• March 28th, 2010quarrygirlhealth, other

    i know it may sound crazy coming from us, lovers of all things pizza and baked goods, but we have decided to give raw food a try….at least for the next week.

    what does that mean? well it means that we are gonna be eating nothing but uncooked, unprocessed, and mostly organic food for the next 7 days. i know to a lot of you readers this is pretty normal, but to us it’s fucking astrophysics. so please, if you have any tips/advice/knowledge, please leave it in the comments section.

    otherwise, keep checking the blog for tasty vegan adventures—we have lots of posts stored up for this week! <3

    Read the rest of this entry »

    Tags: ,
  • March 23rd, 2010quarrygirlhealth, other, stores, whole foods

    i don’t know if you’ve noticed recently at whole foods…but the store has been rolling out a new initiative called health starts here, which promotes plant-based, low-fat, nutrient-dense cuisine. all the way from the bakery to the deli case, you can find pre-packaged meals to go, branded with the health starts here label. not all of it is vegan, but plenty of it is, so this just means our options at whole foods got a whole lot better.

    health starts here baked plantains and black bean meal. $5.99

    Read the rest of this entry »

    Tags: ,
  • July 1st, 2009mr meanerhealth, LA restaurants, news

    NOTE: Please see update regarding Green Leaves Vegan here

    From the moment that we got our first POSITIVE result when sampling a “vegan” menu item from one of our favorite LA-area vegan restaurants, we knew that we were on to something with Operation Pancake. When POSITIVE readings gave way to HIGH and OVERLOAD results we were quite shocked. For us, though, the most memorable moment was when we unpacked the “vegan cheese (no casein) quesadilla” from Green Leaves Vegan and the acidic smell of “real” cheese came right at us out of the box as our sample crept toward OVERLOAD. We stepped back. We retested. We then warmed the quesadilla, played with the stretchy, greasy cheese and realized that the multitude of tip-offs we’d been getting about the sketchy ingredients and evasive staff members at Green Leaves Vegan might just be true.

    Read the rest of this entry »

    Tags:
  • October 20th, 2008quarrygirlhealth, nutty steph's, products, recipes, veganomicon

    as a vegan, i am always looking for the perfect snack. it’s easy to find ubiquitous junk food items that don’t contain animal products (i’m talking to you, oreos!), but are full of scary ingredients that are hazardous to my health. for so long, i have been looking for an indulgence item that makes me feel like i am living it up, but not eating something that is gonna kill me. enter nutty steph’s. nutty steph’s is a vermont-based company making healthy, organic granola that tastes so decadent, it can compete with any household junk food.

    nutty steph's vermont granola, nutty steph's trail mix, and cookies made with nutty steph's ingredients

    nutty steph's vermont granola, nutty steph's trail mix, and cookies made with nutty steph's ingredients

    steph started selling her granola in 2003, when she was only 23 years old, and had no knowledge of commercial food production. what she lacked in age, however, she made up for in creativity and over the past five years her granola has gained tons of respect from buyers and chefs alike. and even more importantly, i love it! her granola is so packed with flavor, i almost don’t want to sprinkle it on top of anything. i’ve never tasted a “healthy” snack that is so perfect straight out of the bag. sweet, slightly salty, and above all, nutty, this granola is beyond delish.

    nutty steph's vermont granola: organic oats, pure vermont maple syrup, sunflower oil, almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts, sunflower seeds, cinnamon, vanilla extract and sea salt.

    nutty steph's vermont granola: organic oats, pure vermont maple syrup, sunflower oil, almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts, sunflower seeds, cinnamon, vanilla extract and sea salt.

    and, nutty steph’s granola can be used in various recipes. steph even has a whole category dedicated on on her website to the various uses for the granola. since i am a vegan, i decided to put the granola to the ultimate test and use it a recipe from veganomicon, the ultimate vegan cookbook. i made a recipe i already knew to be delicious, the chocolate-chocolate chip-walnut cookies, and substituted nutty steph’s granola for the actual nuts. i also used nutty steph’s magic chunks for 1/3 of the chocolate chips called for in the recipe. i can tell you, these cookies have never tasted so delicious. the delicate blend of sweet sugary oats and pure nut flavoring added more to the cookies than i could have imagined. these were so much better than the cookies with walnuts.

