Oats for Breakfast

I've been having cooked whole oats for breakfast lately. They're good for winter, because they're warming, and whole grains sustain you longer than ground grains like cracked cereal or bread. I cook them overnight in a small crockpot.



You can spice them up with cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, cardamon or ginger. And you can add fruit or chopped nuts before serving.

Here's the basic recipe for one serving:

1/3-1/2 cup whole oat groats (I like to soak them in water for 8-10 hours first, but it's optional)
2 cups water
Spices to taste

Rinse the oats in a strainer. Combine everything in a small crockpot, and cook overnight on low for 8-10 hours. The amount of water varies. Some crockpots will need more water than others. If desired, add fruit and/or chopped nuts before serving.

Vegan Christmas Dinner - Part 2

Here's the rest of tonight's vegan Christmas dinner. Vegetable crudites before dinner, with a ranch dressing for the non-vegans, and a cilantro-lime dressing for the vegans.



Borscht, which is a Russian cold beet soup. It was served as the first course, and requested by my brother, because it's his favorite food. I guess I was too busy eating, and I forgot to take a picture of it.

Stuffing and homemade cranberry sauce, made by my mom.





Yams and sweet potatoes baked with maple syrup, lime juice, vinegar, and . . . I forget what else, but they were really good. Also made by my mom.

Update from my mom . . . the sweet potatoes and yams were drizzled with maple syrup, balsamic vinegar, and Dijon mustard.



Steamed green beans, again, made by my mom.



For dessert my mom made an apple pumpkin pie that was really good. She said she got the recipe from the Whole Foods Market website.

Vegan Christmas Dinner - Part 1

What's for dinner tonight? I made vegan Tempeh "Meat" Loaf, using a recipe from the Real Food Daily Cookbook. It starts with grated tempeh. I use soy tempeh, but you can use any of the other types available.



Then you add in chopped vegetables, herbs, spices, ketchup and miso. I leave out the nutritional yeast, because I don't like it. And I use more vegetables than the recipe calls for. I also omit all of the oil, except a tiny amount of oil to grease the loaf pan. I saute the vegetables in water rather than oil. I recommend eliminating the salt. The ketchup and miso add enough salt for my taste.



Press it into a loaf pan, bake, and let cool before slicing.



Here's how it looks after baking:



And here's how it looks sliced:



Stay tuned for the rest of tonight's vegan dinner!

Cherry-Orange Cobbler

This is really good, especially warm from the oven! It's the healthy version of a fruit cobbler made with fresh or frozen cherries and the juice and rind of an orange.



Here's the basic recipe:

1-1/3 cups sprouted brown rice ground into flour, or flour of your choice
2 tsp. baking powder
Grated rind of one orange
Juice of one orange
1 cup plain amasake, or 1 cup soy, rice or almond milk with a little sweetener of your choice added
2 12-oz. bags of frozen cherries, or fresh cherries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Make sure the cherries are pitted, and cut them in half. Lightly oil a 8"x8", 9"x9", or 7"x11" baking dish, if it's not nonstick. Spread half of the cherries over the bottom of the baking dish.

Combine the flour, orange rind, orange juice, and amasake in a bowl and mix well. It should be a thick batter, but pourable. If too thick, add a little more amasake. Add the baking powder and stir just to mix.

Pour over the cherries in the baking disk and spread it evenly over the cherries. Place the other half of the cherries on top.

Bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees, until lightly browned.

Makes 6-8 servings.

Other combinations are also good, like blueberries with vanilla and cardamon in the batter, instead of the orange. Or peaches with lemon juice and lemon rind.

Sweet Potatoes and Potatoes

I'm learning more everyday. Recently I discovered that sweet potatoes can cause indigestion, and potatoes slow down digestion. It's probably not a problem for everyone, but it was a problem for me. Maybe it's only a problem if your digestion is already weak -- I'm not sure. But if you have a problem with digestion, you might want to try eliminating potatoes and especially sweet potatoes for a while, and see if you feel better. By the way, what we call "yams" in the United States are also sweet potatoes.

Healing

I thought I'd start to write about my own healing journey. Maybe you can learn something from my experience.

I've had health problems most of my adult life. It started with daily headaches when I was 12; progressed to migraines; malignant melanoma when I was 25; Chronic Fatigue Syndrome at 32; hypersensitivity to everything including foods, chemicals, supplements, and the environment; and endemic Typhus two years ago.

I'm getting better, but it has been a very long road. Here are the changes I've had to make:

Diet -- vegan, no oil, little or no rich foods like nuts and avocados, very little sugar and salt
Lifestyle -- no alcohol, recreational drugs, tobacco, or caffeine
Exercise -- this is the hardest for me!
Emotions -- learn to emphasis the positive and not dwell on the negative
Supplements -- none
Pharmaceutical drugs -- none
Dental work -- no amalgam fillings, remove those that you have
Pollution -- avoid as much as possible: air pollution, water pollution, pesticides, electromagnetic radiation
Cleaning products -- natural products only such as Seventh Generation
Body products -- no perfume, makeup, or other body products except unscented soap and shampoo
Clothes and bedding -- natural fibers only, as much as possible
Cookware -- avoid nonstick surfaces, stainless steel, aluminum, and cast iron
Sunlight -- a little everyday

Some treatments have been helpful, such as acupuncture and homeopathy, but other treatments make me feel worse.

