Review: More Than Meat’s Lamb Casserole & Jerk Burgers

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Disclaimer: This review is my honest opinion; I am not being financially compensated for it (though even if I was, it would STILL be my honest opinion). I received the food samples free, with no brief from the More Than Meat company other than to taste test and review them.

I have to admit, when I tweeted Barry responding to his request for vegan bloggers to review his More Than Meat meat-alternative products, my primary motivation was to get my greedy mitts on some yummy free food.

Then I remembered I’m not really a huge fan of meat-alternatives.

THEN I remembered that most meat-alternatives often contain not-so healthy ingredients, like white flour breadcrumbs, sugar etc.

As I’m all about the healthy, I started panicking and wondered if I could make my husband eat all the food and just TELL me how it tasted so I could write the review? Hee.

I checked out Barry’s website, plantalicious.com and breathed a sigh of relief. I could see that one of his main motivations for going plant-based was to improve his health, and I realised he wouldn’t be making products that were full of crapola…phew!

A few days later I received a hyyuuuuge bag of More Than Meat frozen goodies. Barry had thoughtfully included cooking instructions for each product, and each one was marked with the date it was made.

It looked so good I couldn’t wait to get started!

First off, the More Than Lamb Casserole.

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As a 26 year vegan, it’s been a long time since I’ve had a casserole with these particular flavours. I thought that this kind of dish only worked with meat, so I’d never tried to re-create or ‘veganise’ it.

The ‘lamb’ is made with wheat gluten – I’m assuming it’s similar to ‘seitan,’ but it’s marked in the ingredients list as wheat gluten. All the More Than Meat products contain gluten, so are not suitable for celiacs.

I was delighted to see huge butter beans (I’m a bean freak), and celery, carrots and leeks rounded out the mix.

Check out the rest of the ingredients for the healthiest and kindest lamb casserole you’ve ever seen!

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It was VERY easy to prepare. I forgot to take it out of the freezer earlier in the day, and had to cook it from frozen. The instructions say you can microwave it OR heat it on the hob. I don’t have a microwave so I went with the hob option. It didn’t take long for the frozen block of casserole to break down on a gentle heat; then I simmered it for a few minutes to heat the ‘meat’ pieces all the way through.

The picture on the packaging gave me the idea to serve it with mash, and as I had a sweet potato and a white potato left in the fridge I went for a white/sweet potato mash combo, and steamed some greens to serve alongside.

This wasn’t a bad idea, but now I’ve tasted the dish I would advise going completely trad-ish and sticking to white potato mash, which would be a more perfect foil for the flavours of the casserole.

AND WHAT FLAVOURS THEY ARE! I’d completely forgotten about this kind of dish; about how ingredients like wine, redcurrant jelly, and herbs and spices can make a savoury dish taste so rich and warming. And very British! As a vegan that is very happy eating mostly ethnic dishes it was a pleasant change to taste flavours of my childhood and teen years but without the cruelty, cholesterol and planet-warping products those types of meals would usually contain.

I loved:

The balance of the flavours, the richness, the fruitiness, and that it had just the right amount of ‘tang’ – More Than Meat have 100% nailed the flavours of a traditional lamb casserole.
The butterbeans that really DID melt like butter in the mouth. Beans in pre-cooked food are NOT always this good.
The fact that although this was a very rich dish, it was not remotely greasy, so it actually felt healthy.
The fact there were no sugars in the ingredients.
The ease of preparation. To make a dish like this yourself would take hours. To be able to heat this up from frozen and it take 10 minutes was amazing.

My only personal gripe was that I’d have liked the wheat gluten/seitan pieces to have had a chewier texture, but I asked my husband about this and he said he liked them just fine – and he’s a seitan connoisseur! So to be fair this is probably just subjective on my part.

Later in the week, we tried the More Than Jerk Burgers.

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These contain a tiny bit of raw cane sugar, but otherwise it’s the healthiest damn ingredients list I ever saw for a burger!

They come with the directive to brush a little oil on them before grilling, because they don’t contain any added oil. I really appreciated this – I like to control how much oil I’m getting.

