Recently I had a craving for good Chinese Lo Mien. I found a restaurant that does not use MSG. I tried it. It seemed very oily to me. Disappointed. I decided to give them a second try after discussing the oil quantity with the restaurant. They explained how they prepared the lo me in and that much of what I thought was oil was a combination of a small amount of oil and Hoisin sauce.
I am now on a quest to adapt good Asian recipes to our dietary requirements. I am beginning with Thai and Chinese. The resulting dish must be vegan, gluten-free, and oil-free. I welcome all your authenic tried and true suggestions or recipes.
I am so excited. I have been trying for a while to create my own veggie burger raw and cooked. I have used other people’s recipes. Some were good and others not so much or at least not to my liking. What are my motivations for making my own. I could just buy them. Right? Motivation 1. Mastering my refrig
I also wanted to confidently create my own with whatever I had in the kitchen. That’s what so many said they did in their experiments so why can’t I? Motivation 2 Cost
Buying them can be a budget buster. They are expensive. Here in Texas they are approximately $4.50 and up for 4 patties and they may or may not be vegan. Motivation 3 Satisfying The Cardiologist
This is the hardest. Carl’s doctor has so many requirements. First it was raw so the body could heal itself. Then it was you can add in cooked but must be vegan,gluten-free, oil-free and clean as possible. Vegan was easy. We had already eliminated dairy and most flesh. Gluten-free required learning how to use different grains and seeds and the flours made with them to make waffles, bread etc. Keep in mind the raw, clean and oil-free parameters. Oil-free is easy to understand but no so eary to accomplish. You don’t want dry burgers, or dry anything. Still working on that one. Then what’s clean.
Clean eating is a deceptively simple concept. … At its simplest, clean eating is about eating whole foods, or “real” foods — those that are un- or minimally processed, refined, and handled, making them as close to their natural form as possible. fitnessmagazine
Minimally processed is the kicker. How can you know if it is minimally processed unless you make it yourself?
I finally found a recipe from The Spruce Eats that was very close to the #Dr. Praeger patties that I buy and fit within the parameters set by the Doctor. So with a little modification here is my offering.
Recipe
1 2/3 cup beans (this was a mix of kidney, lentils and leftover black)
1 cup cooked quinoa
1/2 c chopped on onion
1/2 c chopped yellow bell pepper
1/2 medium fresh jalapeño
1/2 medium avocado
1 Tbls brown rice flour
1 tsp chia seeds in 2 Tbls of water
3 Tbls of liquid aminos or to taste
Pinch of cayenne
Mix all ingredients in a food processor until well blend. Form patties and bake at 375° F for 45 minutes or desired firmness.
The brown rice flour made them a little crusty on the outside but were moist on the inside. I will try next time with oats instead of quinoa.
7 burgers that were 4″ in diameter and 1/4″ thick
The flavor was great and now that I’ve made them it will be a quick process next time.
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This post was originally written in April at the beginning of my cooking raw journey. Each successive post will bring you closer to my present August experience.
I decided to go all in to this raw eating thing so I bought an inexpensive dehydrator and a raw food cookbook or should I say recipe book. As my very smart husband pointed out, others had tried and tested techniques and flavor combinations, why not take advantage of that. So I did. I was glad to know there were choices beyond salads.
In the following raw eating post I will share my experiences preparing the recipes in Rawmazing authored by Susan Powers. I will note any changes to her recipes to accommodate our taste just in case you decide to buy her book. Her directions are easy to follow and the pictures are vibrant. For the raw purest you will need to find substitutions for the oil. I used tahini and cashew butter(cream). Also, I used Dr. Montgomery’s book The Food Prescription Nutrition Guide
I had not used a dehydrator before and I didn’t know what to expect so I went for something simple. The first thing I tried were Ms. Post’sKale Chips. It seemed simple enough. She has 3 versions. I chose version 2. The ingredients are garlic, thyme and oil. For the oil I substituted tahini. Mix those ingredients and set it aside. Cut the thick stems from the kale and tear the leaves into chip size pieces. Make sure all excess water is removed from the kale. Then dress the kale with the garlic mix . Put the pieces on the dehydrator trays. Don’t overlap. The suggested time dehydration time was 4-6 hours at 115 degrees. Because of the Houston humidity, it took 8 hours to crisp. My taste tester, hubby, was quite pleased. He wanted to eat them like potato chips.