Think you can do it? I'm not perfect, either, and it's impossible to follow all of these guidelines, given the conditions we live in. I also continue to learn more everyday as more information becomes available, and the guidelines change from time to time.

Following these guidelines is the only way I've found to live a relatively normal life. If you're trying to regain your health, think about making some of these changes. I'll discuss them in more detail in upcoming posts.

Oils and Fats

We've all probably heard more than we want to know about oils and fats. Saturated fat, trans fat, monosaturated fat, polysaturated fat. So which oil should you use? None! None of them are healthy, and you can read more about it here.

Saturated fats, such as those found in animal products, clog arteries, and lead to heart disease. Some vegetable oils are also high in saturated fat, including coconut and palm oils.

But other vegetable oils have problems, too, aside from the problem that fat makes you fat. They are added calories without any nutritional value. Vegetable oils are high in omega 6 essential fatty acid (EFA), which causes an imbalance with omega 3 EFA. There is plenty of omega 3 EFA in a starch-based diet, but not enough to balance the concentration of omega 6 EFA in extracted vegetable oils.



Dietitian Jeff Novick has recently come out with a lecture on DVD titled "Should I Eat That?" where he discusses, amongst other things, the properties of and problems with various oils and fats. I haven't seen this one yet, but Jeff is a great speaker, and his lectures are always funny and informative.

The Starch Solution

I think it's time to start talking about some health issues, so let's begin with the health of the planet. I was listening to a lecture given by Dr. John McDougall yesterday, and he was talking about the individual and planetary benefits of a starch-based diet. The lecture is available on the Get Healthy Now! DVD, and you can also read about it in his newsletter archives.

Scientists have said that carbon emissions need to be 350 parts per million or less in order for life on this planet as we know it to survive. Right now we're averaging 380. These are desperate times.

It takes 2 calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce one calorie of starch (grain, legumes, tubers). It takes 80 calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce one calorie of meat. By switching to a starch-based diet, we could reduce the fossil fuel consumption used to produce food forty-fold.

On a starch-based diet, you eat grains (rice, wheat, barley, rye, millet, etc.), legumes, vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds. No meat, fish, poultry, dairy or eggs. You can eat as much as you want (with the exception of nuts, seeds, olives and avocados, which should be eaten in small quantities) and not be fat. And you get all the protein that you need with no excess. Cooking can be simple or complex, according to your lifestyle, desires and time.

Contrary to popular belief, starch does not make you fat. Fat makes you fat. People have lived on starch-based diets for tens of thousands of years, and billions of people in the world still do. It is only people in the west who eat a rich diet of meat, eggs, dairy, and processed foods, and who have problems with heart disease, cancer and diabetes.

If you want to know more, Dr. McDougall's latest book addressing this problem, The Starch Solution, will be coming out soon. I highly recommend subscribing to his monthly newsletter, which is always full of useful and interesting information regarding food and health. It's not just about individual health -- it's about the health of the entire planet and every living being.

Cranberry Chutney

Oooooo . . . this is so good! I adapted it from a recipe that my mom gave me. It's called chutney, but it doesn't have the vinegary taste of chutney, and I like it on toast. It's not as sweet as jam. Here's how I made it:

12 oz. bag or fresh or frozen cranberries
2 apples, chopped (I used Jazz apples -- the recipe calls for Fuji)
1/2 cup your choice of sweetener (I used half barley malt syrup and half rice syrup -- recipe calls for honey and maple syrup)
Grated zest of one lemon
Dash of pepper and ground cardamon (recipe also calls for salt, but I don't think it's necessary)

I just combined everything in a pan and cooked it for about 45 minutes, until it thickened, which worked fine. The original recipe is a lot more complicated, involving a candy thermometer and hard crack, but I don't think that's necessary.

This made a little over a pint, so it cooks down a lot.

Ketchup

I love ketchup, so I decided to try making a healthy one using apples and apple cider vinegar -- no sweetener. It's pretty good, but I think it needs a couple of weeks to mellow. It's not red, like traditional ketchup, but the orange color is pretty. Here's the recipe:

4 apples, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 sweet red pepper, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 cup cider vinegar
1 cup water
1-1/2 tsp. mustard seeds
1-1/2 tsp. allspice berries
1 stick cinnamon broken up
1-1/2 tsp. whole black peppercorns
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp. whole cloves
1 Tbsp. whole coriander seeds
1/4 tsp. celery seeds
1 tsp. salt, or to taste

Tie the spices into a cheesecloth bag, and combine everything in a 4-quart pot. The celery seeds may fall through the cheesecloth -- mine did. If so, just add them to the fruit and vegetables. Bring to a boil, and simmer for an hour or more. Remove the spice bag and discard. Puree the mixture in a blender or Vitamix. If it's not quite thick enough, simmer it uncovered for a while longer until it thickens up. Pack into canning jars and process, or store in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks before using. This recipe made a little more than two pints.