I am rounding the finish line of my cleanse. It was pretty hard in the beginning. I wasn’t really able to eat out at but a few restaurants since the majority of places had dairy or some kind of sugar in almost all of their dishes. I did get to try some really fun vegan restaurants though and learn about a whole different way of eating. Last night I stumbled upon a place in the Little Tokyo district of downtown Los Angeles called Shojin, which is known for offering organic and natural meals influenced by macrobiotic and Japanese style and is 100% vegan. In addition to using all fresh ingredients, the restaurant replaces refined sugar with brown rice syrup. No chemical seasonings and food additives are used in any of their meals. Even their ketchup, dressings, and sauces are all hand-made and all natural.
Before my meal, I ordered the Cleansing Green Tea, which consisted of green tea mixed with cane juice, ginger juice, and cayenne pepper. Each sip hit you with a “POW” of spiciness but boy did I feel cleansed after that cayenne pepper got a hold of me. After the tea cleanse, we started with a few appetizers. The first was a Pumpkin Croquette, which was a crunchy pumpkin and tofu croquette with Shojin ketchup. Warm pumpkin mixed with tofu was a delectable combination when wrapped up and layered with the Asian ketchup. Next, it was onto the Baked Artichoke, which with garlic herb butter and served with a refreshing yuzu ponzu dipping sauce. This was light and deliciously seasoned. Artichokes do take a lot of effort to eat and are pretty light though so I was more than ready for the next course. For the main course, we split the Soba Go-Zen deluxe assortment of traditional Shojin style dishes. This is considered to be the most balanced and nutritious meal option on the menu and I was ready for the full Shojin experience. This had a seaweed salad tossed with mixed greens in a tasty house dressing, an assortment of vegetable tempura, the daily vegetable dish, a spicy sushi roll, hot soba, and pickles. The vegetables were not what you are typically used to when you commit to the vegetable side dish at a normal restaurant. We had all kinds of root vegetables and what I think were sweet potatoes and some kind of bamboo shoot. They were pretty unique but a nice and refreshing change from peas, carrots, and green beans. The soba was a buckwheat noodle soup with kale and scallions was excellent and I kept fighting to steal more than my share of that. The spicy roll was a vegan roll and you would have never realized that you the fish had been sneakily swapped out for seitan and the spicy mayonnaise was even vegan.
Trying new recipes, learning that I can still have energy and efficiently operate without caffeine, and becoming determined to learn to read and understand food labels is what I’d say that I took away the most from this cleanse. As I approach the ending date, I will start to slowly introduce some of the foods that I had to give up in moderation, however, I plan on maintaining most of the principals of the Quantum Wellness Cleanse into my daily diet going forward. I do not miss meat at all and think that I might just stick to fish, with the occasional free range, grass fed, organic chicken breast-if that happens to be an option and I am out to eat. I don’t even miss dairy that much. Most of the things that I used to put cheese on, I ate without on this diet and realized that I don’t even really taste the cheese half of the time. I really became turned onto Almond Milk the last few weeks and might have to choose that over my usual skim milk option. In addition, if I need caffeine I’m going to stick to green tea, and coffee only when it’s one of those “I only got 5 hours of sleep and have to have an intense long day” days. I feel great, my skin has never looked better, and I’ve received so many compliments on how healthy I look on this diet. I’ll tell you one thing that is surely going to be a part of my new motto: “Bye bye processed sugars. Life can still be sweet without you.”
Shojin:
http://www.theshojin.com/menu.htm#gozen
33 S. Alameda St. Suite 310 (Little Tokyo Shopping Center 3F) Los Angeles, CA 90013 Tel: 213-617-0305
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