PlantBased

RustBeltCowgirl
RustBeltCowgirl Posts: 1,403 ✭✭✭✭✭

Another magazine available that is similar to Forks Over Knives.

After @Marjory Wildcraft 's presentation, I thought that more people would be interested in adding more vegan related cooking to their skill set.

This is just the November issue. I will add other links as I browse through them. FYI: I store most of these downloaded magazines on labeled thumb drives, so that I don't fill up my hard drive capacity.

Comments

  • RustBeltCowgirl
    RustBeltCowgirl Posts: 1,403 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Here is the link for the December issue

    It has a good article on the use of Ginger for treating menstrual cramps at page 66. Plus Nutritionist's Notebook on Basil, Oregano and Rosemary at page 52.

  • RustBeltCowgirl
    RustBeltCowgirl Posts: 1,403 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Found out that the magazine has a website that you can get a lot of info from.


  • kbmbillups1
    kbmbillups1 Posts: 1,390 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Thanks! We are plant based - pretty much - my husband still insists on having meat so not completely. I have meat delivered once every 2 months so what we do eat it is a small amount compared to the average person.

    I can't wait to check out the recipes.

    I've made a lot recipes from The Jaroudi Family on youtube.

  • kbmbillups1
    kbmbillups1 Posts: 1,390 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I cannot see the website even though I've disabled ad block. They just keep giving me the same message over and over. 😕

  • I am plant based as well, so this is a good resource for more ideas, thanks!

  • Marjory Wildcraft
    Marjory Wildcraft Posts: 1,615 admin

    I think that as the commercial meat industry comes undone more people will become plant based. This will be for the practical reason meat becomes too expensive. Reducing the quantity of meat in your diet is a good thing IMHO.

    And, animals are such an important part of a regenerative food supply, even in the backyard. They also provide nutritional components difficult to get in other forms.

    Let me play @LaurieLovesLearning for just a moment and remind everyone TGN (the grow network) is politically, religously, and dietarily neutral.

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin

    Ah, but @Marjory Wildcraft, I find that buying plant based and plants (lettuce, tomatoes, hemp seed, chia, etc.) in general is more expensive...and can actually be more destructive to our planet if you consider the many factors in modern land use & production. Having said that, Im sure that you agree that the cow fart thing is so old (and so strange an argument). The livestock yards & the way they feed & often care for the animals...I agree that they are not good. Sustainability & proper care is of utmost importance. Sometimes it may seem like vast pastures are a waste of land, but it is good management as the land is generally useless for anything else...just the same, why don't they build cities on the worst land? Meat & milk still has benefits that veggies can't touch. Cities are a waste of usually very good, productive land, & clearing & burning bush & forest for plants is equally as bad as livestock mismanagement...Oh, my biases on both sides are coming out! We do love our (well cared for) meat here, but balance is king.

    Plants in and of themselves are good (I do love salads & veggies), but store bought plant based often hides many nasty non food ingredients that can be/are harmful. Even soy can hurt (it played a part in killing one of my cats & destroying our hedgehog's digestive system, both in approved feeds). It is best to read ingredient labels always and have eyes wide open. Be balanced with the nutrients that are taken in and be VERY aware of marketing tactics & social media that promotes & also vilifies. When you read those ingredient lists on anything (we so totally do this in our family to avoid certain things), have information about those ingredients at the ready. It is your responsibility to know what they actually are, what benefits they have for the product & problems they can cause you, now & in the future (did you know that many common ingredients alter your mental state?). Know also where & how these things are grown...don't trust marketing claims. Know their definitions of those words that they are using...don't assume what they mean. The companies don't want you to have that knowledge. It is a lot of work, but it is power in your hands.

    Really, this argument of which is better overall can go both ways if a person is honest and it is both political & can cross into a religious-style response, even fanaticism as we all know. The best argument in the whole bunch of noise is that unprocessed, or minimally processed is healthiest! I think we all can agree on that!

    Unfortunately, these types of conversations can have a tendency to go downhill & bash "the other guys" who in turn and rightly or wrongly defend & retaliate.

    As such, please be assured that this thread will be watched. Swapping ideas is welcomed, bashing of either side is not.

