8 Ways To Up Your Vegan Diet
More and more people today, especially young people, have given up meat and have embraced the vegan lifestyle. A recent survey by the vegan company BOL Foods found that 44% of young people think that veganism is “cooler than smoking.” A recent YouGov poll found that one in five young people believe that the future is meat-free. Most often, that perception has to do with the cruel and obvious mistreatment of animals in today’s factory farms by the Meat Industry. The future looks vegan.
Factory farms also produce noxious pollutants that have negative impacts on not only animals, but on human and environmental health. The air, the water and the land we live on has all been negatively affected by our dietary choices.
A diet based on whole-grains, vegetables and beans, cooked in season, with regard to locality and balance provides the practical solution, not only for animals, but for humans and for the Planet. It is estimated that greenhouse gases could be cut by over 50%, restoring the health of our land, water and air….if we cut meat from our diets. The incidence of cardiovascular diseases, cancer, obesity, diabetes and dementia have been greatly reduced by switching to a whole foods, vegan diet.
1 Don’t Rely On Restaurants
Eating out is a fun experience, but most often, the devil is in the details. When you dine out, you’re more likely to be consuming sweetened, oily, refined and processed foods like sugar, white bread and fake meats, not to mention GMO foods. Regular consumption of these foods does not sustain health for too long. The hard-to-break habit may work when you’re younger, but may come to haunt you as you age. When you do dine out, make good choices. Avoid greasy, deep-fried, spicy dishes and cold drinks. Make sure to include vegetables in your choices.
2 Learn The Art of Home-Cooking
Home-cooking is a lost art. Many say they don’t have the time, but cooking your meals at home insure that you’re getting what you need from a vegan diet. Learning to cook healthfully takes some commitment and practice, just as you would if you were learning to fly a plane. Adjusting you cooking style, according to season and locality is also of utmost importance. Summer fruits, vegetables and raw foods are more suited for summer. Winter ones, (like root vegetables) are for winter. Lighter cooking of vegetables, some raw salads and fruits support us in warmer months while longer and slower methods sustain us in colder months.
3 Ditch Your Protein Obsession
Vegans think they are missing out on protein, so they often load upon fake meats and cheeses. Although these products may be fun, they’re usually highly processed, loaded with the same amount of saturated fat and salt as their meat counterparts. Protein is important for growth when you are growing. After that, it’s only needed for maintenance. Instead of focusing on protein, make sure your dietary choices are balanced ones, including enough fiber and trace minerals that you need. They can be found in vegetables, beans, and whole grains.
4 Realize the Sweet Danger of Sugar
Because it’s vegan and/or organic, doesn’t mean it’s a healthy choice. The US population consumes 126 grams of added sugars per day, the highest consumption of any country. When reading labels, keep an eye out for terms like corn sweetener, corn syrup, dextrose, fructose, glucose, high-fructose corn syrup, honey, lactose, malt syrup, maltose, molasses, raw sugar and sucrose. Choose fruits over desserts, but be mindful of not overdoing. Fruit is also high in fruit sugar (fructose) and eating too much, can be harmful and lead to nutritional deficiencies.
5 Get Enough Variety
When you home-cook, it’s easy to fall into a rut of cooking the same fare every day. You’ve learned how to cook a good meal that you love, so you keep replicating it over and over again (until you’ve lost your love for it). There are literally endless variations of how to cook legumes, vegetables and whole grains. You can steam, boil, roast, bake, sauté or prepare raw. Part of your cooking education is to use your own creativity in the kitchen. It becomes a fun experience, much like playing music or other arts.
6 Eat Complex Carbs
Carbs have been demonized recently and many vegans and non-vegans have cut them out. Most civilizations, throughout history, have sustained themselves on carbs. African countries thrive on corn, sorghum and millet, Asians on rice, Americans on corn and wheat, Middle-Easterners on wheat. “All large populations of trim, healthy people, throughout verifiable human history, have obtained the bulk of their calories from starch.” – Dr John McDougall
The confusion, as you may have heard, has to do with thinking all carbs are the same (they’re not). Refined carbs like white rice, white bread, white noodles, pastries and cakes are implicated in a dramatic increase in disease, while complex carbs like brown rice, millet, buckwheat and barley have been shown to promote health and longevity. Carbohydrates are your body’s main source of energy. Keep in mind that avoiding carbs may aid weight loss at first, but statistics now reveal that avoiding carbs is not sustainable for you body or your mental function.
So, now that all the indicators seem to be pointing towards a more sustainable future for veganism, the next step in understanding includes whole foods, cooked in season, with regards to locality and balance.
7 Include High-Quality Sea Salt & Seaweed
High-quality, unrefined Sea Salt and Seaweed provide the essential trace minerals essential to boosting immunity and reducing inflammation. The current demonization of salt is directed at low-quality table-salt, a product stripped of all nutrients, associated with numerous health problems. Sea salt and seaweed are quite different, containing over 85 essential minerals missing from the low-salt/no-salt vegan diet. They both have the ability to improve digestion, prevent heart disease, nourish the adrenals and keep the body hydrated. Use enough sea salt in cooking your food to bring out natural flavors. If your food taste salty, you’ve used too much; if not enough, the food tastes flat.
8 Embrace Fermented
So much has been said and written about the importance of fermented foods like sauerkraut and pickles in our diets. These foods are “pre-digested” and easy for the body to assimilate. The good bacteria in fermented foods help not only digestion, but also boost immunity. Current studies have also found a healing effect from depression, anxiety and other mental disorders. Make your own or look for locally-produced sauerkrauts and pickles at your health food store or farmers’ markets.
If I want variety in kale, spinach, cabbage, beet root, carrots, and similar vegetables, but I only cook for myself, do you have any recommendations for how to buy, prepare and store those without ending up with surplus I can’t use up, but also not have to eat basically just a bowl of red beet because I bought too much and don’t want it to go bad? Cooking for multiple people would probably be the ideal solution, but finding people outside of family to do that and share the budget with would be complicated at best.
I’m sure fermentation helps, but that only covers a portion of vegetables, right? Like, beet root and maybe carrots? I don’t like the taste of red cabbage when it’s pickled, I think that ruins some of its best qualities.
I’m thinking it might be easier than I imagine, if I just practice a little and cook the same meal a few days in a row and then switch to the next (which is something I absolutely don’t mind if the dish is tasty), allowing me to buy the ingredient in regular supermarket volume. I’ve just never committed to trying that, because whenever I do attempt it, I keep ending up with excess of one ingredient and running out early of another, and so by the third out of four days, the dish is way less tasty than the original concept; which would be fine the first time, but by the third time it becomes frustrating.
Learning the creative re-use of leftovers is helpful. Cook enough for 4 meals. Leftovers like grains and beans can be made into croquettes or soups. Beans can also be blended into hummus (just about all beans). Veggies can also be put in soups and pureed. Good Luck!