If you celebrate the holidays, like so many of us, you probably find this time of year particularly challenging. Gift shopping, home decorating, family dinners and parties can all be stressful and time-consuming, especially if you’re new to eating a plant-based diet. Following a whole food plant-based diet can mean more time spent grocery shopping…
Cooking Tips
How to Make Plant-Based Vegan Cream Sauce
If you love rich foods as much as I do, you probably know how a cream sauce can really make a dish. Unfortunately, plant-based eaters are often unsure of how to make a cream sauce without the dairy milk, cheese, and butter. The good news is that it’s easier than you think! Simple and versatile…
Zero-Calorie Sweeteners: Are They Healthy and Safe?
In our previous articles on sugar, we’ve learned why added sugar is so bad for you and how to avoid it, how mineral deficiencies can cause sugar cravings, and how the sugar in whole fruit is fundamentally different from other sugar. We’ve also taken a look at date sugar and blackstrap molasses, the only two…
Coconut Sugar and Evaporated Cane Juice: Health Foods or Hype?
In our last Plant-Based Cooking “sugar” article, “Two Healthy Sweeteners You Need to Know About,” (fourth in my series on sweeteners), we discovered that two relatively uncommon natural sweeteners, date sugar and blackstrap molasses, are the only sweeteners with any kind of significant nutritional content. They’re excellent choices for natural sugars – when and if…
Two Healthy Natural Sweeteners You Need to Know About
Date Sugar and Blackstrap Molasses (This is the fourth in a series of articles on the perils of added sugar. Be sure to check out the third article, “The Truth About Fruit Sugar on a Plant-Based Diet.”) By now we’ve all heard of refined sugars being referred to negatively as “empty calories” – and that’s…
Plant-Based Meal Prep for Busy People: Five Tips to Keep You Cooking
Do your dreams of organizing and streamlining your plant-based meal prep always seem to fall short of your ideal? Is that lean, green, spotless plant-based cooking machine of a kitchen you’re trying to set up never quite getting up to speed? You are not alone! Many things, especially any kind of organization and time management,…
Aquafaba: The Hottest Ingredient
Are you a vegan foodie who stays up to date with the latest and greatest in plant-based trends? Well, whether that describes you or not, if you’re at all into the plant-based lifestyle I want to make sure you’re in the loop when it comes to aquafaba, which according to Bon Appetit magazine is today’s…
49 Plant-Based Vegan Recipes from Canned and Packaged Foods
If you’ve had a busy day at the office or shuffling children, sometimes tackling dinner is the last thing on your mind, but I know you want wholesome plant-based food. What’s a busy cook supposed to do? Pull from your canned and packaged whole food cupboard quickies. Although you may have time to prepare homemade…
3 High-Protein Plant Foods You Need to Know About
These days it can seem like everyone is jumping on the high-protein bandwagon. In fact, some folks may even hesitate when it comes to adopting a healthy, whole foods vegan plant-based lifestyle due to concerns about getting enough vegan protein. You can rest assured, however, that whatever your reasons for needing abundant protein – whether…
Roasting Nuts and Seeds at Home
If you haven’t thought about it before, you might consider roasting your own nuts and seeds at home because store-bought nuts and seeds are typically coated with oil. When you make them at home you can skip the oil and dry roast them instead. Nuts are a powerhouse of nutrition. Studies have shown that if…
The Low-Down on Arsenic in Rice
Perhaps you’ve heard about arsenic in rice and are wondering what, if anything, you should be doing about it? With all the food, health, and environmental concerns out there, it can be hard for the average consumer to know what to take seriously. But inorganic arsenic, a naturally-occurring trace element, is extremely toxic to humans,…
Plant-Based Substitutions
When embarking on new eating lifestyle, many people are concerned with finding plant-based recipe substitutions for their old favorites. Whether it’s dairy, eggs, meat, or seafood, don’t fret – you have a lot of fantastic options! Below I’ve outlined all those and more. Consider this your comprehensive guide to plant-based alternatives to animal-based products, although if…
Seitan – Protein Packed Meat Alternative
Used as far back as the sixth century, seitan is a low-carb, low-fat, protein-packed, meat-alternative derived from wheat. Perhaps you’ve seen bags of wheat gluten in the baking section of your local grocery store? That powder, which is the protein part of what, is what seitan is made of. Of course, if you have a…
Cooking with Tempeh
A traditional Indonesian food, tempeh is mainly used as a meat-substitute. It’s dense and chewy with a savory, earthy, nutty sort of flavor. It’s a great source of plant-based protein, with a 3-oz serving containing roughly 16 grams. That same serving also provides you with about 9% of the RDA of calcium, 13% of iron, 17% of…
Cooking without Oil
OIL-FREE COOKING AND BAKING To promote optimum health, many in the plant-based community recommend eating very little or no processed oil. I agree with this so cooking without oil is a great skill to have. Even olive oil is partially saturated and contains 119 calories in one tablespoon. We can find fat, which we do need,…