I’d taken the burgers out of the freezer earlier in the day, so they literally only took around 10 minutes to grill – 5 minutes on each side.

Roast squash and steamed greens were my accompaniment of choice (though of course these burgers would be perfect to serve in a bun); some sliced onions and lettuce, and a dollop of my homemade ketchup completed the picture.

Despite slightly overcooking them (my fault entirely – next time I’d cook them a couple of minutes less) they were still delicious. The texture is very hearty and meat-like – it’s not exactly the same texture as meat, but it’s definitely a good replacement for the density and ‘mouthfeel’ that meat has – EXACTLY what you’d want from a burger in fact. I feel that even a staunch meat-eater wouldn’t grumble about the texture.

The jerk seasoning made itself known agreably, and my ketchup and crunchy (but thinly) sliced onions really complimented this.

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You know what? The burger was over way too quickly for me. I can’t blame it on the burger because though its diameter was small, it was quite thick, and what most would consider to be adequate portion size, but it was just so good I wanted more.

A couple of hours later I was working, and could still faintly smell the jerk seasoning from where the burgers had been cooked earlier. It was making me REALLY crave another one, to the point where I couldn’t concentrate!

Warning: If you take these mothers to a barbecue or plan on having them at a dinner party, you’d better count on at LEAST two per person – they’re THAT more-ish.

Both these products (and many more – check out the full product list) can be ordered from the More Than Meat website, or see the list of stockists to see if there is one near you.

Vegan Okra Bamia Stew Recipe

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Go to any Middle Eastern restaurant, and aside from having a decent choice of delicious vegan hot or cold starters (lots of these vegan by default); the main course that more often than not pops up is ‘Vegetarian Bamia.’ Now this should always be vegan, I’ve never known it to contain dairy, but do check if in doubt.

The NON-veggie version is lamb with okra, but who needs to eat an animal when it’s the spices and the okra texture that are the main attraction here anyway?

‘Bamia’ is the Arabic word for okra, but it’s also the word for the traditional spicy tomato-based stew that contains it.

It’s delicious, super easy to replicate; healthy; and as the spice flavour is quite subtle I’d say it’s pretty kid-friendly too.

This is a bamia recipe from an ancient cookbook called ‘Cooking Class Middle Eastern‘ and looks like it was part of a set from an Australian ‘women’s’ magazine. Lord knows how I came to have it. The recipes are pretty sound though and even though it’s not a vegan cookbook, many of the recipes are.

The recipe in the book is actually called ‘Okra With Baby Onions And Tomato.’ Maybe they didn’t think people could handle the word ‘bamia’?

Feel free to adjust amounts as you see fit or according to how many people you are serving.

I’ve put the amount as per the recipe for the spices and garlic but you could add extra cloves of garlic and 1/2 to a whole teaspoon more of each spice if you want more taste – I ALWAYS add more!

IMG_20160123_220825784 — the fixin’s for the bamia flavour!

You’ll need:

700g okra
2 medium-large onions, sliced (the recipe in the book actually calls for 12 baby onions, but what the hell? Who has time to skin and chop 12 onions separately??)
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
Regular size can of chopped tomatoes
2 cups (or 500mls) vegetable stock
Olive oil

What you do:

Give the okra a good old wash. It’s hard to get organic okra, so just rinse it well and drain in case of pesticide residue.

IMG_20160123_214552891 — luvverly clean okra

Cut the tops from the okra, taking care not to puncture the pods.
Try and cut them along the natural line. It should look like this:

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Not like this:

IMG_20160123_214805242 — yuck! holey okra!

If you cut them too far down you’ll end up with mushy okra, as the liquid will seep into the pod and mush it right the heck up!

You’ll accidentally cut too much off a few tops, but as long as the majority are ok, that’s fine.

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Heat a small splash of olive oil in a pan, and saute the onions for about 15 minutes or until they are browned. Remove from pan – just keep them in a bowl until you are ready for them.
Heat another splash of oil in the same pan, add okra, garlic, and spices; and cook, stirring constantly for about 5 minutes or until okra is fragrant and lightly browned.

