My wife Peggy is the reason we can all eat a plant based diet while getting a balanced nutrition.
She says that “vegans avoid all animal origin foods. A well planned plant based diet can be healthy if sufficient and varied foods are eaten. The China Study showed that if a person consumes less than 10% of animal foods for calories consumed there are some health benefits but if you reduce your animal food caloric intake to less than 4%, there are significant benefits. Plant based diet leads to lower incidence of hypertension, diabetes mellitus, obesity, sleep apnea, coronary artery disease and systemic inflammation”.
“Eating plant based takes some effort. While upfront this seems like work, you should be doing this anyways – vegan diets are simply a change in the way you view food.”
- You have to PLAN – i.e. either look for recipes and do the shopping OR get a food subscription service (which tends to be more expensive) like Purple Carrot, Green Chef or Daily Harvest.
- You have to COOK – don’t fall into eating processed meat substitutes or thinking that if it is plant based it has to be healthy. You are looking for whole unprocessed plants – legumes/beans/nuts/seeds/grains in your diet. Things like Beyond Burgers are OK occasionally but not healthy.
- You have to READ LABELS – there is a lot of sugar/salt/poor quality unhealthy fats in precooked meals. If you prepare simple, whole, unprocessed meals you reduce your intake of sugar/salt and unhealthy fats.
- GROCERY SHOPPING – bulk of your time should be spent in the produce aisle. Go to Indian/Asian grocery stores to shop for beans, nuts and spices. You will save a whole bunch of money.
VEGAN COOKBOOKS that Peggy uses:
- Isa Does it – Isa Chandra Moskowitz
- Vegan Brunch – Isa Chandra Moskowitz
- Veganomicon – Isa Chandra Moskowitz
- Cook, Eat, Thrive – Joy Tienzo
- Super Easy Vegan Cheese Cookbook – Janice Cunningham
- Thug Kitchen
- Energy Balls – Christal Sczebel
- The Joy of Vegan Baking – Colleen Patrick-Goudreau
- Vegan Pantry – Miyoko Schinner