Struggling with "whole food plant based"
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I have been reading the last few posts with interest. I am vegan. For me, I have never liked meat. In fact, I don't like meat substitutes because they are way too close to meat and the texture just turns my stomach. As for whether vegans are happier, I just don't think you can make a blanket statement about any group being happier or unhappier. Within each group you will find unhappy people and happy people. To me the happiest people are going to be the ones that eat true to themselves and are content and satisfied with the choices they are making. No one should be made to feel bad about their food choices. We have all been handed a diagnosis that could potentially shorten our lives. Eat the way that makes you happy and be grateful for food in your belly. Fed is best....however that looks to each of us.
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The vegan happiness thing is is the result of a survey you guys. It's not a peer reviewed study or anything - but it was a MTurk survey of over 11K random people which is not a bad survey pool. https://www.trackinghappiness.com/vegan-happiness-...
I think threads have a life of their own and when people post "i'm having trouble with x" , fairly regularly at least some responses will be "do you really need to do x? maybe don't? maybe it's worth it anyway" ... I'm here for the posters who do want to do it, who feel it's important.
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Here's a nice dish that is a knock off of a vegan pasta dish made at a popular Italian restaurant in Vancouver. Not the healthiest dish in our repertoire but we love it anyway
Pasta with Artichokes & Sundried Tomatoes
454 g pasta (rotini works nice)
4 cloves garlic chopped
1/4 cup olive oil
60g Earth Balance original
1 can (398 mL/14 fl oz) artichoke hearts
~ 200 mL of sundried tomatoes packed in seasoned oil, cut a bit into strips
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp ground pepper
1/2 C white wine
1/2 C flat/Italian parsley, chopped, optional
heat oil over med heat. Add garlic and crushed red pepper, saute about 1-2 min, add salt, pepper, white wine, Earth Balane, artichokes and sundried tomatoes. stir and gently saute until heated through 2-5 min.
Toss with pasta and parsley if using
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That recipe sounds amazing, moth.
Also I'm with you, if someone wants to cut out animal products in their food, I'm here to help. Don't want to? No worries.
Oddly, it's been one year today since I shifted from vegetarian to fully vegan and if I were answering that survey, I'd say I'm happier LOL
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Here's a more proteiny dish, excellent for summer when you don't want to heat up the house cooking.
Chickpea of the Sea - aka vegan tuna salad. I make mine in the food processor and I prefer to not have any whole chickpeas in my mix. I have never added the chia seeds or nori sheets. Stores well in the fridge - in fact, I think it's better when it's had a few hours to sit. Goes nicely on bread or in pita pockets or on lettuce
https://simple-veganista.com/chickpea-of-sea-salad...
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moth , the link you posted leads not to a study itself but to a pro vegan website mentioning the study. Without specifying methodology, inclusion criteria etc a study done/mentioned by a group with marked biases has little value to me in proving that vegans are happier. Having.g said that even if there was a definite higher incidence of happy people amongst vegans it does not prove cause and effect relationship. For all we know any group of people with strong convictions who follow them can be happier than general population.
Thank you for the chickpea recipe , sounds good , I shall keep the window with it open and hopefully will make soon.
I am trying to cook this https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/tofu-scramble-0
as I type. Shall report as I am cooking it for the first time.
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Anotherone - don't beat yourself up over this, I've found that sourcing vegetables or quality ingredients for vegan / more vegetarian eating is tough in the UK, despite the preponderance of readymade and all sorts of "vegan" products on the shelves. Also, I've noticed in the last two months the grocery produce has gotten really wet/not great, I don't know if that is because it is sitting on a truck at the border somewhere or what but its tough to turn vegetables around as fast as they need to be! Here are some tips:
- If you are looking for dried spices, beans, rices, nuts, alternative grains and alternative flours, check out buywholefoodsonline.co.uk as they have cheaper prices than H&B and a much wider selection with a range of sizes. Need 2.5kg of almond flour? No problem! Just want 250g of tapioca flour to try out a recipe? No problem! I buy organic broken cashew pieces there to turn into cashew cream for mac n cheese, and other nuts and seeds to make granola.
- cheapest avocados are at Marks - 6 Haas of reasonable size to a green pouch for £2, although I got some on sale on Sunday (bout 3pm) for £1.19 which was fab as they are just at the right point of ready now and I have been putting them on salads or with breakfast. They are over by the ready packaged salad bowls.
