Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Navigating Our Way to a Plant-based Diet

Quote du Jour
   Knowing where you're going has a lot to do with getting there. ~ Unknown

How was I going to do this?
I love to cook, I enjoy shopping for produce and trying new flavors, I really love to cook for my family, and I truly love that they look forward to several traditional holiday dishes. I now realized that all of these recipes include animal-products as ingredients, and are what I now call, *cloggers.

Approaching this as a math equation, setting A, B, C and D as criteria...

    Can A+B+C+D - (all animal-based products) = VeggieBound Excellence?

A. We're eating plant-based for the long-haul...
This is NOT a fad "Diet du Jour" 
Our long-term health is at stake. I'm going to make this work for us, but golly gee, I want my food to taste good.

B. home is a safe place for all in our family...
I want my husband to be able to eat every item served in our home
I want my family to continue to enjoy the favorite dishes they look forward to having at family celebrations. And, I want to serve foods that taste good! Boring food is just not going to help this cause.

C. would eating a plant-based diet be healthy for the rest of us...
We did our homework
To fully understand how healthy plant-based eating would be for all of us, and to implement this important dietary change in our life, my husband and I:
  1. read science-based diet information
  2. attended lectures and seminars and listened to Books-on-CDs on roadtrips
  3. collected science-based diet literature and videos
  4. took fieldtrips (my favorite part of this project!) to non-chain restaurants to sample plant-based meals prepared by professional chefs 
D. and can long-time family favorites be revised to be plant-based?
Revisit Favorite Family Recipes
Revise favorite family dishes to be plant-based, and retain all the deliciousness that made the dish a family favorite to begin with. I want my food to taste good, and I am convinced that good food can and should be healthy!


= YES!
Our food tastes even better!
And our family’s favorite recipes don’t clog our arteries, we have more energy, and we all feel much better than we have for quite some time. Food coma? I can't remember the last time I've had one. Best of all, deleting animal-based foods does NOT mean eliminating flavor

So, how can I help you get there from here?
I developed strategies to implement plant-based eating 24/7
Because changing any habit necessitates developing thoughtful strategies and support structures to succeed, we found cooking tools and appliances to do most of the work for us,  collected new recipes, tried new herbs and spices, then finally applied our new knowledge to revising old family favorites.

Let's start with cheese
VeggieBound Challenge to You
Chew on this: What are the qualities of cheese that you like? 

Coming next week
The promised "to die for" plant-based schmear recipe

This little piggy went to market...
In season: This week at your grocery story
Apples 
Winter squash, all kinds, including
   acorn
   butternut
   hubbard
   etc. 



*See VeggieBound September 8, 2013 post, FaceOff: Clogger vs Unclogged
    Clogger = recipe includes animal-based ingredients
    UnClogged = only plant-based ingredients in recipe 
 
 

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Menu Musings

Quote du Jour
   Every chef I know, their cholesterol is through the roof. And mine's not so great.
                                                                                         ~ Anthony Bourdain
Eating out
Study the restaurant menu next time you're eating out. Notice what ingredients are featured repeatedly throughout the menu.


It surprises me to realize the most popular ingredients also contain the most cholesterol!

These 5 ingredients - bacon, butter, cheese, sour cream and eggs - cause me wonder what is creative about restaurant eating, if all you're offered are variations of animal-based products?


Many cuisines use NO dairy or meat
One of the top-ten best meals of my life was at a very special Korean Restaurant in Los Angeles. My lovely daughter-in-law's parents treated us to an incredible lunch at Yong Su San. What an experience of flavor, color, and texture!

I had the notion - from awesome Korean BBQ and Kimchee - that Korean food is highly spicy. Not so! In Korean cuisine, creating delicious vegetarian dishes is an art form. In fact (from Wikipedia) there are hundreds of Vegetarian restaurants throughout Korea!

From the menu, which includes animal-based ingredients, too, the plant-based dishes ordered at Yong Su San were a symphony of carefully and thoughtfully balanced flavors, textures and colors. Every item on each dish had a reason for being there, including the size, shape and color of each plate or bowl. It was a delicious revelation.

Here are some challenges for you

Allez Cuisine Veggies!
VeggieBound Challenge to Iron Chef
     Instead of a secret ingredient at a competition, 
     eliminate all animal-products!

VeggieBound Challenge to You
A ) Study restaurant menus. Notice what ingredients
      are used most often

B)  Visit a *non-chain restaurant, order a plant-based
     dish (no animal products) and take time to identify
     the blend of flavors, textures and ingredients and 
     how the herbs and spices are applied.

