By Stella Santana

If you’re reading this at work, I hope you’ve been working on your chair dance, because this week I’ve got somethin’ hot off the presses that you won’t be able to keep from dancing to.

Jose Santiago is about to take the music world by storm. Trust me. I know this because he is a friend of mine, and I’ve had the chance to get an inside look at his creative process and talent. It’s remarkable really–and I’m not just saying that because I’m biased.

Check out Jose Santiago’s newest single “Let It Go.” I dare you not to dance. I dare you!

www.equipment365.com

By Callie McBride

It turns out that for the past couple of years, I’ve been fooling myself about exercise. I always thought that hour long low-intensity cardio workouts were the most effective for weight loss or maintenance. It makes sense, right? The more you run, bike, or fast-walk, the better the workout is! Wrong. Recently I’ve taken the time to learn more about how the body works in regard to exercise, like how oxygen is turned into energy, how the body stores and burns fat, etc. What I learned was surprising but very exciting. Long yoga sessions, easy afternoon walks, and even sweaty bike rides are all very beneficial for weight loss and overall health, but there is one exercise that works the best and in the shortest amount of time.

HIIT, or High Intensity Interval Training, has been said over and over to be the most effective form of fat-burning cardio. The best part? Most HIIT exercises only take between 15 and 20 minutes! This exercise incorporates quick but extremely intense bursts of cardio with short periods of normal jogging or walking. HIIT produces Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption, which is an increase in both your oxygen consumption and your metabolism. Since you are performing intervals at such an intense rate, your body will require a much higher level of oxygen to restore heart rate and body temperature. Translation: your body will be burning fat like crazy! It makes a lot of sense, then, that a long jog isn’t as beneficial for fat burn. While those are still important, I’m adding more HIIT routines into my exercise regimen in order to get faster results.

Here’s an awesome example of a HIIT workout that flies by, especially with fast-pumping music.

Two Minutes Off, One Minute On {20 minutes total}

0:00-2:00 if on a machine, jog at between levels 5.0 and 6.0, not necessarily an easy jog, but a manageable one

2:00-3:00 full-out sprint; between 8.0 and 9.0-as intense as you can make it!

3:00-5:00 back to the medium-paced jog

5:00-6:00 full-out sprint

6:00-8:00 jog

8:00-9:00 sprint

9:00-11:00 jog

12:00-13:00 sprint

13:00-15:00 jog

15:00-16:00 sprint

16:00-18:00 jog

18:00-20:00 cool down; fast-walk at 4.0, take it down to 3.0 at 19:00, then 2.0 for the last 30 seconds.

If  I  do this outside, I keep a watch with me and, when that brutal one minute “on” comes around, I sprint at my absolute fastest. Just remember to be careful with this exercise! Remember to always stay in control and definitely know your body and its limits. This is a great routine to start out with if you are new to HIIT, but you can always make up your own variations! For all those cardio pros out there, try One Minute Off, Two Minutes On!

Another type of HIIT workout is switching between fast sprints and full-body moves such as burpees, squat jacks, jumping jacks, and mountain climbers. Anything that gets your blood pumping and your heart rate moving. Come summertime pool parties and trips to the beach, your body will thank you!

Do you like HIIT workouts? Any tips?

Bread is delicious. That’s why it’s served by the basketful at restaurants before your meal; who can complain about a long wait while they’re stuffing their face with a bounty of baguette? One thing bread is not, however, is quick to make. Unless you cheat and use your bread machine, preparing a new loaf is very much a labor of love. It takes time to dissolve the yeast, more time to knead the dough, and even longer still to let it rise multiple times before you bake it. But if you love the taste of that freshly baked, crunchy yet soft slice of bread, you’ve got to try making it at home. It simply gets no better than homemade bread. So what’s the trick to not ending up with a dry, un-leavened loaf? Attention to the details!

My first attempts at making bread were ugly. Sure they tasted alright, but I didn’t even want to serve it to my friends with its gnarled and knotted appearance. These were relegated to sopping up sauces and soup on my plates only. After reading a few different cook books, though, I realized many bakers had different ways of preparing their bread. I took style snippets from several of them until my bread finally resembled something edible. Here is what I found to be most important in creating a good loaf.

1. Use warm water to dissolve the yeast. When I used cold water, it took longer for the yeast to dissolve and I feel like it may not have fully gotten there. It’s important to have the yeast fully dissolve to ensure a homogenous mixture that allows all areas of the dough to expand.

2. When adding herbs or other flavorful ingredients, it helped decrease clumps if I folded these into the dough when kneading it. When I combined the herbs into the flour before mixing, some of the flour would be left dry and clumpy which resulted in a sometimes uneven consistency.