If you don’t have a dehydrator pop them into your oven on a low heat, 120 degrees if possible. If you put it on a temperature higher than 170 degrees and some say 200 degrees, you will destroy all of the health benefits from eating raw; you will kill the enzymes.
I am so sorry that I don’t have a picture. I lost it somehow.
Kale Chips – Rawmazing p. 41
Dressing
3 Tbls olive oil (I substituted tahini.)
1 cloves garlic
1 tsp of dry thyme
Turn on the food processor or high powered blender. Drop the garlic, thyme and oil into it.
Place on dehydrator sheets and dehydrate 4-6 hours. More longer if you are in a humid area.
Isn’t it frustrating when the doctor tells you to eat healthy or you need a healthier meal plan but doesn’t explain what he/she means? Or even more so, they give you a list of foods you should or should not eat and that’s eat. Many of us look at the lists and realize we already eat those foods. We make the bake or broiled versus fried substitutions and think we are eating healthy. some of us go to the extreme and replace beef and pork with chicken and turkey. We must be on the right track with that sacrifice. Maybe but could it be better?
Dr. Baxter Montgomery didn’t just tell us to eat healthy He introduced us to his Heart and Wellness Plan; a six week detoxification plan complete with recipes. Also available to us was the Center’s Garden Kitchen (GK). His kitchen staff prepares raw vegan meals for purchase by Center patients and the public. Meal plans are available for those who choose to have the GK prepare all of their meals. These freshly made raw/vegan meals are delivered daily. There is also a steady stream of health conscious foodies in the GK. This was wonderful for me because I had no clue how the dishes were suppose to taste. The GK gave us the opportunity to try the foods we were asked to eat. From juice to desserts it was available. A must try is the Avocado Key Lime Pie. HMMMM. The first 6 weeks were easy preparations because they were juices, smoothies and a variety of salads. Later “cooked” meals were added to the menu. Not everything is raw. Hot soups, beans, and vegan gumbo are cooked. I am told there is a cornbread recipe but I haven’t had it yet. It’s not in our plan, yet. If you are in the Houston, TX area give it a visit.
Recently, we decided to move to Texas. We thought we were being led here to be near our daughter and to enjoy a lower cost of living. It is good to be near our daughter and her family but for us the cost of living has not changed. In some respects it is higher. Housing coast are lower than California but we are paying about the same. The electricity bill is greatly reduced and that’s about it.
I expected our food cost to go down but that was not realized. In fact it might be more. Houston area is an organic, non-GMO wasteland. The produce and products exist but are not in the abundance that I am accustomed to in California. The funny thing is most of the certified organic food here comes from California. But here is the good, no, the awesomely, miraculous thing. In a round about way through a conversation with some people we had just met we were led to a renowned cardiologist/electrophysiologist named Dr. Baxter D. Montgomery. His philosophy is to cure the cause of the illness not treat the symptoms. He holds to the statement made by Hippocrates,
“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”
Plant-based meals were Carl’s prescription. He did not remove him from his medications initially. He uses pharmaceuticals when needed. His plan was to eliminate them as Carl’s heart improved. After 3 weeks of eating a raw plant-based diet
If our western diet is so healthy why are we so sick? Diabetes is rising, Obesity is epidemic, heart disease is #1 and we are a developed nation. In the last year I have become more aware of how our medical system works. We treat symptoms not illnesses. Think about it. You have a pain. You are given a pill to get rid of the pain. But what about, what caused the pain in the first place? I have some personal experiences that speak to this.
A few years ago, I went in for a physical. The doctor said I had high blood pressure. I didn’t agree but I took the medication anyway. Big mistake. I took a couple of doses. I felt worst after taking them than I did before. They dropped my blood pressure so low I could not function. I stopped taking them but continued to take the diuretic. I later discovered that the diuretic lowered blood pressure also. I stopped taking them. I increased my vegetable intake and reduced the sodas and fried foods. Every check up for a year showed I did not have high blood pressure. The symptom- high blood pressure, the cause- bad eating habits. Recently, I went through the same thing with a different doctor. I said no pills. I started eating fast food again. Not all the time but just enough to have an affect. I stopped. Pressure decreased. Had I not taken charge and convinced them to try regulating my pressure with a change in my eating habits, I would be stuck taking pills that are hard to get off of. Their pills would not have fixed the problem.