- best source for maple syrup is just to order the Kirkland brand maple syrup via Amazon (usually used in baking or alternate sweetener)
- Maybe look into a weekly veg or monthly organic meat box delivery. Oddbox are good for avoiding waste, but then you better be a decent cook to manage whatever they send - I found I didn't like the uncertainty. Abel and Cole or Riverford or ANY of the others where you can choose to add potatoes or not may be a better bet to start. Go with a small box and see how it goes, I think they are about £12 or so.
If you are looking to supplement with some organic meat (think of meat as a condiment rather than the main meal focus):
Turner & George do a Jim Box of lean free range meats - 30 x 200g portions of mixed chicken/turkey/lean beef for £80. Yeah I know that price is high but you could freeze and label those as YOURS and feed the rest of the family whatever is around in the area and that way you could maybe do up two chicken breasts a week for you to put on top of salads for midday,or alongside potatoes and other vegetables for dinner, or as stirfry. That gets you 15 weeks of meat, or 10 weeks (if you go three portions) which when you consider a single 400g free range steak in a packet at Waitrose will cost you the best part of £9 doesn't look so bad!
I also get the small packet of ground turkey breast at Sainsbury's to make into a large "turkey sausage scramble" with potatoes and chopped veg and eat it for breakfast or lunch (or hell, dinner) - sometimes with avocado on top, sometimes with an egg, sometimes with spinach or other stuff I have prepped in the fridge. (https://masonfit.com/healthy-turkey-sausage-breakf...). Organic mince is great to make into all sorts of stuff for multiple meals - this week I did taco meat which we will get six meals from - two nights of taco salad and one night of sweet potatoes topped with the taco meat.
Finally - Naked pork sausages and bacon are the ONLY brand that are nitrite and nitrate free. I get them on the Ocado or Waitrose, they are pricey, but then its more bacon as supporting feature in a salad or wrap rather than an every morning thing. Coombe Farm online do nitrite free pork as well, but as much as I would love to order meat exclusively from them, their prices just aren't feasible. I ordered our Christmas gammon from them, and a fancy beef steak and both were excellent. They do all organic BBQ boxes in case you have a special event coming up, or they have 6 organic pork Cumberland sausages for £5.20, if you wanted to just stock the freezer with something of your own for BBQs.
I'd suggest to pick a direction and start slow with changing one meal at a time. Maybe its breakfast you want to build up some go-to recipes, or maybe its lunch if you are set with breakfast. I found we've had to do more of the Whole30/paleo approach as dairy/wheat/corn seem to drive a lot of inflammation for me and it was too easy to slip back into eating pasta or more grains than we could tolerate in order to lose weight (and I don't believe in the level of meat eating for keto - no way!). Both of us have lost weight, significantly reduced our sugar/junk consumption and significantly increased our vegetable intake despite not really eating that much more meat. Just like cancer, everyone's body functions differently, so this works for us. Paleo is also easy to do "baking" on, more than vegan, but even then I wouldn't say Im baking up a storm and we don't need a bunch of treats.
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The second post links to the survey which was done by a project tracking happiness, and nothing to do with veganism. The appendix of the article has the methodology. https://www.trackinghappiness.com/vegan-happiness-...
But anyway - I'm not going to argue this because it's not a real reason to become vegan. I was just responding to the idea that eating a certain way but being unhappy about it led to 'doing worse' - whatever that might even mean.... It wasn't meant to be a serious intellectual point, just an encouragement to people because it just so happened that I saw that article recently.
I'm an ethical vegan and have been for years, after years of vegetarianims broken by periods of flexitarianism. I'm happy with my vegan life & I'm one of those activist etc vegans - but not here. Here I would prefer to focus on recipes and encouraing people to make choices which omit animals from their plates.
I make a tofu scramble like that all the time! btw, if you want a bit of actual eggy flavour, adding kala namak makes all the difference. Without it, it just tastes like seasoned tofu. I like it both ways. Actually, I'm going to make that right now as I have tofu that the store delivered with a short use by date.
Just adding to say that an easy way to prep the tofu for the scramble is with a pastry cutter.
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I don’t even like tofu but there’s a frozen meal called “Amy’s Tofu Scramble” that I think is delicious. It might be the hash brown potatoes with onions plus the seasoning they put on the tofu that makes it taste really good. Amy’s brand may not be available outside the USA and anyway, it’s too expensive to use all the time. But it does taste good.
