Plant Powered Cooking: 52 Inspired Ideas for Growing and Cooking Yummy Good Food

by Alice Alvrez, Elise Marie Collins (Foreword by)

Overview

“Truly delectable veggie recipes for healthy living” and starter garden tips from the author of The Going Green Handbook (Mielle Rose, author of Veganish).
 
Organic gardener, environmentalist, and pop-up chef Alice Mary Alvrez wants to make it as easy as possible to reduce your footprint, grow and eat fabulous organic vegetables, and maintain a planet-positive, animal-friendly lifestyle. As she says, “I like to make it so simple that it’s brain-free so you don’t even have to think about it any more, you fall in love with a healthier and greener way of life.”
 
Her book, Plant Powered Cooking is simply brimming with brilliant ideas you can use from tips for growing your own food (even if you have a hard time keeping houseplants alive), shopping and cooking techniques for every mealtime, and even low-labor secrets for harvesting and canning the bounty from your own garden. Learn surprising facts about the impact of meat and animal products on the environment and how even small do-it-yourself ideas lead to real impact. Begin with small changes such as “Meat-free Mondays,” then eliminate all meat out of your diet and replace it with beautiful food grown by your own hand. With Alvrez’s Plant Powered Cooking, you and your family will be living the good life.
 
“Inspired ideas for healthy eating.” —Billee Sharp, author of Lemons and Lavender

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781633535305
Publisher:	Mango Media
Publication date:	06/26/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	136
File size:	35 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Alice Mary Alvrez became a vegan ten years ago after a major health crisis and completely turned her life around. A women's studies teacher, she is also a dedicated gardener, cook and blogger. Alice is on a mission to help more people take charge of their own health through healthy eating. She lives with her family of five in Portland. Oregon.A yoga teacher living in San Francisco, Elise's writing combines her love of ancient healing arts and scientific inquiry. She is currently instructing participants in a two year study on the effects of restorative yoga or stretching for metabolic syndrome. She's the author of Chakra Tonics, Essential Elixirs for Mind, Body and Spirit and An A-Z Guide to Healing Foods, A Shoppers Companion.

Read an Excerpt

FOREWORD

Joy and Health

What is pure and natural food? The answer can be somewhat subjective, but it should be food grown without chemicals and not adulterated beyond what's possible in an average home kitchen. Labels on prepackaged foods are not reliable guides for healthy choices, making it tricky to navigate the grocery aisles. My best advice is to eat a wide variety of naturally grown, unprocessed foods, and pay attention to how your brain and body feel. The word "organic" is widely touted but I strongly suggest you "trust but verify." Buy ingredients that you recognize from nature and cook your meals from scratch as often as possible. Make an effort to avoid highly process-altered, refined ingredients. Be moderate, balanced, and flexible. Trust your intuition and maintain a healthy curiosity about what you find. The best of all possible options is to grow your own in an organic garden out back. It will bring both joy and health.

If you're like most of us, you are aware that your energy levels and health could be improved by eating more vegetables. This book will help you learn to enjoy plant-based foods — whether you choose to eat this way all the time or just want to fill the rest of your menu with delicious and nutritious vegan foods. These recipes make up my suggested basic plant-powered repertoire, and can support a plant-based diet, but they're also easily adaptable for omnivores and lacto-ovo vegetarians to serve with meat or dairy products. Avoid simulated meats or cheeses, though, since these products are frequently made of fatty and unhealthy ingredients and are often disappointing and leave you wanting to eat the meat to get the taste you were craving!

If you're watching your health and trying to prevent or reverse high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes or looking for weight reduction, do your best to eliminate processed foods and focus on lots of leafy green vegetables and nutrient-dense whole foods. Digestive health is also very important so your system can absorb and use those nutrients. Fermentation improves the digestibility of many foods such as soybeans (miso, tempeh), milk (yogurt) and vegetables (sauerkraut). Fermented foods also provide probiotics, which help digest and utilize the other foods we eat and strengthen our immune system to fight disease. Living a plant-based lifestyle will definitely strengthen your immunity!

Another option to consider adding to your diet to amp up your plant-power quotient is raw and fresh juices. Fresh vegetable juice is an excellent way to consume a high dose of nutrients in one serving. Celery, cucumber, parsley, and dark, leafy greens are great choices. Limit higher-sugar vegetables like carrots and beets to add a dash of a flavor, rather than as a base. Ginger, apple, and lemon are great flavors too and enliven any smoothie or juice. Smoothies are a popular way to make a meal in a glass, but do note that most commercial protein powders contain unnatural ingredients. Stay organic with plenty of hemp seeds, nut butters, and spirulina to make high-protein smoothies.

Who knew good health could taste so good?

Once you convert to plant-power, you will become more aware of the seasons of the year. You will be shopping based on what is just harvested and also growing your own veggies will ensure you are living in tune with the natural world. A major cornerstone of a healthy diet is diversity. As much as possible, eat with the seasons, as Mother Nature intended. This adds a wider variety of nutrients from multiple sources, increasing your chances of getting everything you need. Fruits, nuts and vegetables that are in season are more delectable. Is there anything better than a fresh-off-the-vine heirloom tomato? How about a sun-ripened peach, dripping delicious juice all over your face as your eat it? Try to shop at farmers markets or join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture, a local farm box subscription model), and try new greens, roots, squash, and other vegetables when you see them at the market. This is more complicated during the winter months for folks who live in cold climates, so we can only do our best. Consider canning or "putting up" some foods in late summer or early fall to get through winter ("Winter is coming!") and just be reasonably mindful of the distance your food had to travel to get to your shopping cart. Fruit flown in from Australia in December might be something to pass up, but lettuce from the county next door is certainly something to be grateful for in the dead of winter. Some common "weeds" are actually highly nutritious herbs including dandelion, nettles, oat straw, red clover, and comfrey. All of these are also easily found at the nearby herb shops and are worth the effort of tracking down. The incredible wise woman Susun Weed offers easy instructions for brewing infusions on her website: www.nourishingherbalinfusions.com.