*Many chain restaurants do much of their food preparation off-site, offer controlled portions and have little flexibility to tweak their offerings.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

The Only Protein NOT Present in Plants: Casein

Quote du Jour
   I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious. ~ Albert Einstein

Navigating through protein wonderland
What is protein?
Protein, defined by Wikipedia, are molecules of amino acids and are "the chief actors within the cell."

I'm Curious
What's a complete protein?
A complete protein, defined by Wikipedia, is a proportion of 9 essential amino acids.

Curiouser
If plants have incomplete protein, what's missing?
Not knowing what protein is absent in a plant-based diet, I kept thinking about it, until one day, watching the excellent film documentary PlanEat, I got the answer.

Aha!
Casein
In a scene in PlanEat, T. Colin Campbell discusses the results of a study where the one protein, present in dairy products but missing in plants, was added back into a diet. The missing protein, casein, present in milk, promotes rapid growth in babies.

Mother Nature had it right all along?
Milk was not designed for adults
In several different studies, adding casein to a plant-based diet is showing the same results…that although casein does not cause cancer, research consistently shows that casein is a cancer "promoter." In adults, if cancerous tumors are present, casein promotes their rapid growth.

Milk, It Does a Body Good...or does it?
Casein Promotes Growth

T. Colin Campbell (who grew up on a dairy farm) reports in the book The China Study:

    "... we were finding that high protein intake, in excess of the amount needed

   for growth, promotes cancer. Like flipping a light switch on and off, we could
   control cancer promotion merely by changing levels of protein. The effects
   of protein feeding on tumor development were nothing less than spectacular...
   [In one experiment] all animals that were administered [the carcinogen] aflatoxin
   and fed the regular 20% levels of casein [a cow's milk protein] either were dead
   or near death from liver tumors at 100 weeks. All animals administered the same
   level of aflatoxin but fed the low 5% protein diet were alive, active and thrifty, with
   sleek hair coats at 100 weeks. This was a virtual 100 to 0 score, something
   almost never seen in research.

   …I would never have dreamed that our results up to this point would be so

   incredibly consistent, biologically plausible and statistically significant…Let
   there be no doubt: cows milk protein is an exceptionally potent cancer 
   promoter."

For a very good reason

Casein has Addictive Qualities

Don't have a cow, man.
from Wikimedia
VeggieBound.org
Mother Nature added an addictive quality to casein
as a way to keep babies drinking milk - it makes them
feel good!

And it's the casein, the milk protein that makes cheese so meltingly smooth and elastic, that is the reason many adults say, "Oh, I could never give up cheese."

Casein, in the digestive process produces casomorphins, which have an opiate-like effect on humans. Because cheese is denser than milk, the casein is more heavily concentrated, meaning that eating cheese produces a larger amount of casomorphins in the body compared to eating other dairy products.

I know, yada yada yada...
Moderation
I don’t advocate completely giving up anything, but why keep having something that’s harmful? When I was little, cheese was for special occasions. It was expensive and I can’t remember there being so many varieties available.
We thought we were fancy when we had the Parmesan cheese that is still sold in shiny green shakers!

Today’s diet includes cheese in - or on - nearly every meal. Little bits, here and there are fine, just not at every meal.

Oh yum!
Satisfaction
Back to that Wikipedia link above on Complete Protein (defined by Wikipedia,). Under the heading Sources of complete protein is this information:

   "Certain traditional dishes, such as Mexican corn and beans, Japanese
    soybeans and rice, and Cajun red beans and rice, combine grains with
    legumes to provide a meal that is high in all essential amino acids."

And all these traditional dishes are delicious!


Restaurants: A New Link (check the upper right margin)
Eating Out
    Veggie Fajitas, minus cheese and sour cream, extra guacamole
    Veggie Burritos, minus cheese and sour cream, extra guacamole

No Recipe du Jour today...I'm leading up to a plant-based cheese schmear recipe that is "to die for!"

Coming Soon
Don’t Say Cheese!
At photo ops, say wheeeeee instead
Whee!




Monday, September 16, 2013

Think a Plant-based Diet CAN'T Provide enough Protein? Hogwash!

Quote du Jour
   I was misinformed. ~ Humphrey Bogart in the film, Casablanca

Everyone's first question: Where do you get your protein?
Since Mark's change in diet in May 2009, we’ve learned more about nutrition then we’d ever have imagined, and now we wonder: Where did we get our original ideas about healthy eating? What is it that we think we know about protein? Have we been brainwashed by advertising?  