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Return onions to pan and add the can of chopped tomatoes and the stock. Simmer, uncovered, for about 40 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until okra is very soft and tomato mixture is thickened.

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Total prep and cooking time: 1 hour approx

Servings: If made as per the recipe and as a main dish – 4

Serving suggestions: Can be served over rice, quinoa, baked potatoes, wholemeal toast etc.

How Do Vegans Get Calcium?

020 Calcium - Periodic Table of Elements from Flickr via Wylio — © 2015 Science Activism, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio

The other day a potential client told me they’d be concerned about how they’d meet their calcium needs if they went vegan.

This made me realise I haven’t yet written a ‘calcium’ post. Yipes!

Since I live in a bit of a ‘vegan bubble’ – my partner is vegan, and I am now chatting to other vegans daily on Periscope (Oooh talking of which – why don’t you come join me there on www.periscope.tv/karencottenden), I often assume that people KNOW there are plenty of plant sources of calcium, but clearly I am being presumptuous in this assumption!

If you have the ‘where would I get my calcium from as a vegan?’ question, this post is for you.

Similar to the protein issue, you cannot be blamed for asking yourself this question and not immediately knowing the answer. We’ve all been led to believe a HYYUUUUGE load of crapola, and it’s hard to comprehend just how entrenched and pervasive those beliefs have become.

I had yet another wake-up call to this when I heard the question being asked of me the other day.

So, here’s the deal with calcium.

Firstly, you need to know that it’s hugely probable that we don’t need as much calcium as we’re told we do. There are major interests invested in keeping us all drinking cow’s milk. They’d have us believe that we need a ton of calcium and that this must come from milk – but this is not true.

Secondly, the calcium we DO need is obtainable elsewhere.

Where?

From exactly the same source lots of other animals get it – plants.

Getting calcium from plants instead of milk also ensures that we not getting the horrid saturated fat, cholesterol, hormones and antibiotics that are in cow’s milk.

Where do cows get their calcium? Hmmm, let’s think about that for a second…

Calcium is a mineral.

Minerals come from the ground.

Cows get the calcium (that is in their milk) from the grass that grows in the ground (except, these days they mostly eat feed crops that are supplemented with calcium!).

Where do you think the huge animals (elephants, giraffes etc) are getting their calcium from?

Not from cow’s milk that’s for damn sure!

If you eat a whole food, plant-based diet, then calcium – just like protein – is not something you need worry about.

We’re led to believe we should worry about it far more than we actually should.

I highly doubt you know someone who has suffered from calcium deficiency.

Dr John McDougall writes:

The relationship between people and plants works so well that there has never been a case of dietary calcium deficiency ever reported.

Yet I can bet you know someone who has suffered a disease of excess related to the other properties in cow’s milk (cholesterol, saturated fat, hormones); like diabetes, heart disease and prostate or breast cancer.

There is also a widespread belief STILL, that if you don’t drink milk for calcium you’ll risk getting osteoporosis when you’re older.

A study involving 77,761 women, monitored over 12 years, found that drinking three or more glasses of milk per day DID NOT protect them against hip or arm fractures. It actually showed that there were significantly higher fracture rates in the milk-drinking group than in those who drank little to no milk.

Then there is this study, from 1992, that shows that populations with the lowest calcium intakes had far fewer fractures than those with much higher intakes.

There is lots of evidence suggesting that dairy is harmful and actually contributes to osteoporosis rather than helping to prevent it.

The best osteoporosis-preventing foods are, in fact, whole grains, beans and legumes.

Worried that the calcium from plants might not be as well absorbed as the calcium in milk?

Don’t waste ya time a’ worryin’!

PCRM (Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine) says:

The calcium absorption from vegetables is as good or better than that of milk. Calcium absorption from milk is approximately 32 percent. Figures for broccoli, Brussels sprouts, mustard greens, turnip greens, and kale range between 40-64 percent.

Thinking about taking calcium supplements to be sure? Don’t waste your $$$.