3. Lastly – and I think most importantly – let the bread rise twice! After kneading the dough into a large ball, put it in a lightly oiled bowl and cover it. Let it rise for an hour, then divide the dough into your cooking pans. Let the dough rise another 30-45 minutes as it most likely wants to stretch out a bit more. This should make your bread taller and less dense, which will allow it to cook more thoroughly and give you bigger slices. I don’t know about you, but the bigger and softer a slice of bread is, the more I love it.

Garlic basil bread

Hopefully these tips help you in your next attempt at baking your own bread. Let us know how it turns out! Did these tips help at all? Or did they mess with your mojo? Leave us a comment with your take.

If you need a good bread recipe, you can find one on my blog.

Andrew Johnson is an activist and engineer living in Louisville, KY. He loves cooking, bourbon, and baking, in no particular order. You can find him onTwitter and Tumblr, or at his randomly updated foodblog. If you couldn’t tell by his handles, he is a giant, standing 6’10’’ above sea level.

Photo courtesy of Healthy Vegan Blog

By Erin Trauth

Oh, sweet Jello… as Bill Cosby once said: “you can’t be a kid without it.” While Bill was spot on at the time, many of us Jello-loving kids are now grown up…and vegan. Jello, of course, is basically modified and flavored gelatin. Gelatin is also usually used in baking for holding more pliant materials together and is often used in pies, cheesecakes, candy molds, and all of those Jello concoctions. It’s also the base of those delicious strawberry-blueberry-banana “pies” necessary at every 4th of July party.  However, gelatin (and, thus, Jello!) is a giant vegan no-no – made of ground animal bones and skin, this ingredient is one you’ll want to steer away from in your baking endeavors.

Never fear, though – there are several substitutes for gelatin. Agar-agar, which is derived from seaweed, can be modified depending on how much “gel” you want to create in your baked item. Agar-agar comes in flake, liquid, or powder form and can be found in most baking aisles. Substitute equal parts agar-agar for gelatin in your recipes.

If you have a Kosher section in your local store, give their gelatins a try – most are completely vegan. Try Carmel’s KoJel’s, or Lieber’s unflavored variations for some vegan gelling action. Better yet, as vegan options rise in popularity, more and more vegan gelatin options are hitting store baking supply aisles — so, kids, you can still have your favorite wobbly goods — sans the animal byproducts. Double win!

What’s your favorite vegan gelatin substitute?

By Chef Ayinde

Meatless Monday just got a little more familiar. I developed this recipe while I was Executive Chef at Jivamukti Yoga School in New York City. Lucky for me, it was an instant favorite. This warm salad has the sweet tang of cranberries and a burst of fresh rosemary. Try it for dinner, or take the mix to work cold and heat it up before adding it to a salad mix for an easy healthy snack!

Enjoy.

Summery Rosemary Seitan Salad
Serves 4| Prep time 5 minutes| Cook time 5 minutes

Ingredients
2 8oz packages of seitan, cut into chunks
2 stalks of celery, diced
¼ cup chopped kalamata olives
½ cup Vegenaise
2 tablespoons dijon mustard
¼ cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons fresh rosemary
½ cup of dried cranberries
Sea salt to taste
Organic mixed greens
1 English cucmber
2- medium carrots
½ cup cherry tomatoes

Step one:
In a medium sized bowl combine seitan, celery, olives, cranberries, and mix well.

Step Two:
In a second small bowl mix Vegenaise, mustard and soy sauce. Mix well and add to seitan and veggies. Mix together. Grill the seitan mixture on a pre-heated counter top grill (a hot skillet will do as well).

Step Three:
In large salad bowls, prepare your greens as you like them using the carrots, cucumbers, and tomatoes. Top with hot seitan and dressing.

Maple Vinaigrette Dressing:
1 tablespoons dry mustard
½ cup organic Vermont maple syrup
1 tablespoons dried basil
1 teaspoon crushed chili peppers
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 cup extra virgin olive
2 cloves garlic
Salt to taste

Step one:
Place ingredients in a blender and blend lightly until the color turns to a shade similar to chocolate milk. Be careful not to over blend–balsamic gets thicker the longer you blend.

That statistic always confused me, because I can’t imagine how purchasing a car without test driving it could make you happier with your choice in the long run. I mean, when it starts stalling or you find out it has an internet porn and/or panty-huffing addiction, you can’t even complain because if you’d just given it a whirl before you sped away from the dealership, you’d have known!

The study showed that 82 percent of women who lived with their soon-to-be spouses before getting hitched were still married by their five-year anniversaries. High five! The percentage was the same for women who did not shack up with their spouses before marriage. And two-thirds of couples now live together before marriage, compared to one-half of couples 20 years ago.