In junior high school Home Economics, we learned about four food groups and were given a visual: a graphic of a food pyramid that has changed many times over the years, and recently morphed into a plate divided into 4 unequal portions. The USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) nutrition recommendations have been revised so often, that they provide a history link on their website, documenting the changes to their guidelines, going back to 1916. 
 
The USDA provides phenomenal services to Americans, but it's important to remember that they offer dietary guidelines. And don't wait for them to go through their processes for updating their information. Take advantage of all the online scientific research and make your own conclusions.

Rooted in Research: A Plant-based Diet is Healthy

Somehow, I had the idea that meat is the best source of complete protein. But every living thing - animals, plants, single cell organisms - contains protein. So, if we eat plants, we must be taking in protein, right? But is it enough protein?

It's easy to do an online search to find out what the protein requirements are for a healthy adult. An adult requires a diet of 5-10% protein, coincidently the same proportion of protein in breast milk. Beans, and almost all vegetables, contain 5%+ protein, so it’s extremely easy to meet this requirement.

Meat and dairy products do have a higher protein content than plant-based foods. However, plant-based foods provide all the protein humans need.

Can a "top of the food chain" creature do well on a plant-based diet? Yes! Think of large herbivores: for example elephants. Look what elephants do with 5% protein. A "gee whiz" fact: Current paleontological research shows that dinosaur herbivores grew larger than dinosaur carnivores!

Recipe du Jour
Despite taking 14 months to compile all my recipes into a family cookbook, I forgot this one! My daughter remembered it though - because it's delicious - and my daughter-in-law asked for it. Similar to Waldorf Salad, this recipe needs no mayonnaise.

Fall Fruit Salad
Serves 4-6

   Juice of one lemon
   1 cup apple (2-3), cored and cubed - don't peel, go for color, red, green, yellow
   1 cup orange (2), peeled and cubed
   1/2 cup raisins, try golden raisins 
   1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
   1 cup celery, chopped (2-3 stalks)
   1-2 Tbsp honey, to taste

Put the fresh lemon juice in a 6 cup bowl. Add the cubed apple and, to prevent browning, toss with the lemon juice. Add the rest of the ingredients, mix, cover and give a few minutes to allow the flavors to blend. Serve at room temperature, or make early in the day, and chill in the refrigerator.

Coming Soon
I've heard that only meat and dairy provide complete protein. What about that?
The Only Protein NOT Present in Plants: Casein

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Measurement Terminology

Quote du Jour
   Always start out with a larger pot than what you think you need. ~ Julia Child

Measurement Wisdom
I always think I don't need to use the larger pan, and generally, I'm wrong...and then I have another pan to wash! So follow Julia's wisdom above, and use the measurements below. This information is also on the Pages menu to the right. (Poor piggy, I accidently used a Tbsp of tabasco, instead of a tsp).


Recipe du Jour
A south-of-the-border Sloppy Joe, this recipe, modified to be plant-based, is from a Contra Costa Times newspaper Taste of the Times Cookbook. The flavor resembles a molé sauce, but is not as complex. This is quick, easy to make, and sure to please.

Sloppy José - Plant-based
Serves 4-6 
 
Filling
In the bowl of a large food processor, coarsely chop, then transfer mixture to a large saucepan and simmer

   1 clove garlic
   1 medium onion, peeled and quartered
   2 medium tomatoes (or one 15-oz can diced tomatoes)
   1 apple, cored and quartered
   1 small can green chilies
   5 pimento-stuffed green olives (+ a few extra for the cook)
   1 red bell pepper, chopped and quartered
   ½ cup raisins
   ¼ cup walnuts
   ¼ tsp ground cinnamon
   ¼ tsp ground cloves
   ½ tsp ground cumin
   ½ tsp chili powder

Add and simmer for 20 minutes or so

   2-3 vegan black bean burger patties, broken into chunks
   1 15 oz. can black beans, rinsed and drained
   Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 325º and get ready to roll
 
  1 package flour tortillas, 8 in a package
  1 jar mild salsa, for variety, try mild salsa verde

Fill flour tortillas with about 1/8 of the filling and roll. Place in a lightly sprayed casserole dish. Place extra filling between each enchilada. Top with salsa, and bake at 325º for 30 minutes.
 
Variation
Instead of rolling into enchiladas, layer the tortillas and filling, ending with tortillas, then top with salsa. Bake as above.

Serve with cashew cream - recipe coming soon - and for those who like it hot, a selection of hot-hotter-hottest sauces.
 
Enjoy!
 