Honestly? If you’re eating a varied, whole food plant-based diet, you really don’t need to be worrying about calcium.

If you WANT to worry about it ‘cos that’s just who you are, then just ensure you’re getting enough leafy greens, beans and whole grains, and as an extra calcium bonus – have a couple of teaspoons of ground sesame seeds (high in calcium) on your oatmeal a couple of times a week, or enjoy tahini sauce over falafel or salad from time to time.

Go Back To Your Winter Roots: Celeriac And Rutabaga Fries

Winter ain’t good for much in my book.

If I never see another winter it’ll be too soon.

I mean…um…not that I want to die before next winter; but whhhhhhhhhyyyy can’t it go SPRING! SUMMER! AUTUMN! REPEAT!!!

But…I guess I love skating on the Christmas rinks. And the new Starbucks mulled apple chai with REAL cinnamon sticks is kinda delicious.

And I loooove hot, warming soups and bean stews and curries.

And………

………Wait for it…….

WINTER ROOT VEG!

It’s perhaps worth suffering just a little winter for these?

Now we’re all down with the parsnips, carrots and turnips; but there are two others you may not be so familiar with that would love to be players in your winter meal rotation.

Why?

Just ‘cos they’re darn well delectable that’s why!

Uh, it’s fair to say these two characters ain’t pretty; but their charm is in their rich, earthy taste.

If you haven’t tried them already, get some in and see what you think.

It isn’t always the prettiest veg that taste the nicest!

And they’re cheap as chips, hurrah!

The first is celeriac. This is its prettiest side:

And this is its slightly grizzlier side!

Not to put you off, but it looks a little brain-like to me!

But seriously; please don’t be put off by the nobbles or the hairy bits 🙂

The second glorious but lesser known winter root veg is rutabaga; or swede as its known here in the UK.

This is a little more photogenic – I love the green with the purple.

Oh, also? These two fellas are fibre-filled nutrient bombs.

Celeriac is a great source of Vitamin B6, magnesium, potassium, manganese and vitamin C; while the rutabagas will provide you with vitamin C, vitamin B6, potassium, calcium and magnesium.

One of the best and simplest things you can do with these two veg is make fries. YAY, friiiiiiiiies!!

Celeriac / Rutabaga Fries

Pre-heat your oven to 200C.
The hardest part of this recipe is peeling your root veg and chopping it into fries; but you’re no wuss; you can do it.
You’ll want to make the fries quite thin, say, 1cm wide maximum, otherwise they’ll take too long to bake.
Lay your cut celeriac or rutabaga fries in a parchment-paper lined baking tray thus; and spray them with either sunflower or olive oil.

Salt generously and sprinkle either fresh or dried rosemary evenly-ish all over.
Bake for approximately 35 minutes (or until they brown slightly), turning them once half way through.

These are the fries of the celeriac:

And these are the fries of the rutabaga:

Serve with vegan garlic aioli, vegan mayo, ketchup etc.

Mash

Have a change from potato or sweet potato mash – try mashed celeriac or rutabaga!

You can even do half potato, half rutabaga; or half potato, half celeriac. The other day I mashed a mix of the root veg I had left in my fridge – which happened to be sweet potato, a wedge of celeriac and a couple of turnips. I was doubtful that it could work but it was absolutely delicious!

Make the mash exactly as you would regular potato mash. i.e. boil the veg till soft; drain; mash your veg while adding a splash of soy or almond milk and a knob of dairy-free margarine. Season well with salt and black pepper.

Stews & Soups

Celeriac and rutabaga are great in stews and soups. Try sometimes adding either (or both!) to any recipe instead of potato.

Don’t get in rut with your roots! Shake it up! Don’t worry about the ugly! Isn’t there a saying.. ‘ugly on the table, damn tasty in the mouth?’ No? Well there OUGHT to be.

Constipation. Not A Natural State Of Affairs

Vintage Tins of Ramon's Mild Laxative Pills, Trade Mark - "The Little Doctor", NOS from Flickr via Wylio — © 2013 Joe Haupt, Flickr | CC-BY-SA | via Wylio

I’m hearing frighteningly often that people are constipated.

