If you’re going to be Vegan, and be a HEALTHY vegan, you’re going to have to start cooking. There’s just no way around it.
What’s that you say? I’ll just eat at Restaurants? Forget it. While you may find a restaurant or two that serves Vegan Food – chances are it will still be covered in butter, oil, or worse. Plus I don’t know about you, but sitting at a table watching everyone else chow down on steaks, ribs, and french fries while I graze on a plate of limp lettuce is pure torture.
Well then I’ll just buy some of the frozen vegan stuff at the store…. Sorry – nice try but can you say junk food? Yes there are tons of vegan frozen entrees on the market now – but most have just as much fat, salt, and sugar as the normal entrees. Look at the labels. You’re not going to get trim and healthy eating this stuff. Trust me – I know.
Ready for door #3? That’s right – some good ole Vegan Home Cooking!
And I know exactly what you’re going to say next: BUT I HATE TO COOK!
The Lost Art of Home Cooking
Somewhere along the line, we have lost our love of home cooking. It seems almost no one likes to cook anymore. It’s like a lost art or something, like canning. Remember how our moms and grandmothers used to spend hours canning fruit or tomatoes? No one does that anymore. We rely on fast ready-made meals and restaurants for everything now. In 1900, only 2 percent of meals were eaten outside of the home; today, that number is more than 50 percent. This is bad, not just for us, but also our children. We now have the second generation of Americans who don’t know how to cook. The average child in America doesn’t even know how to identify the most basic vegetables or fruit. And ask them where our food comes from and they’ll say a grocery store or restaurant – not a farm. Cooking today means microwaving. Food “grows” in boxes, plastic bags, and cans. And if you read a label you’ll end up with a science experiment, not actual food.
We are brainwashed into thinking that cooking real food costs too much, is too hard, or takes too long. So we rely on cheap convenience foods instead. But these highly processed ‘frankenfoods‘ come with a price. They aren’t so ‘convenient’ anymore when we become so sick we have to spend hundreds of dollars every month on pills, and we can no longer work because we are too sick, fat, and sluggish.
Did you know the average American spends eight hours a day in front of a screen? And get this, we actually spend more time watching cooking shows than actually cooking?
Seriously?!
Convenience is killing us.
70 percent of us today are overweight, and obesity rates are expected to top 42 percent by the end of the next decade. (It was only 13 percent in 1960). One out of every TWO Americans now has either pre-diabetes or diabetes. And in less than a decade, the rate of pre-diabetes or diabetes in teenagers has risen from 9 percent to 23 percent. Think about that. Almost one in four kids has pre-diabetes or Type 2 diabetes! And even more shocking, 37 percent of kids who are currently AT a normal weight, will end up with one or more cardiovascular risk factors such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or high blood sugar. These are our children folks. Our kids!
It’s Time For a Change!
It is time to take back our kitchens! You may think that taking on the giant food industry seems impossible, but actually it’s pretty easy. The answer is in our shopping carts, our refrigerators, our pantries – and on our dining room tables. This is where the power is. It is the hundreds of small choices we make every day that will eventually win the battle against big food.
And just because we’re Vegan doesn’t make it any harder. If anything it’s easier. We eat a WHOLE FOODS, PLANT BASED, diet – remember? And whole foods are simple and easy to prepare! You don’t need a hollywood kitchen or some elaborate recipe to make a tasty, nutritious, home cooked, vegan meal.
Whole foods are potatoes, which can be baked in an oven. Whole foods are stalks of corn on the cob which can be boiled on the stove or roasted on a grill. Whole foods are bags of rice which can be easily cooked in a rice cooker. Whole foods are salad fixings fresh from the garden with a balsamic vinegar based dressing. Whole foods are tomatoes – right off the vine – which we all know taste a million times better than those nasty things they sell in the stores.
Home cooking, vegan style, can be very simple. Search my blog or others like it and find a few recipes you like. Many are very easy with just a few ingredients. My dinner last night was as simple as a baked Yukon Gold potato, topped with a veggie medley of corn, carrots, and peas, smothered in a vegan gravy made primarily with whole wheat flour, nutritional yeast, veggie broth, and some spices.
Fast, easy, and home cooked.
Think of Your Health As An Investment
The bottom line is this: You health and well-being are an investment that not too many people take seriously anymore.
They believe their doctors can fix anything so they may as well enjoy life while they can. What they don’t realize is that it’s hard to enjoy life while you’re sitting in a wheelchair, or hospital bed getting your chest cut open for another stent or bypass.
They also don’t realize what a financial burden a few days in the hospital or a lifetime of prescription drugs will be.
It doesn’t have to be like this. You can do something about it. And the food you eat three times a day is the best place to start. Get back in the kitchen and learn to cook.
It will be one of the best investments you ever make.
Image Source: Flickr/Jessica Fiess-Hill
It’s The Food! Dr. John McDougall, MD
