Tuesday, October 19, 2010

A little something I picked up.

So, as most people could imagine, when you take ALL the animal products out of your diet you can swing one of two ways. The hardest but most beneficial way is to being super conscious and thoughtful about what you're eating and how it's helping your body and the environment, and the easier way is to start with good intentions, and then to eat peanut butter and banana sandwiches 3 meals a day! If I've learnt anything in all of this, it's that it pays to be prepared. When you eat animal products, you can always just cook up an egg, or have a slice of cheese for protein, but when you're vegan, and you need quick food... Well what are you gonna do?

All that being said, here's a few tips/tricks/ideas for really healthy vegan eating!

1. Whenever you make a super delicious meal, ALWAYS prepare 2-3 times as much as you need. If it can be frozen, freeze it and reheat it for a quick meal, or put it in individual portions in your fridge for later use.

2. Whenever you have to prepare any sort of whole grain or bean, prepare them in SUPER large batches that can be frozen or refrigerated.

3. Make soups and stews in large batches. Soup is my ultimate quick food, I love heating up something super delicious and healthy and being able to eat it within 3 minutes.

4. When you marinate tofu, only cook the tofu that you're going to eat, and leave the rest of the tofu in the fridge in the marinade, covered, for up to a week. Pull out more tofu whenever you want and quickly pan fry it.

5. Miso paste. Quickest, healthiest soup. It takes about 3 minutes to make from scratch and is as satisfying and comforting as your memories of chicken noodle soup growing up.

6. Make batches of granola that you can store in big cannisters. I could eat granola every morning with a little splash of almond milk.

7. Make dressings (salad dressings, dragon bowl dressings, sauces) and dips (hummus!) in batches that you can store in your fridge. Store bought dips and dressings don't taste as good as homemade, and they're definitely not as good for you!

8. Cook leafy greens into whatever you can. It's a quick way of getting essential nutrients and loads of calcium!

9. Try new recipes and re make ones that were a hit in large quantities.

10. Start your day out with something very quick and delicious like a bowl of miso soup, a fruit, or a bowl of granola. Then your eating mindset for the rest of the day will be healthy.

If you're a vegan whose trying to be as healthy as possible, go for it! Don't let people get you down! I always remind myself thar if there's sceptism towards whether you're getting all the vitamins and nutrients you need, most people eating carnivorous diets don't pay attention to their food groups all that much and are probably missing loads of things too! So if you slack off and don't eat well for a couple days, don't cry over it! It's not like eating unhealthy as a vegan is any worse than eating unhealthy when you're not vegan!

So hopefully some of these tricks sparked some inspiration to get into the kitchen and make some large batches of healthy nutritious food! I just love that God made all this delightful food for us to eat that is so full of everything we need to physically live!

Peace.

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