So, cohabitation is on the rise, and it doesn’t seem to be negatively affecting marriage rates. (American’s inability to commit to anything, general laziness and wide spread belief that we should get what we want without working for it are all things that are probably negatively affecting the marriage rate…that and Ashley Madison.)

I have only lived with one manfriend, but during that time I certainly learned a lot about the relationship—and that it wasn’t for me. I don’t think living together directly caused the break-up, but it was certainly a contributing factor. When someone is in your face all the time, you tend to have a better idea of how compatible you are than you do when you can just head home to your own place and seethe. Major compatibility factors surface that may not have been clear before—like the way they handle finances, responsibility and how much time they spend doing nothing but playing Wii and refusing to scoop the kitty litter.

Allowing my manfriend to move in, and then moving out myself only 6 months later, made me seriously rethink casual cohabitation. We moved in together because it made sense. We had been together for years, loved each other, rent would be cheaper, we could see each other whenever we wanted, and it just seemed like “the next step.” But that “next step” really, really freaked me out, which I wasn’t expecting. I am a serial monogamist, which I thought meant I like to be in very serious relationships. I never thought of myself as someone with commitment issues, until I really tied myself down.

Also…cohabitation may have had a negative affect on our sex life. And how could it not? Who would want to have sex with me after they have to remove wads of my hair from the shower drain?

I definitely think you should move in with your significant other before you get married, just to try it out and make sure you’re in it to win it. But I don’t think you should move in for any other reason than you are really serious about them, and ready for some sort of commitment.

I think if I ever decide to recohabitate, I will be sure to only do it if I really am ready for that big stomper—not just because it can save me a few hundred on my rent.

So, what do you think about cohabitation? Have any horror stories about living with someone? I had a friend who found files and files and files of gay porn on her live-in boyfriend’s computer…which would be fine if she didn’t have a vagina…

The Lusty Vegan is a lifestyle and sex column focusing on living and loving as a twenty-something year old vegan. More rants from Zoe Eisenberg can be found at www.sexytofu.com. Follow her on Twitter @Sexytofublog

By Callie McBride

In anticipation for the gorgeous upcoming months, I’ve created two looks that I hope to be sporting from now until August. My motto in the summer heat is “less is more” so accessories definitely come into play-hats, jewelry, and summery handbags. I chose various price points and opposite styles, so these outfits can cater to all types of vegan chicks.

The first is a colorful and beachy look, worn best with tangled waves and an iced coffee in hand.

{H&M top, $34}

{ Free People vegan leather shorts, $78}

{Big Bhudda bag, $100}

{Mars Heels, $225}

The second look is a lot more edgy and a lot less pricey. I’m picturing cat-eyed liner, a topknot, and a rock concert to go along.

{Forever 21 faux-leather romper, $25}

{TokyoBay vegan crossbody bag, $31}

{ Steve Madden man-made sandals, $60.}

And finally, for all you dudes out there: when it comes to summer fashion, it’s all about the basics. You would be surprised just how far a simple white v-neck tee can go!

These two looks from H&M’s latest Conscious Collection take simplicity up a notch by incorporating fine tailoring and sharp lines for a more put-together style.

{H&M Men’s Conscious Collection 2012}

These splurge-worthy shoes are the perfect standout item for summertime.

{Olsen Haus time traveler blue shoe, $275}

For a more dressed up look, opt for this nautical, faux-silk tie.

{Jaan J. Tie, $33.50}

These looks work for day and night, respectively, and are conducive to warm weather and laid-back days. The best part is that every single item is man-made and cruelty free. Fashion-foward and ethically effortless. For other summertime events that are dotting your calender, visit these places for more stylish vegan finds:

www.hm.com (Conscious Collection)

www.alternativeoutfitters.com

www.freepeople.com

www.olsenhaus.com

www.ebigbuddha.com

So what are you wearing this summer?

This talented indie rock band out of Los Angeles is oft dubbed “psych folk,” and carry an almost ethereal magic to their music. Their first full-length release, Gorilla Manor, debuted in 2010 and contains a very pleasing mixture of music: powerful, upbeat songs that make you want to move around balanced by haunting ballads of emotional loss, with a feeling throughout that they are trying to convey something more to you.

Comparisons have been made between the Natives and Band of Horses; I like BoH, but in all honesty, I think Local Natives have a much deeper, more intimate sound. Not as much arena-folk, more 40-person-max corner-café acoustic show.

Interweaving guitar hooks with voices as instruments, the 5-piece band creates enchanting tunes with a unique sound. Combine these magical songs with creative and attention-grabbing videos, and you’ve got quite the display of talent, as seen below for their video of Airplanes.