I’ve heard it so often it seems like it’s an epidemic.

It’s such a shame that people are feeling so uncomfortable when there is no reason at all they should.

Life is too short to spend that much of it in the bathroom!

If you’re suffering with this all-too-common problem, read on.

Once you’ve checked with your doctor that there isn’t a more serious problem causing it; that is, once you’ve been told its good old regular constipation, you can start the remedy immediately.

I know that YOU know I’m about to go on a fibre-filled rant…and you probably suspect I’m going to tell you that the BEST cure is a whole food, plant-based diet, right?

CORRECT!

Give yourself a candy.

To better understand WHY though, we need to be aware of a few things.

Food in = an almost equal amount of stuff coming out the other end, right?

And you eat three/four times a day?

This food needs to pass through our bodies in 8-12 hours, to avoid overstaying its welcome!

If it takes longer to pass through it will fester and putrefy – your body isn’t refrigerated. When you eat you’re pretty much putting food in a hothouse for 12 hours.

Ick.

It’s fibre that takes food through our bodies. So for timeliness of digestion, everything we eat should contain fibre.

There are two main food villains when it comes to constipation.

The first one is ANIMAL PRODUCTS, ALL OF THEM: MEAT, DAIRY AND EGGS. They have a constipating effect due to their lack of fibre, because….

……fibre is ONLY in plant food.

Therefore, the more animal foods you eat, the more chance you have of being constipated.

The OTHER constipating villain(s) you have to look out for is WHITE, REFINED GRAINS such as white rice and any product containing white wheat – white pasta, white bread, cookies and cake made with white flour etc.

White flour is wholewheat flour with the bran and the germ taken out – the very elements that contain the fibre. White rice is brown rice with the fibrous elements removed; not exactly ideal for easy transition out of the body.

When I hear (and I DO hear this) that a relatively young person has been prescribed prunes (EFFING PRUNES!) for constipation by a doctor, and the doctor hasn’t even recommended a diet rethink; I get a bit crazy.

Nothing wrong with prunes, they are a delightful fruit. But it’s the most root-cause-dodging, short-term remedy ever. Do you have to buy prunes for the rest of your life? What happens when you stop eating the prunes?

Why buy prunes, or take laxatives when you can just erase the constipating animal products and refined starches from your diet and everything will start working as it should, forever?

And doesn’t this tell us that a whole food, plant-based diet is how we are meant to eat for our bodies to perform correctly?

If you can’t eliminate all the constipating animal products and refined starches at once, then add two tablespoons of ground flaxseeds to one of your meals every day (adding it to breakfast oatmeal is probably easiest!)

Try also to eat more bean, whole grain and legume-based curries, stews and soups. These are also full of fibre, and will fill you up so you will hopefully consume less animal products.

Some great fibre-filled recipes are this lentil dhal , this Italian white bean soup , or this delicious Hoppin’ John

Fruits for dessert and snacks will also help.

But if you don’t want to waste time in the WC, lose the constipating animal products and refined grains.

Recipe: A Shepherd’s Pie NO-ONE Can Argue With

Even though it’s eerily warm here right now (what happened? Novembers used to be cold! Oh yes…global warming); we know the cold nights are soon to be a’ brewin.’

Or at least I hope they are.

Then I get to make this superb (and simple) shepherd’s pie recipe.

It’s quite simply the best shepherd’s pie recipe I’ve found and I’ve served it to plenty of non-vegans who have been so blown away they’ve gushed embarrassingly over it.

It has all the flavour, and all the comfort and stodge you want from a shepherd’s pie, but none of the minced up…um….what animal is mince even from? I just realised I never actually knew this when I used to eat it!! (OK, just googled it, its ground cow).

I found this recipe years ago. It’s originally from a tiny, pocket-size book called Vegan A Go-Go by Sarah Kramer – though I’ve adapted it somewhat and make it a little differently every time.

You’ll maybe want to play around and make it your own too.