It IS all about the seasoning with tofu, IMO.
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Sorry, next post about great sources for recipes:
Ladies, you must all check out Feasting at Home - her Moroccan cauliflower couscous is amazing and I am making it again this week (alongside her moroccan salmon). Everything I've made from her site just works - really fresh (she's a private chef out of Santa Barbara). I may do the Thai Burrito as a weekend treat because I've been dying to try it and bought black rice just for that experience!
I do Cookie and Kate a lot too, the vegan mac and cheese recipe, her spinach and artichoke enchiladas, and her veggie lasagna are popular in this house. I made her mexican slaw this week, and her pink coconut slaw in the past. I *heart* slaws because they hold up well and you can add them for crunch to just about anything.
Minimalist Baker is good, as is Detoxinista. I do the latter's Pumpkin Seed Granola to go on top of all sorts of stuff (like Smitten Kitchen's Kale Salad) and her chocolate chia seed pudding for breakfast. I made her Almond Flour Berry Crisp last week to use up berries and it turned out great, I may try it to use up some apples this week.
101 Cookbooks is an old favorite, though I haven't made a Heidi recipe in years. Oh She Glows is entirely vegan and she has a entire food prep approach laid out. And then Meera Sodha, the Indian cooking author, has moved more into vegan lately, but everything I've made from her Indian cookbooks has turned out really well.
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kala namak ? I have not even heard of it !
I loved the recipe. The best one I tried so far with tofu. One of the rare vegan ones in which I do not feel there is anything missing. Gives perfect eggy feeling , tastes just right. My daughter(16y.o.) concurs. Just need to find a good (convenient and not bank breaking) supplier of organic tofu. I add a lot more onions to it as all of us love sauteed onions.
Sondra, I have done the riverford box for a couple of years then cancelled it because I ended up shopping too much apart from it and it was working out too expensive and not to my taste. There are 3.5 of us in the family (me , my daughter, my dad and on couple of nights a week my boyfriend ) meaning small box will be like a little addition instead of covering the bulk of it ! I have organic farm shop within 30 mins from me so veg and a lot of other produce is covered. Waitrose within 5 mins drive as well so I am spoilt for choice. Wholefoodonline discovered recently as well and budget is not too much of an issue as I am able to work in a well paid job ... So only habits/lack of knowledge/not enough guts to make an effort is to blame in my case.
Direction is difficult. I have a feeling just adding to the go to recipes meals that I like would be right - like happened with the one I cooked today - so that I have more varied plant based options. Familiarise myself with foreign to me ingredients.
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Im jealous of your farm shop! Ugh - just irritates the crap out of me how I have to have everything delivered in (no car and can't drive in this country).
Yeah, it just takes time - try not to change too much all at once. Also, your freezer is your best friend. I like to rice three head of cauliflower at a time in the Cuisanart and freeze in 2 cup bags so "rice" is always available. Or a pot of dried beans and freeze the cooked beans in portions. Maybe once a week I'll try working with a new ingredient, flour, or concept. Sometimes it turns out (almond flour brownies, yes!) or not (pulled jackfruit smelled like a burning tire so we had to order a pizza that night).
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I hope my post didn't sound like I was judging vegans, I'm definitely not. I just agree with cm2020's opinion on eating.
Anyway, here are a few of my family's favorite vegan or vegetarian recipes, ones I've made over and over again. A lot of vegetarian or vegan recipes I make are from books so I can't post links, but these are online.
Brazilian Black Bean Stew, amazing and one of my all-time favorites: https://www.foodiewithfamily.com/brazilian-black-b...
Sriracha Chickpea Salad: https://www.budgetbytes.com/sriracha-chickpea-sala...
Coconut Black Lentil Curry: https://www.theendlessmeal.com/coconut-black-lenti...
Herb-Crusted Cauliflower Steaks: https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/herb...
Fava Bean and Fennel Salad (my favorite way to eat fennel): https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/spring_fava_...
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If you eat white potatoes, or want to swap in sweet potatoes, the Veganomicon recipe for "Samosa-Stuffed Potatoes" is pretty tasty -- as in my whole family likes it and friends request it for potlucks.
http://omni-vegan.blogspot.com/2009/02/samosa-stuf...
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I'll take a note.
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