Sunday, September 8, 2013

FaceOff: Clogger vs UnClogged

Quote du Jour
  You have brains in your head, you have feet in your shoes, you can steer yourself
  any direction you choose ~ Dr. Seuss

Challenge: Delete cholesterol from daily home-cooking but retain deliciousness
Since the source of dietary cholesterol is animal products - meat, eggs and dairy - and plant-based ingredients have none, here's the first of several strategies to help you review long-time family favorite recipes and revise them to be plant-based while retaining all the delicious excellence that made your recipes favorites in the first place.

VeggieBound Language
Since cholesterol clogs the arteries, (similar to plumbing being clogged with, well, use your imagination!) I started to call old family favorite recipes that include animal-products, Cloggers. Revised recipes, using only plant-based ingredients, are UnClogged. 

    Clogger = recipe includes animal-based ingredients
    UnClogged = only plant-based ingredients in recipe

For the purpose of this Blog and cookbook, Our Daily Bread, the original recipes include Clogger in the title, and the revised recipes have UnClogged.

   Sloppy Joe—Clogger
   Sloppy Joe—UnClogged



To Get Started, Let's Consider Simple Sloppy Joe
I chose Sloppy Joe, an excellent, quick and simple example of a family favorite recipe to UnClog. Only one ingredient, ground beef, is replaced with beans and/or veggie patties.

Here's a Great Web-Tool to Determine Nutritional Content
To determine the nutrient content of any recipe, Chron-o-meter provides a valuable service to the home cook. Enter all the ingredients in your recipe to determine the nutritional values (and also to verify that the cholesterol content number is 0).

For the purpose of today's Sloppy Joe recipe - both the Clogger and UnClogged versions - only the fat and cholesterol numbers are listed in this table:


The fat has been lowered from 21% to 8%. too!

Notes: Except for switching black beans and/or 2-3 vegan burger patties for ground beef, the following recipes are exactly the same. Identical ingredients and steps are highlighted in green.

Sloppy Joe is usually served over toasted hamburger buns. It’s great served over rice, polenta, biscuits, toast, cornbread, etc., too. For folks who like some "heat," put out bottles of Tabasco, Cholula or Sriracha, etc. Easy to double or triple, transfer to a crock pot to serve a crowd at a buffet.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sloppy Joe—Clogger (animal ingredients in recipe)

Serves 4-6

   1 lb ground beef     

                                    
   1 cup onion, finely chopped
   1 cup celery, finely chopped
   1 green pepper, finely chopped   
   1 Tbsp brown sugar
   1 Tbsp prepared mustard
   1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
   1 Tbsp white vinegar
   1 Tbsp lemon juice
   1 tsp paprika
   1 tsp salt
   1 cup ketchup
     

Brown ground beef and drain excess fat. Add remaining ingredients. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes.  

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sloppy Joe—Unclogged (only plant-based ingredients)

Serves 4-6

   1 15-oz. can black beans, drained and rinsed
   and/or
   2-3 vegan burger patties, broken into chunks.
         for some kick, use spicy vegan burger patties

Wheee!
  1 cup onion, finely chopped
  1 cup celery, finely chopped
  1 green pepper, finely chopped
  1 Tbsp brown sugar
  1 Tbsp prepared mustard
  1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
  1 Tbsp white vinegar
  1 Tbsp lemon juice
  1 tsp paprika
  1 tsp salt

  1 cup ketchup 
 
Put everything in large sauce pan, cover and simmer for 30 minutes.

Can the UnClogged version taste as good (or even better) as the Clogger? You be the judge. Enjoy!

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Now Hear This! We Interrupt this Food Blog...

Celebrating...
From when my middle child and I were at the first game of the As-Giants '89 World Series at Candlestick Park, to this week, the San Francisco-Oakland bay bridge has been in the news.

the new span...
This is such an inspirational feel-good video...allow 5 minutes to watch it.
 

of the San Francisco Oakland bay bridge!       
Video shows new Bay Bridge construction in time lapse
San Francisco Examiner

       
Look what we did!
Yes, it cost the taxpayers a lot, agreed it took way too many years, but we ended up with a breathtaking and inspiring new span. I'm hearing rave reviews, and the bridge has its very own Troll, placed somewhere on the new span to protect the bridge...for 150+ years!

Wow!
This is only one of the reasons why the bay area is such a wonderful place to live!

(I still think the quake should have been named the Bay Bridge Quake...what's Loma Prieta? Just sayin'). 


And here's today's quote, from the chief engineer of our other famous bay bridge...

Quote du Jour
   Our world of today...revolves completely around things which at one
   time couldn’t be done because they were supposedly beyond the limits
   of human endeavor. Don’t be afraid to dream!