    veganomicon's chocolate-chocolate chip-walnut cookies using nutty steph's vermont granola and magic chunks

    veganomicon's chocolate-chocolate chip-walnut cookies using nutty steph's vermont granola and magic chunks

    the crunchy granola and magic chunks were the perfect compliment to the soft dough and chocolate chips. unlike when baking the cookie with actual walnuts, the oats mixed in throughout the dough making for a much more substantial and satisfying cookie. plus, there were plenty of nuts in the granola, so i still got the intended nutty taste. the granola was absolutely great to bake with, and i am sure it would make a fine substitute in many of my favorite dessert and snack recipes.

    lastly, nutty steph also offers her own brand of trail mix which is out of this world. the minute you try this, it will be hard not to eat the whole bag in one sitting, because it is so damn addictive. the already irresistible granola gets thrown in with fresh batch of raisins, huge and whole crunchy nuts, and large chunks of dark chocolate to make something i can’t resist.

    nutty steph's granola trail mix: vermont granola, peanuts, raisins and chocolate chips

    nutty steph's granola trail mix: vermont granola, peanuts, raisins and chocolate chips

    this is by far my favorite product of nutty steph’s. i’m sure it would be great sprinkled onto some soy ice cream, or mixed in with some cereal, but i just enjoyed the entire bag plain, on its own. the chocolate discs really bring out the nutty-ness in crispy granola, and the raisins provide a softness to all the crunch. steph really has found the perfect way to combine natural ingredients and make them taste ridiculously good.

    this trail mix is so freakin' delicious

    this trail mix is so freakin' delicious

    nutty steph’s is a vegan junk food/health food dream come true. an unashamedly delicious snack containing ingredients that i can pronounce. all real food, no chemicals or fake shit is contained in nutty steph’s. let’s support this cool chick from vermont who makes the perfect vegan snack, and stick it to the big corporations!

    Tags: , , , , , , ,
  • July 13th, 2008quarrygirlhealth, LA restaurants, newsroom

    so before you go on reading about how much i loved my breakfast at this place, you should probably know about the very low “C” grade it received after a recent health inspection. a reader wrote in to quarrygirl.com with a link from TMZ, of all places.

    the gossip rag reports:

    We got hold of the inspection report. Among other things, the city found mold inside the ice machine. Glasses on the bar had gnats that went in for a landing. Some of the shelves were dirty. The waiters’ counter had paint chipping off. And restaurant workers were placing cut watermelon in the sink.

    As for the fridge — problems with potatoes, feta cheese and the meat drawers.

    that’s fucking gross. let’s hope they get their act together and pull that grade up stat. i think they are actually closed right now for “renovations”, attempting to fix the problem. in the meantime, i suggest you check out the interim cafe in santa monica…which was started by the same peeps, who i don’t believe still have anything to do with the robertson newsroom location.

    that’s it. thought you should know. below is our original post, as published on june 25th. vegans, be careful out there.
    Read the rest of this entry »

    Tags: , ,
  • April 1st, 2008mr meanerhealth, vegan stuff

    I have a busy office life. There’s always some lunch meeting to sit through, usually with the requisite pizza, Quiznos, Chinese food or (horrors upon horrors) KFC being delivered to tide ‘us’ over. Compounding that, I rarely get the time to go out and pick up a healthy snack for lunch so I’m often left to my own devices. I’ve learned over the years that desk drawers can be put to much better uses than holding files and the usual crap (cell ‘phone chargers, staplers without staples, boxes of staples that don’t fit in the aforementioned stapler etc.).

    MY desk drawer (real picture):

    Vegan Desk Drawer

    …contains a life support system for the busy office vegan. The things that meat-eaters dread (carbs and sodium) don’t really matter to us vegans as much since we tend to be less fat and have lower blood pressure through a lack of meat intake.

    Read the rest of this entry »

    Tags: , ,
  • March 31st, 2008mr meanerhealth

    Sausage Boy

    It constantly amazes me how the evidence around the health benefits of a vegan lifestyle are pushed aside, and the facts about meat consumption are at best ignored and at worst hushed up.

    At the very least, most reasonable people understand that a diet of burgers, steaks and fried chicken is extremely unhealthy, but surely, the occasional banger wouldn’t be a problem? Not so fast, Batman…

    Consider this article from today’s Daily Mail newspaper in the UK: “Why eating just one sausage a day raises your cancer risk by 20 per cent”… it goes on to say:

    Eating 1.8oz (50g) of processed meat a day – the equivalent of one sausage or three rashers of bacon – raises the likelihood of the cancer by a fifth, research shows.

    The sobering statistic adds to growing evidence that too much meat in the diet can be deadly.

    I very much doubt this applies to Tofu Dogs, or I’d be a goner, the amount of those I eat!

    Read full article

    Tags: , ,