I have been doing a bit of lurking to see what my fellow vegan athletes (and wanna be athletes like yours truly) are eating to fuel their workouts. The protein isn’t so difficult to get, even though heavy exercisers – whatever that means – need a bit more, my problem area is more in the iron department. I am just one of those people who has a difficult time ironing up, and since I’m moving towards 40 miles a week I need to be careful to make every nutrient-packed calorie count (er, yeah, my twinkiesque cupcakes were loaded with iron, I know). Zipping around the blogosphere a bit back I happened upon a fabulous blog by Veg*Triathlete. Jen the Veg*Triathlete generously shares gorgeous pics of her menus in her Fuel section, and I enjoyed snooping around for some new ideas. And behold…
I think because it’s so chilly outside I’m thinking more hot-meals and I tend to forget how refreshing it can be to have a ‘cold’ salad. I’m a huge fan of taboulehs, making tons of variations depending on what I have on hand or in the fridge, but I tend to make them much more in the summer months when I can just toss everything in a bowl in the morning and have it be fresh, perfect and chilled by evening when I take it out. I boiled up the beans when out for my run, then tossed it all together and forgot about it until lunchtime. So good. I am a garlic fiend, so I added four cloves of the raw stuff, and I also added raisins for a little extra zam (this also keeps the vampires away, the garlic that is, not the raisins).
So thanks Jen for the inspiration!
And in a 30 Days of Yoga update, we’re cruising to day 10. I wish I could say my calves were loosening up nicely… I think because I generally manage to squeeze in about three or four yoga sessions a week I’m not seeing a huge difference yet. Patients, grasshopper. Patients.
Musings From The Fishbowl 
Ricki,
Thanks for the great snack idea- I love almond butter on rice cakes, but it didn’t ever occur to me to add a little blackstrap to the mix. That was my afternoon snack yesterday & it was tasty! I’ll look into the “Staying Healthy” text, thank you!
Congratulations on your amazing runs–40 MILES!! Yikes. I’m lucky if I can walk 40 blocks. Anyway, don’t know if you’re already aware, but iron is harder to absorb from plants than animals, so one thing you can do is top your dark leafy greens with vitamin C-rich foods (which helps make all the minerals more absorbable). For instance, dressing with lemon juice, or orange segments in the salad, etc.
Also, most dried fruits are a fairly good source of iron, as is, of course, blackstrap molasses (which I love drizzled over almond butter on a rice cake–yum!). I can’t seem to find my major nutrition text, Staying Healthy with Nutrition by Dr. Elson Haas, but there are loads more suggestions in there, too. Good luck with it!
Shelly, It was a lovely surprise! Thanks, too, for your comments about the healthcare post… You were right on! And it’s great to see someone with experience living in the U.S. and the EU make those observations.
Hi Gypsy Girl,
Thanks for visiting! Living here in France there are loads of Lebanese restaurants as you can imagine. What I *love* is that most of them have the original names of their dishes on the menus (er, or take out menus) so you actually get to know their *real* names!
Jen-Veg*Triathelete,
Sorry! I was going to zap you a comment so you’d know you were a *featured performer* on my blog, but this entry was the last thing I did last night before going to sleep so I was going to do up when I got up (because I’m on a rather large time difference from North America)! You beat me to it! Again, thanks for the inspiration!
Shellyfish
Ooh, la, la! How flattering to come to your blog today and read this lovely post!
Thanks so much for the great recipe. I am Lebanese and make safsouf all the time but never saw this version, especially the garlic…and i am also a garlic lover..
And I never hear people these days call it safsouf which is the only name I knew tabouleh by when I was groing up.