                                                              ~ Joseph B. Strauss, Chief Engineer
                                                                 Golden Gate Bridge          

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Get Up to Speed


Quote du Jour
     We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
                                                                                                           ~ Aristotle
VeggieBound Graphics

Cholesterol has a face, it is only in animal products. Our body makes all the cholesterol it needs. Additional dietary cholesterol may be stored in the body in places that can cause havoc with our health.


With the goal of removing ingredients-with-a-face from my recipes, I started thinking of this project as a FaceOff.


To make it easy to identify recipes with animal-based ingredients - animals have a face - piggy came along. Piggy went from happy to ecstatic to never again be an ingredient! Here's happy piggy doing a cartwheel.

Whee!
Issues with Nutrition Labels?
Keep it Simple: Nutrition Labels
Just look at one number, the Cholesterol number, on a Nutrition Label. In plant-based products, the cholesterol number is always zero. A Cholesterol number other than zero means the product contains animal-based ingredients.

                                      Cholesterol = 0 = Plant-based
From Wikipedia
Always listed on a Nutrition Label are total fat, sodium, carbohydrates and protein...usually all these 15 nutrients are shown: calories, calories from fat, fat, saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol, sodium, carbohydrates, dietary fiber, sugars, protein, vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, and iron.
(Bonus: Piggy is VERY happy when the cholesterol number is 0!)

Practice Your Nutrition Label Savvy with Potato Salad!

Recipe du Jour
Potato Salad - Plant-based with "O Cholesterol" Mayo  

    8 medium potatoes
   1/4 cup dill pickles, finely diced
   1 stalk celery, diced
   3 green onions, white & green parts, sliced thin
   2 Tbsps fresh dill, minced OR parsley if fresh dill isn’t available
   1 cup mayonnaise: check the nutrition label...make sure it has NO cholesterol 

   2 Tbsps Dijon mustard
   4 Tbsps pickle juice
   salt and pepper to taste

Peel potatoes if desired and cut into 1 inch cubes. Place them in a large, deep pot.

Cover with cold water, add a pinch of salt, and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer on low until tender…15-20 minutes. Do not overcook. Drain potatoes and plunge them in cold water to cool quickly. Cover potatoes and chill in refrigerator until needed. Combine remaining ingredients except potatoes in a large mixing bowl. Gently stir in potatoes. Adjust salt and pepper to taste. Chill and serve. 

Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.


*Keep it Simple: Nutrition Labels: More on this subject in future blogs including the latest findings on how animal-based protein can affect long-term health.

Monday, September 2, 2013

Our Daily Bread, our family cookbook

Quote du Jour
     Pay it to the grocer, or pay it to the doctor. ~ my Grandma, Gerarda von Stietz

Challenge: Take a lifetime of recipes and...
When I fully understood that eating certain ingredients repeatedly - dairy and meat - contributes to chronic health conditions, I took 15 months to collect 40+ years of recipes, and found ways to convert most of them to using only plant-based ingredients.

1)  eliminate all animal-based ingredients...
Using many recipes that have been served at our family table for generations, I came up with cooking techniques, tools and strategies to incorporate delicious daily whole food plant-based home cooking into our busy American lifestyle. (Much as I enjoy cooking, I don't want to spend all my time preparing meals).

2)  keep the recipes delicious...
When my children started asking for the revised recipes, I realized that my perspective as a home cook, who managed to change the tastes and cooking habits of a lifetime, could help others change what is served daily in their homes. With a title inspired by a 60th wedding anniversary letter my dad wrote to our extended family, I had me a cookbook!

3)  then compile all the recipes together for family and friends.
I wanted the final look of the cookbook to be something I would be proud of, so I took a class to learn the Adobe Creative Suite of software, including Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign.

SURPRISE - It's a diet for a healthy planet, too, WOW!
Here's the cover...the photo of earth (from the NASA website, www.nasa.gov) taken during Hurricane Katrina. I like the symbolism of this photo, because switching to a plant-based diet reduced our garbage to nearly zero. Imagine - here we have a diet that is healthier for us and for our world! This is the most important change we have made to reduce our carbon footprint, and it came as a surprise! Slowly, we realized that the garbage can we put out weekly is always nearly empty.

We self-published 75 copies of the 240 page book for family and friends in February 2013 (Big Hat Press, Lafayette, California,
www.BigHatPress.com), and all the books have been distributed. Would it be worthwhile to have a 2nd printing? Well, I'm thinking about it...hence this blog.

And finally, for fun, I embellished the book with inspirational quotes collected over a lifetime -
including today's Quote du Jour from my grandmother - and then turned my 3 children into...the Three Little Pigs!