And no, that doesn’t mean what you think it does. Unless of course you’re thinking it’s time for a Vegan Month of Food. And if you are, well then you’re absolutely correct. Of course the graphic kind of gives it away.

And what is VeganMoFo you might ask? And you might as well because I’m going to tell you anyway. It’s an effort, begun by Isa, to get more folks writing about vegan food on the Internet. Basically it’s a commitment to write something at least vaguely related to vegan food every weekday during the month of October.

And I thought that would be an awesome way to launch my new project, LowCarbVegan.com. That’s one of several reasons I’ve been a bit scarce around these parts lately. So come on over to the blog and see what’s going on.

That’s the subject of a post on Vegan Sweetie. I’ve been hearing that these noodles had calcium from shellfish and hence weren’t suitable for a vegan diet. For a low carb diet, these really rock, you can make noodle dishes without all the carbs of pasta.

Mandy actually wrote to the House Foods people and this is is the reply she got. Long story short, the ingredients were changed earlier this year and they now are indeed, vegan,

No, I’m not suggesting you need to pan-fry your Juicyfruit. As some of my longer term readers will have noticed, I’ve been looking at a low carb diet. Some parts of that are pretty obvious, don’t use rice and beans for example; but others are a bit more subtle.

Thickening agents for example. Normally I’ve just used cornstarch. Well, as you might expect from something named after both corn and starch, that’s not very low carb. And, neither is arrowroot, something else I’ve used. So, am I doomed to watery sweet and sour sauce? Maybe not.

There are a couple of items out there that may well be able to fill the bill of being both low carb and able to act as a thickening agent. Those are guar gun and xanthan gum. Not names that roll trippingly off the tongue? No but both products are vegan and really fairly natural. And, they both have zero net carbs. What’s a net carb you ask? Well, fiber is technically a carbohydrate but it’s not digestible. So, you get to subtract fiber from the total carbohydrates before you worry about how many you’re eating. At least here in the US. Elsewhere it appears to work differently.

So I just sub out the cornstarch in my sweet and sour sauce for guar gum and I’m back on easy street, right? Well, you know it’s not going to be that easy, nothing worthwhile ever is. I just got bottles of both today so I can’t offer any personal experience, yet. What I have found is that a little seems to go a long ways and they have a tendency to clump up. One source suggested using half the amount of gelatin in xanthan gum. Maybe I’ve been a vegan too long but I can’t remember any recipes calling for gelatin as a thickener. Another source suggested a 3:2 ration of guar gum to xanthan gum. And one last source suggested a quarter teaspoon of guar gum per cup of liquid. And of course, if clumping proves to be a problem, mixing either of the two powders with other powdered ingredients should help.

I’ll be trying both of these gums out in the coming weeks and I’ll report back here. Meanwhile, have of the readers found these to be good solutions? Let us all know in the comments.

Jump over to *impulse and check it out. It’ll be pickle season soon and the pickle article looks pretty good.

I’m starting this new series to document my explorations of a low carb diet as it applies to veganism. I got started down this path when a discussion on one of the mailing lists I subscribe to turned to the possibility of eating a diet that was both low carb and vegan. Before, I had always considered that to be one of those things that you probably could do but why? Well, it seems that there is some interest out there, a fair bit of information is floating around and probably even some health advantages but everything seems a bit scattered. Hopefully I can pull a good sized chunk of it together and add my own little bit to it.

But first, it seems wise to spend a little bit of time introducing myself, my foibles and my prejudices. I’m not looking at this like a number of people I’ve talked to and I hope that by showing where I’m coming from, you can better make use of this information as it applies to your situation.

Some basics up front. I’m a 42 year old man, divorced, living in the American Midwest. I have a technical job and I’m more than a bit of a geek. I’m not particularly overweight, I could probably stand to lose five or ten pounds but it’s not a high priority for me. I exercise some, primarily weight lifting and some bike riding in the summer. I drink socially but I quit smoking a year or so ago. I am also a vegan, for a number of reasons, but that part of my life is not open to change. I will not leave veganism. I have a pretty strict idea of veganism, for example, I don’t eat honey. Not too important on a low carb diet but best to get everything out in the open.

And, certainly not the least of my issues, I am a Type 2 diabetic. I was diagnosed in 2007 after experiencing some bone problems. Mostly a broken bone in my left foot. So my primary interest here is controlling my blood glucose. Weight loss would be nice but not something I’m terribly worried about. I also have concerns about getting the right amounts of various micro-nutrients. Fortunately I have a number of tests done every few months to check on several of those but vegan nutrition can be difficult. And diabetes does have the advantage of allowing immediate feedback. I normally check my blood glucose twice a day but I can check, if needed, much more often than that. That allows me to see how I’m doing without having to wait for some elaborate testing to be done. So, my body, my science project really does work in this case. I’m taking some oral diabetes medications and I also take a daily insulin injection.

I like to cook and fancy that I’m fairly good at it. That’s really a bit of a survival skill, if I had to rely on finding vegan food around here I’d have starved to death long ago. I live in a decent sized city but not a metropolis. So, I will use some ingredients that aren’t found in the average Mom and Pop grocery but nothing too specialized.

Recapping, this series will be about eating a low carb, vegan diet. My interest is in blood sugar control and that means a long term solution. Any ideas I come up with will need to be suitable for the rest of my life. I expect to provide a fair amount of cooking information along with some meal planning examples.

I’m not a medical professional nor do I play one on TV. Anything I say here is my own personal opinion and you should think about it before you apply it to your life. Although that advice applies to any medical information you get.

If you have any questions or comments, you can either leave a comment on the post or use the Contact Me link at the top of the page to send me a note. I do read everything I get.

So, let the games begin! And I hope everyone enjoys the ride.