If you restrict your diet, it is especially important to give special attention to particular elements that could go missing. For instance, vitamin B12 has no reliable plant sources. Strict vegans must supplement this necessary vitamin, preferably taken sublingually and alone (as opposed to part of a multivitamin). Methylcobalamin is the most absorbable form of B12. It may also be important to supplement vitamin D on a vegan diet. If inadequate iron is a concern, vegetable sources include beets, pumpkin seeds, legumes, sea vegetables, and dark, leafy greens. Eat these with vitamin C-rich food to increase iron absorption. Wholesome fats are very important to good health. They help you absorb certain fat-soluble vitamins and maintain healthy hormone levels, nerve function and brain development, among other purposes. Vegetable sources include avocados and unrefined coconut, olive, flax, hemp, and chia seeds, but it may be important to supplement DHA omega-3 fatty acids on a vegan diet. Quality vegan DHA supplements made from algae are available online, but some nutritionists do say that they must come from an animal protein such as fish to be useful to the body and nervous system.

Consider including a stick or two of kombu when cooking beans or rice. This is especially important for women, children and elders as this mineral-rich sea vegetable provides lots of calcium. It also chelates heavy metals and radioactive minerals and acts as a detoxing agent. Hijiki is another very high-calcium sea vegetable, one that is more delicate and should be only be cooked briefly. All sea vegetables are rich in minerals and are great sources of iodine. (I recommend using natural sea salt, which may not provide sufficient iodine for some people.) Two other fantastic sources of calcium are unhulled brown sesame seeds and collard greens.

Try to eat dark, leafy greens at almost every meal, which provide important minerals, vitamins, and micronutrients. My family eats a lot of parsley and cilantro which we grow in the kitchen garden right outside the back door. Parsley cleanses the blood, and cilantro chelates toxic heavy metals and radiation. Finely minced, these herbs can be tucked into soups, toppings, sauces, dips, eggs, salads, grains, and all types of dishes in large, therapeutic doses. (They are more palatable if you finely mince rather than chop.) All these beautiful greens contain an incredible array of nutrients and a surprising amount of protein.

Quinoa is a reliable source of complex protein, which is crucial for vegans. Legumes, nuts and seeds are other plant-based sources of protein. If whole grains make up a large part of your diet, they should be soaked, sprouted and/or fermented before cooking, since their hulls contain an ant nutrient that can inhibit mineral absorption. This is particularly relevant to vegans and vegetarians who usually rely a great deal on grains for protein and calories.

Nutrition is very personal. Each body is different from the next, with its own individual requirements for functioning at its prime. Even a single body will have changing needs at different stages throughout its lifetime. It's wise to take note of nutritional recommendations and trends, but the best guide will probably be your own body's messages, telling you what it needs and how your diet and lifestyle are faring. Explore different nutritional models and allow yourself to shift between them as needed. Most diseases can be improved or even healed with changes in diet, so take charge of your health and find out what's necessary for you to thrive. Trust yourself to find the resources that you need, and remember the key factor of any healthy diet: a wide variety of fresh, unprocessed, naturally-grown foods.

In closing, I urge you to think of your future and that of your family. Don't you want them to live as long as possible and enjoy the gift of good health? Of course you do! I recommend this book to you as a great primer for beginning your plant-based journey. You and your loved ones will feel like you are living and eating from the bounty of the Garden of Eden — enjoy!

Elise Marie Collins

Author of Chakra Tonics and An A-Z Guide to Healing Foods

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Plant Powered Cooking"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Alicia Alvrez.
Excerpted by permission of Mango Media, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Foreword,
Level 1 Introduction and the Basics,
Kinds of Vegetarianism,
How to Get Started,
What Cruelty?,
A Vegetarian Budget,
How Vegetarians Help Animal Welfare,
How Vegetarians Help the Environment,
How Vegetarians Help Their Own Bodies,
Causes for Vegetarian Issues,
Level 2 Foods to Avoid or Change,
Cruelty-Free Dairy,
Cruelty-Free Eggs,
Cooking Without Meat,
What About Fish?,
Hidden Ingredients,
Avoiding Fur and Leather,
Animal Testing Issues,
Understanding GMOs,
A Word About Soy,
Level 3 Foods to Embrace,
Cooking with Plant Proteins,
Cooking More Leafy Greens,
Cooking More Beans,
Eating More Fruit,
Eating More Nuts and Seeds,
Keeping It Healthy,
Officially Organic,
Getting Your Nutrients,
Level 4 The Vegetarian Lifestyle,
Dining Out as a Vegetarian,
Raising a Vegetarian Family,
Are Your Pets Vegetarians?,
The Vegetarian Tourist,
Vegetarian at the Holidays,
Living with a Meat-Eater,
Cruelty-Free in the Wild,
Jumping Through Hoops?,
Cultural Background of Vegetarianism,
Famous Vegetarians,
Going Back to Meat,
Growing Your Own,
The Farmer's Market,
Save It for Later,
Vegetarian Brands,
Documentaries for the New Vegetarian,
One Step Further: Vegan,
Level 5 Recipes,
Vegetarian Lasagna,
Tofu Stir Fry,
Meatless Chili,
Mushroom Quinoa with Garlic,
Mock Tuna Salad,
Eggless Banana Muffins,
Eggplant Parmesan,
Greek Berry Smoothie,
Black Bean Soup,
Homemade Granola,

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Truly delectable veggie recipes for healthy living."- Mielle Rose, author of Veganish