    Thanks, @Marjory Wildcraft for mentioning me in such an authoritarian light. 🤣 Ah, oh well. Because of that, I felt obligated to put my foot down. 😆 Hopefully I did not disappoint. 🙂

  • RustBeltCowgirl
    RustBeltCowgirl Posts: 1,403 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Hmmm, looks like I got a little too close to the "quicksand" again. Not promoting a side, just trying to get ideas out there. I like my meat too much to give it all up. But, I'm practical enough to know that as I cut the amount of meat out, that something else will need to move into its' place. And, any recipe can be "tweaked" to run the opposite side.

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin

    @RustBeltCowgirl Haha, no need to really worry. I wasn't overly concerned because this group is great at getting along.

    It is just one of those things that gets a standard...be careful...and I had too many words as usual. 🤪

  • RustBeltCowgirl
    RustBeltCowgirl Posts: 1,403 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I'll remember that when I try the watermelon "tuna". Umm, not. Already been told that it looks close, but the taste is lacking.

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin

    @RustBeltCowgirl That's a thing? I love watermelon, but that seems like quite a stretch. I didn't know.

  • RustBeltCowgirl
    RustBeltCowgirl Posts: 1,403 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @LaurieLovesLearning Here you go.

    She hacked a meal from Bon Appetit as vegan and got a shout out by the magazine for it.

  • Suburban Pioneer
    Suburban Pioneer Posts: 339 ✭✭✭

    Hub and I have been plant-based for thirty-five years now - started LONG before all the faux products were available - and I've found a few things that I keep in my pantry that work wonders for flavor and easily replace the animal products. Better Than Bullion No Chicken and No Beef bases are fantastic replacements for chicken and beef broth, and you can get them in low sodium versions, too. I use a combination of organic veg shortening and safflower oil if I need to mimic the unctuous mouthfeel of meat fat, and the oriental grocery sells vegan oyster and fish sauces based on seaweed for authentic-tasting Chinese and Thai dishes. I also use technique to imitate meat in certain dishes, such as pureeing an onion in the food processor then sauteeing it in olive oil and adding Beyond Beef broth paste and sauteeing that with the onion for a few minutes as the base for spaghetti sauce or chili. That cerates the impression of ground beef in the final sauce! The really interesting thing I've noticed over the years is that even the most committed hard core carnivores will flock to well made veg food before eating the meat dishes if given a choice. The biggest barrier to eating more plant-based, in my experience, is that veg food frankly just isn't cooked very well most of the time. We definitely need more cooking classes by excellent veg chefs so more people understand what to do with plant foods. It really does take more technique to cook veg dishes that make all eaters go "Mmmmm" than it does to cook most meat dishes. I say that from experience as I grew up a total 'meat n 'taters gal'!

  • RustBeltCowgirl
    RustBeltCowgirl Posts: 1,403 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @Suburban Pioneer I agree with needing more cooking instruction on veg techniques. For the most part, it's just not being made available mainstream.

  • Suburban Pioneer
    Suburban Pioneer Posts: 339 ✭✭✭

    Agreed. Most cookbooks are too light on the subject and most of the instruction we've seen on TV or You Tube (which I no longer recommend because of Google's spying when you watch a You Tube video and now You Tube's blatant censoring activities), are pretty underwhelming.

    One good exception, in my opinion, is Bobby Flay. He's got a program on The Food Network and makes a lot of excellent veg dishes. His technique is very good, and generally rather simple, and he's fun to watch. Another is My Greek Table with Diane Kochilas. Most of her dishes are veg and quite drool-worthy (and a refreshing departure from most of the standard dishes served in Greek restaurants). If you like Medeterranean flavors and simple, unfussy, time-tested peasant dishes (often the best!), I would highly recommend watching her. Most of what she makes doesn't require any fancy culinary technique, but the results are delicious and comforting. We've tried several of her recipes and loved them all. I would also recommend going back to Julia Child, as well, and studying some of her work. It's fussy, but the details really DO make a substantial difference and can kick almost any dish from any cuisine up several notches.