What more do you need to know? Check out their website (or iTunes) to buy their album and find tour dates. Do it now!

Andrew Johnson is an activist and engineer living in Louisville, KY. He loves cooking, bourbon, and baking, in no particular order. You can find him on Twitter and Tumblr, or at his randomly updated foodblog. If you couldn’t tell by his handles, he is a giant, standing 6’10’’ above sea level.

]]> http://ieatgrass.com/2012/05/music-to-make-you-cooler-local-natives/feed/ 0 http://ieatgrass.com/2012/05/weight-loss-wednesday-walk-for-a-cause/ http://ieatgrass.com/2012/05/weight-loss-wednesday-walk-for-a-cause/#comments Wed, 09 May 2012 15:00:24 +0000 Callen http://ieatgrass.com/?p=3486 Continue reading →]]>  

By Callie McBride

Chilly temperatures and even a drizzle of rain didn’t stop the enormous crowd gathered in Time Square on Saturday from laughing, dancing and cheering as  blasts of confetti marked the beginning of the 3 mile walk in honor of female cancer patients. Sponsored by both Revlon cosmetics and the Entertainment Industry Foundation, the event closed down all of 6th Avenue, allowing thousands of people to walk happily in unison to the finish line where snacks, performances and informational booths awaited them.

My grandfather and I participated in the walk as a part of the Ovarian Cancer Alliance, in honor of my grandmother who passed away from ovarian cancer. The sheer amount of people who walked with us and the excitement they brought to the event made it such an unforgettable New York morning. Many of the walkers pinned tags on their backs with the names of the women for whom they were walking: aunts, mothers, grandmothers, sisters, friends, all heros. At the finish line, walkers or runners were greeted with Smartwaters, mini Lara Bars, and a full sized sample of Revlon lipstick. With the number of men present, there’s no doubt that all of the women went home with an entire collection of lipstick.

Now, this was no Iron Man race by any means. While I walked fairly slowly the length of the run/walk, I still got a good amount of healthy activity in, and I enjoyed myself the whole time. That’s a huge component to exercise and weight loss–having fun with it!
True, the 3 mile walk didn’t necessarily work up a huge appetite in us, but my grandpa and I decided to pretend that it did–how else would we justify sharing Candle Cafe’s Mocha Swirl Ice Cream so early in the day!?

Have you ever participated in a walk, run, or even marathon event in NYC or elsewhere? What was it like?

Vacation is not only about relaxing, but also about trying something new. For a foodie like me, this means experimenting with new foods. On my recent trip to Jamaica, I stepped out of my comfort zone of bananas, pineapples, and papayas and dabbled in a variety of new fruits. Here are some of the sweet eats I stumbled upon:

Star Apple
Ripe from November through March, I caught the tail end of the star apple season. A smooth purple-black fruit that resembles a large plum, a star apple is full of a sweet and fleshy jello-like substance. It is often enjoyed by cutting and eating with a spoon but I opted for the local way– poke a hole on top and suck out the goodness.

Otaheite Apple
Introduced to me by the “fruuuuuuuuit lady” as a Jamaican apple, a Otaheite Apple deviates from the tropical flavor of many Jamaican fruits. I wasn’t the biggest fan of this flower-like fruit, but I’d say it’s uniqueness earns it a spot on the list. Similar in both the smell and taste of a rose, the snowy white flesh will melt in your mouth.

Sugar Cane
This is technically a grass, but I had to add sugar cane to the list. Originally brought to Jamaica by Columbus, sugar cane has rapidly spread throughout the island. Available peeled and cut, the best way to enjoy sugar cane is to bite into it and suck out all of the juice.

Sour Sop
Hidden inside the prickly outer skin is a treasure of juicy pulp. Although I enjoyed raw sour sop on the beach, I preferred it as a drink. Combined with lime juice, sour sop is a sweet drink that is known to treat hypertension and colds.

Mango
I’m no novice to these tropical treats, but I’ve never tasted anything as succulent and sweet as a mango ripe off the trees in Jamaica. Accustomed to large greenish red mangos in the states, I was apprehensive at first to fork over 200 Jamaican dollars for a tiny mango. One bite however and I realized that the equivalent of $1 American was a steal.

Alexandria Bachert is a 22-year-old vegan with a passion for life and love. Alex believes that her enthusiasm for feeling good is contagious and would like to use her words to educate others on the importance of a healthy lifestyle. She has a background in Journalism and Health Communication and currently works as sales & marketing coordinator for a technology company. Alex can be found making nut milk, working out, and giggling.