, I sometimes use lite coconut milk (though I'm trying to cut down), and I do include avocados, nuts, and seeds in my diet as forms of healthy, unrefined fat. This blog properly should have been called "Oil-free Vegan Kitchen," but I didn't like the way that sounded.
But if you don't use any fats, how do you get your Essential Fatty Acids?
Again, I do use avocados, nuts, and seeds in my cooking. In fact, what you don't see from looking at the blog is that just about every day I eat walnuts and flax seeds on my lunch salad. Flax and walnuts are both excellent sources of Omega 3 fatty acids. I definitely believe in getting EFA's, just not in the form of refined oils but in their natural "packages," along with all the other beneficial nutrients that nuts and seeds contain.
Why do you eat this way?
In short, I'm convinced that a diet high in fruits and vegetables and low in animal products and refined foods is the healthiest way to live. Moreover, since I started eating this way, I've lost weight and have become much healthier and more energetic. I also think it's important to feed my daughter a healthy vegan diet so that her chances of having cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and other illnesses as an adult are reduced.
But don't you want to enjoy eating? Isn't it important to enjoy food?
Yes! Though I do believe that what we eat affects our health, I also think that food feeds our senses and affects us emotionally as well as physically. Food to me is something of a celebration, and cooking is a gift I give to my family and friends; I want it to taste good to them as well as be good for them. That's actually why I'm writing this blog. I wanted to show others that a healthy vegan diet does not have to be boring and bland. If it did, I would have given it up long ago!
I don't follow a fat-free diet. Can I add oil or margarine to your recipes to make them taste better?
My recipes are all about tasting good while keeping the fat, sugar, salt, and processed ingredients to a minimum. I experiment with ingredients to get the best taste without using oils or margarine, and sometimes I increase the seasonings to compensate for the reduced fat. If you want to sauté in oil or substitute oil or margarine for the apple sauce in some of my baked goods, I certainly can't stop you. But I can't promise that the spices and seasonings will work as well as in the original recipe.
Is there a name for this type of diet? Any books about it?Yes, there are actually several.
Eat to Live is a book and way of eating created by Dr. Joel Fuhrman. You can find out more about it at
his website or on the
FAQs page on mine. Another very low fat vegan diet is the
The McDougall Program, by Dr. John McDougall. You can discover more at
his website. And recently Caldwell Esselstyn has done research showing that a fat-free vegan diet can
Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease.
Any more links you want to share?As a matter of fact, there are:
Eating a low-fat vegan diet may be better at managing type 2 diabetes than traditional diets
Ten Reasons to Keep Eating Healthy Foods Despite Today’s Headlines
A Clear Case Against Moderation (what the recent study of low-fat diets really tells us)
Fats in nuts and seeds or avocado enhance your absorption of other nutrients
Veggie, low-fat diet lowers cholesterol more
15 Reasons to Avoid Vegetable Oils (with references cited)
How do you get the nutritional information that follows most of the recipes?
I'm currently using a program called The Living Cookbook to analyze my recipes and provide the graphic nutritional info. (I previously used software called MasterCook, which is primarily a recipe archiving program, as well as the website Nutritiondata.com.) I enter the recipes' ingredients into Living Cookbook, but since a lot of the ingredients I use are not in its database, I use Nutritiondata as well as the products' packages and input the nutrition data into the program (I only have to do this once for each new ingredient). There are more expensive and professional programs available, but this solution works well for me. I advise anyone who purchases either Living Cookbook or MasterCook to double-check its accuracy right at first, until you get accustomed to the way it works. It too easily can think you mean 16 ounces of dried beans when you meant 16 ounces of cooked beans--a difference of around 1000 calories!
What kind of camera do you use?
When I started the blog, I used a 4 megapixel
Olympus Camedia 4000. In August of 2006, I moved up to a
Canon Rebel XT, a digital Single Lens Reflex camera, and a
50mm lens. Last December (2007), I treated myself to Canon's latest SLR, the
40D; its larger viewfinder and LCD appealed to my aging eyes. (For some of my photography tips, check out the bottom of
this post.)