    Here's one very simple but powerfully important technique that most cooks don't know about but anybody can do: instead of adding herbs and spices to a dish after adding the main ingredients and liquid, sautee the spices in oil BEOFRE adding the main ingredients and broth to the oil. Usually that means sauteeing the herbs/spices with the onion, garlic or mirepoix prior to adding the main veggies, liquid and/or meat (or meat substitute). If you're not using onion/garlic or mirepoix as the base for the dish, no worries. Just heat a little oil and sautee the required herbs/spices before adding the main ingredients to the pan. If you don't do that already, try it and see how much of an improvement it is over just throwing raw spices into the main dish (sauce, meat or broth) while it's cooking. It takes a few minutes more and you'll want to use a lower temperature to sautee the onion or mierpoix so you don't burn the herbs or spices that are in the oil with them, but the oils and phenolic components of the flavorants get released into the cooking oil that way, and oil is a more powerful conveyor of flavor than is the water in the broth or sauce. Sauteeing your spices before adding in the main ingredients not only adds extra flavor, but will also make your kitchen smell heavenly both before and after the meal!

    Last but not least, invest in quality cookware! The cookware really DOES influence the flavor and overall appeal of a cooked dish. In general, purchase heavy pots and pans - enameled or unenameled iron is best - and learn to cook fairly slowly at moderate temperatures. Most people cook too quickly and on thin cookware, so the food heats up too rapidly and inherent flavors either get destroyed by fast browning or never get an opportunity to fully develop. Your pots and pans are really your best friends in the kitchen, so get good ones and treat them right! Hope this helps.

  • Suburban Pioneer
    Suburban Pioneer Posts: 339 ✭✭✭

    More permaculture!!!!! Even a back or parts of a front yard can be permacultured and yield huge amounts of food. Check out the increasing number of ornamental-worthy plants that can be stealthily integrated even into a suburban HOA landscape yet provide nourishing sustenance. For example, garlic is gorgeous in bloom, just plant extras that you can quietly dig up so nobody notices that some of the "flowers" from your flower bed are missing! Chinese WoolFlower is an edible celosia now availble at Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, or try the African edible celosia (celosia argentea) from Fair Dinkum seeds (very good for those in intense, hot, dry climates like mine as the leaves refuse to go bitter in the summer). Chinese Amaranth is also a gorgeous, non-bittering, coleus-type summer green, and Cardinal basil is both culinary and with pretty enough flowers to go in a mixed cutting bed. How about real sweet potatoes instead of ornamental sweet potatoes for trailing vines, currant bushes or edible magellan or calafate barberry (One Green World) for hedges instead of boring and inedible privet, and serviceberry trees as small ornamentals that yield incredibly delicious fruit? These are just a few of the options. How about grapes instead of ivy to cover a pergola or an ugly wall? There are even pretty nitrogen fixers. Many 'forgotten" or really underutilized foods are both attractive as well as full of nutrients. We tend to forget, I think, that peoples of the distant past lived much more on vegetable foods than we do today, and mostly did just fine. What we have come to accept as "normal" is really pretty restricted in many ways. We've got literally a world of variety in plants to choose from today if we raise them from seed in our own yards (or even eat them as sprouts if we don't have land), so learning how to get the most nutrition from the plants we can raise ourselves is probably the way to go for prepping, regardless of dietary philosophy. It's always going to be easier to raise sprouts than chickens or cows. It IS going to take a lot of learning, though, as so much about what's good for us has been forgotten. Our system thrives on making things easy on people, not necessarily GOOD for us in the longer term.

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin

    @Suburban Pioneer "It's always going to be easier to raise sprouts than chickens or cows."

    I don't doubt that. You are always learning new things about animals...life, death, predators, housing, fencing, sickness, heat, light...more. Sprouts, well...that is pretty straight forward.

  • Suburban Pioneer
    Suburban Pioneer Posts: 339 ✭✭✭

    Yup - I've learned a TON both from and about my poultry, especially how intelligent and aware they are. And how they behave basically exactly how we behave. I read a number of years ago that the rise of scientific literacy was probably due to so many people being raised on farms, or whose parents were raised on farms. Traditional farmers are keen observers of nature and must think about how the world around them works in order to be successful. People raised for a couple of generations or more in urban environments, particularly in the electronic age, are almost totally disconnected from nature and are usually poor observers because it takes so little awareness to get along. Ignorance about the basic working of the natural world is breeding suspicion of anything based on observation of nature. I think schools should all have gardens and chickens. A kid can learn an awful lot about how the world works and about human nature by observing and working with plants, animals and even soil.

