Category: Vegan Dreams – Less plastic, More plants, More Fiber

September 28, 2020

by drplasticpicker

Life is full of contradictions. As a pediatrician I worry about children being exposed to too much screen time, as this has been shown to disrupt sleep and has replaced some of the time children are interacting with real people or moving their bodies. Social Media has been a conduit for child exploitation as well, as adults who are evil-doers have made contact with children through the different platforms. Yet at the same time, Dr. Plastic Picker is a social media Instagram creature. I exist because of social media, Facebook and Instgram, although I think my heart belongs on this blog and in clinic. How can your social media semi-savy pediatrician advise you to limit your social media?

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September 25, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I’m not sure why this morning’s batch of vegan muffins were thus far the best. I think the non-ideal second batch of cornbread where I left huge chunks of baking powder and the kids said it was oddly bitter at times made me more careful this morning. I am also working 1030-730PM, so wanted to spend time this morning doing things for the kids before I left for the day to see all sick kids into the “night clinic.” The “night clinic” is not as late into the night as year past. When I made the recipe this morning, I took it slow and enjoyed the process. I even used the whisk which I never really used before. I doubled the recipe and did replace a cup of white flour for almond flour (we are trying to finish using that). I didn’t have quite enough blueberries (which needed to be used because they were getting to the end) and added a chopped mushy apple. This recipe calls for a “buttermilk” made with soy milk and apple cider vinegar allowed to curdle, and lemon zest. Both I had never done before, and they were fun. The lemon zest was so fragrant, especially at 6AM when I started the recipe

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September 18, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I started my first batch of apple-scrap vinegar yesterday. We had a bunch of mushy apples and Mr. Plastic Picker asked me the day before if I could make apple sauce. If you know us in real life, this is a earth-shattering request. My children and other people eat my cooking. My son’s good friend once complimented me on my breaded chicken. But my husband wanders around the kitchen foraging on his own. The more I’ve been cooking plant-based, the more he is eating. He asked for apple sauce and he used to buy so many of those prepared apple sauces in <5> plastic. Since we’ve started going less plastic, he eats more apples but I think he misses those processed apple sauces. He actually says mine is better.

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September 17, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I’m making cornbread this morning and I’m crying. It was supposed to be a vegan cornbread recipe, but I don’t have vegan butter nor non-dairy milk. I substituted real butter and real milk which pretty much just makes it cornbread. It’s not even imperfectly vegan cornbread. It’s definitely non-plastic at least. I’m not crying because it’s not vegan, I’m crying because I’m thinking about a really close friend that loves to cook. I wish I could call and text her as often as I used to about how much I’ve grown in my cooking. For various reasons our friendship has been one of those wonderful yet sometimes painful pairings. But anyway, I just miss my friend. I miss her when I cook and when I meet these milestones. The reason why is that she is a phenomenol and intuitive cook, and she knew me before I could cook. And she actually taught me a lot of things about cooking and life. We will just leave it at that. We are better off where we are now in our relationship, still true friends but more distant. I can’t believe I’m crying. This plastic picking and journey of discovery is literally making me process decades worth of issues. We all got issues. I’m just doing my own therapy through this blog in front of everyone.

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September 1, 2020

by drplasticpicker

Extra Crunchy Skippy Super Chunk. Ingredients Roasted Peanuts, Sugar, Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil (Cottonseed, Soybean, and Rapeseed Oi) to prevent separation, salt. <1> Recyclable plastic, but who really recycles it? Does municipal recycling actually do it? But what has bothered me for decades since I learned that Palm Oil is the cause of so much deforestration in Indonesia is the orangatangs. Orangatangs live in the rainforest where Palm Oil Plantations are proliferating. Palm Oil is in 50% of all consumer products in the grocery store. I’m not sure why, but our peanut butter is what has always bothered me the most.

But then I learned to make peanut butter! Here is my post where I talked mostly about my own personal finance plans but also how easy it was to make peanut butter. https://drplasticpicker.com/the-road-to-fise-so-easy-homemade-peanut-butter/ I know this is being cross-published in our clinic BOTAY newsletter, but remember this is Dr. Plastic Picker’s blog so I can talk about myself as much as I want. Indeed this is the 300th post on my blog where I mostly talked about myself (and the earth).

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August 13, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I skipped yesterday’s Hopeful Wednesday post. I hope that as part of our blog readership that you don’t mind. I think we were all feeling hopeful and didn’t need my Hopeful Wednesday post. Senator Kamala Harris was selected as the Vice Presidential Nominee for the Democratic Party. There was finally a sense of lightness yesterday. I had the day “off.” Of course I still did virtual middle management work, but I watched her acceptance speech yesterday. I cried. It was a historic moment for Black Americans, Asian Americans and for me most importantly women. It’s a historic moment for climate activists. Senator Kamala Harris supports the Green New Deal. There is still a climate crisis but yesterday I felt a bit lighter cleaning at the beach.

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July 27, 2020

by drplasticpicker

We have HMO Family Practice residents that rotate through our clinic for their outpatient pediatric rotations. It’s their inauguration into the residency program, and we have the honor to teach them. I helped start this clinic site when it started with the first class about 8 years ago. My old mentor and I were the ones who developed and refined the lecture topics, schedule templates, developed how the rotation was organized and first started the residency breakfasts. As with most things, I’ve since handed it over to Dr. AF as I’ve moved onto other middle management roles.

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July 21, 2020

by drplasticpicker

When I first met my environmental mentor Dr. Bruce Bekkar, we met at True Foods in Fashion Valley. I met him with Dr. Dave Niesen who is a young ED physician and in charge of wildfire responses. It was the retired ob-gyn climate activisit founding member of Surfrider, the young blond ED physician wildfire expert, and me – middle aged litter picking pediatrician and self proclaimed Dr. Plastic Picker. It was at a vegan restaurant and at that point I was not #tryingvegan. We met in one of those surreal moments ala Matrix, where Bruce Bekkar looked at us younger physicians. Bruce had given ground rounds 10 years ago at our HMO on climate change, and the profound lack of interest among the physicians was profound. And now here we were, two younger physicians from complete opposite ends of the healthcare organization had separately found him. He looked at us across the table and said, “I’ve been waiting for you two for 10 years.” And this is when this group of concerned climate activists was formed to try to move health care organizations within our region to a more sustainable model. But one of the most powerful memories I had during this vegan meal at this vegan restaurant with these two already vegan physicians, was how non-judmental their veganism was. They recommended a certain tofu broth dish. I was intrigued. I ate it, and mostly it was the conversation that I came for. We were planning, and dreaming and discussing the climate. But I left with a normal sized restaurant bill, a sense of wellness and I felt light but also full – if that makes sense.

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July 9, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I brought my cold brew coffee concentrate to the office yesterday. I reused a sauce jar and made sure it did not have any pungent smells in it, but the lid was not the tightest fit. So I carefully put it in my lunchbag but had to make sure to carry it the right way so it would not spill. It made it to clinic and I put my repurposed glass jar in the office fridge. We have a new office fridge. The old fridge had been there since the clinic’s opening over 20 years ago.

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