I had another doctor tell me recently that she was delighted that I didn’t want pills. She said it was rare to find patients who didn’t want pills but wanted to find the problem and solve it. Most people wanted what they thought was a quick fix. the pill. It is just a band-aide.
Don’t get me wrong, doctors have their place and so do pills. But a healthy body is not provided by pills. Getting to the source of the dis-ease and treating it does. Most of our dis-ease is caused by eating this western diet that is meat, fast food convenient, low vegetable and low fruit, high sugar based.
I am also convinced had we continued more diligently to eat a high plant, low meat diet my husband would not have had this last heart attack. We have not been eating as well as before but we are returning to our whole vegetable and fruit juices, no soda and minimal fast food. I am continuing my laboratory (kitchen) visits. Real minimal. I can’t say none because sometimes life will get in the way of good plans.
I am returning to Hippocrates’ declaration.
Let medicine be your food and food your medicine.
This is my focus and intent. Modern medicine is the emergency plan.
Breaking out of the Food and Medicine Matrix as much as possible. My education continues.
Where is our Food Morpheus? Where is Food Neo? The Local, State, and Federal system has “matrixized” us.
Food industrialization has caused us to ignore the food system that was very healthy for us: the family garden and the local vegetable market. When I was a child, eating out meant having dinner at a friend’s or relative’s home. Fast food meant heating up leftovers or making a sandwich. I didn’t know or understand just how good I had it. Other than childhood diseases I got the flu or had a cold only when the seasons changed. The rest of the year I was free of disease. Most remedies for the flu or a cold was natural. They were plant or herb based. Oh yeah, there was cod liver oil or castor oil. That cured or killed everything. Pills in the medicine cabinet were few. Those were my good old days.
I was taught in grade school the basic food groups and how much I should eat. I tried to change my home habits but thankfully my grandmother ignored me. We ate red meat and chicken but we ate more vegetables from the family gardens. By the way it was non-GMO and organic. Food was back then. There were some things that infiltrated our home, like white bread, white flour and white rice. I guess that was our beginning of “matrixation.”
The things we were taught:
You MUST eat meat to get enough protein.
You Must have milk and milk products to get enough calcium and more protein.
Vegetables, fruit, nuts and seeds don’t provide enough of either for healthy bodies.
We bought it because we trusted the FDA and other agencies that influenced our food supply. Those 3 axioms really only provided convenience for us and profit for the dairy and meat industry. Tell me, if dairy was so great, why wasn’t it fed to cows after they were weaned. They were fed grass and grain. The very things that weren’t enough for us.
Recently, our food pyramid changed to a food plate with the vegetable division the largest delineation. That’s good but now we have to deal with genetically modified organisms introduced into the plant crops. That’s another post, but suffice it to say, our non- organic vegetables, fruit and non-organic fed animals may be more harmful than we realize.
This matrix that we live in is suppose to maximize our health but we are sicker now than we were back in the day. There are more pills prescribed than every before. Our pills require pills to deal with their side effects. If the pills don’t work, there is always surgery.
So how is this meat-ladened lifestyle working for us?
A couple of days ago on my way home I witnessed the aftermath of a hit and run. At first I wasn’t sure what I was seeing. The lower extremities of the injured party were smashed beyond recognition. I watched the struggle to survive. I could almost feel the pain I saw on the face as the victim tried to drag itself out of the street. I wonder if the animal was asking, “Why aren’t my legs working?” I wanted to get out of my car and help but the traffic light changed. Suddenly cars were flying by and the tortured body was struck over and over again. It hurt me deep into my being. I remembered thinking how badly it must have hurt to know you could not avoid such a painful death. It was a rabbit. Something I have eaten before. I can’t eat it again. In that moment veganism became a real consideration.
As I remember it now it hurts and I wonder about the animals slaughtered to provide my food. Is this what it looks like in the slaughter houses? Will I continue to hurt when I go to the market? I ate fish tonight and did not give it a thought until I began writing this. Will my life long conditioning override the horror I witnessed? I don’t know. All I know is that was and is a sickening image to see in my mental photo album.
"Black Soil" Living 