  • SuperC
    SuperC Posts: 952 ✭✭✭✭

    I’ve been plant-based for four years and my energy levels are up, I’m more positive and my memory has increased. I love fruits with chia seeds for breakfast, or diced white onion, carrot, and celery sautéed on low heat with a pinch of evoo as a healthy balanced breakfast. Lunch is a 14oz. salad. 1/4 cup of diced pickles, a diced green onion, a 1/4cup puréed butternut squash, 1cup shredded carrots, 1/2cup avocado spread, and two cups of arugula. Yum. I try to eat seven different colors of fruits and veggies daily. It’s fun!

  • Jens the Beekeeper
    Jens the Beekeeper Posts: 651 admin

    Me and my family are sometimes more plant based and sometimes not.

    As with all things it's a case for balance. As long as you can supply the B vitamins the vegetarian or vegan diet is healthy for anybody. BUT sometimes I just like a big old steak or roast 😉. But can go without meat eggs or fish for several weeks too.

    As @LaurieLovesLearning said plant based food can be even more destructive to the environment if you do not take care where it is sourced. Same goes for meat.

    And fries with ketchup are vegan too 😲 so not necessarily the healthier choice.

    I like to mix and match and have a lot of vegetables in my dishes. When the kids were younger I slipped Veg into the sauce for noodles by frying it and taking the mixer to blend it with the tomatoes. None of them recognized the 1kg of zucchini 😂😂😂😂

  • seeker.nancy - Central Texas
    seeker.nancy - Central Texas Posts: 795 ✭✭✭✭

    @Suburban Pioneer you are so right about needing more recipes/chefs to tap the potential of plant based. Some are woefully and wilfully ignorant about it. At a Dr visit last year I told my Dr that I was now eating vegan. She was fine with that. When I told her my biggest problem was that sometimes my pain level is too high to do much cooking. Her response? "How hard is it to open a can of green beans?" Yep, that was her solution. As a side note, commercially canned green beans are frankly lacking in either flavor or texture once you've had "real" ones lol. Not a healthy option if used too regularly for those who do like them.

  • Suburban Pioneer
    Suburban Pioneer Posts: 339 ✭✭✭

    You are so right, Nancy! And "can of green beans" - wow! If I were running medical ed in the U.S., I would extend the training to 5 years and include mandatory cooking classes from top chefs, and classes on agriculture (as in, the differences between organic/regenerative foods and commercial foods), plus basic herbal and alternative medicines, so at least conventional doctors wouldn't be ignorant of those subjects. My worst and most profound experience with food was probably the few times I had to eat in the cafeteria of the V.A. hospital where I worked, and canned green beans were in vogue! I was much more "aware" than most people even back then, but I was absolutely floored at how miserable to food was. My first reaction to my first lunch there was "This is food that nobody ever loved, from seed to server". On the flip side, I've noticed that, even though my husband and I were good cooks before, in the last ten months since we stopped eating out, our cooking has gone from good/very good to outright great most of the time (proving that practice does make perfect!) In India there is a belief that the energy of the cook influences the quality of the meal. I kinda' scoffed at that until we started cooking every single day. Now I can "feel" the energy in our food much better, especially the items we've grown ourselves. I don't even like the thought of restaurant food any more because I can still taste it in my head and my body tells me that most of it is missing "something". I think that something is the energy - the love and attention - of the cook, and also the effect of the cookware. Better pots and pans actually do improve the flavor of the food. And, you are so correct, there is NOTHING that can even mimic the quality of fresh, organic and love-grown. The body knows these things!!

  • kfoto
    kfoto Posts: 108 ✭✭✭

    Great thread. I’m almost done with my certification for plant based chef from pure joy planet. I’m learning to bring back the fun into the kitchen. The main chef does keto camps teaching how to cook and make raw or semi raw foods. Healthy swaps, delicious foods. Most are as simple as opening a can which we don’t. I feel like I’ve reconnected to my grandma. We would walk out back and pick lunch. This is the way it should be. Balance life, connecting to our food and knowing where our food came from.

  • RustBeltCowgirl
    RustBeltCowgirl Posts: 1,403 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I started this topic ages ago and wanted to give it some fresh light.

    The latest issue has some awesome cakes as recipes. Here's a link to all the current downloadable issues.

    The ad blocker seen in the link doesn't bother me and my virus checker doesn't react to it. Lots of good ideas for meals.

  • monica197
    monica197 Posts: 332 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Just read a concerning article regarding the multi-generational (if you will) genetic modification in it - GMO's from GMO's. I love meatless meals. But when it comes to meat, I will take the real thing, personally.