You’ll need:

1 medium onion, chopped
3 small carrots, roughly cubed
1/2 cup fresh spinach (or pre-steamed kale or pre-steamed spring greens/collards)
1 large celery stalk, chopped
1 large beef tomato, chopped (or just 2 big tomatoes if you can’t find a beef tomato)
splash of olive oil for sauteeing
1/2 cup canned green lentils, drained, rinsed and mashed (you can also use dried green lentils – throw 1/2 cup dried lentils in a saucepan of boiling water and boil for 20 mins or until soft. Drain. You might need to measure out 1/2 cup again of the drained lentils – as they will have expanded)
1/2 tspn dried basil
A pinch of rosemary; a pinch of sage; a pinch of thyme and a pinch of parsley – or whichever of these you have
2 tspns garlic powder or 2 crushed garlic cloves (or less, or more, to taste)
1tbsp Braggs or soy sauce

Topping:

3 medium potatoes, roughly chopped – or you can do half white potatoes, half sweet potatoes
1/4 cup soy milk
1 tbsp (This is what the recipe says – I use a little less) vegan margarine
Salt (to taste)

What you do:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C)
In a medium pot of water, boil the potatoes. If you are mixing white and sweet potatoes – give the chopped white potato a 5 minute head start before throwing in the chopped sweet potato.
In a medium saucepan, saute the onions, carrots, celery, tomato, and spinach if you are using it (if you are using kale, add this once you’ve steamed it).

Just to make life difficult, I used dried lentils instead of canned!

When the carrots are tender, add the mashed lentils, herbs, garlic and soy sauce.

Stir and simmer uncovered until the liquid cooks off.

While the vegetables are cooking, mash the potatoes with the milk, vegan margarine and salt. Then set this aside.
Pour the vegetable mixture into a greased casserole dish (use the vegan margarine) and push down with the back of a spoon.

Then layer the mashed potatoes over the top.

Bake for 15-20 mins
Grill (broil for US peeps!) for 5 mins at the end so it browns a little on top, like so!

This recipe makes 4 average-sized portions, though to be honest my partner and I often have a couple of servings each and finish off the whole thing!

Review Of Living Food Kitchen’s Raw Beetroot Hummus

During my weekly Whole Foods shop last week, in the interest of trying something new, and for something I knew I could snack on immediately when I got home; I picked up a tub of Living Food Kitchen’s raw beetroot hummus.

I love beetroot; and I love hummus (is there anyone who doesn’t, seriously?); and though I’ve tried several different flavours of hummus, beetroot flavour had never crossed my path.

I don’t normally buy ‘raw’ anything (unless it’s fruit and veg obvs). I live in the UK and my body needs hot foods lots of the time, but I thought that this could only taste good. And it was so pretty; so, so pinky purple and pretty. So in the bag it went.

This is what it contained:

Ingredients

Beetroot (41%), cashews, sprouted chickpeas (18.5%), sunflower oil, lemon juice, tahini (sesame seeds), herb salt (Himalayan crystal salt, thyme, oregano, rosemary, chives, basil, tarragon), garlic powder, cumin, coriander powder, extra virgin olive oil.

As you can see, the ingredients are as pure as the driven snow, just the way I like ’em. And if it tastes good too – win-win!

Later on, I toasted some Cranks wholewheat bread, and covered it in this purple delight.

It was soooooooooo good. No, that’s not an imaginative description, but that was my first reaction. The beetroot taste is very subtle; sweet but not overwhelming. and there is just a hint of each herb in the ingredient list. It’s this subtleness that makes you just have to have more.

The texture (which is possibly what worried me about it being raw) was perfect.

I don’t like hummus when it’s super smooth and creamy, I like a bit of ‘texture’, and this had just the right amount.

I can’t begin to describe how moreish this is. You better share it with one or two others or you’ll find yourself all of a sudden at the bottom of the pot; purple all round your mouth, whistling fake innocently when someone walks in and asks who ate all the hummus.

The Healing Power Of A Plant Based Diet, Part 4 – Asthma

Inhaler from Flickr via Wylio — © 2008 allispossible.org.uk, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio

Asthma seems to be SO common doesn’t it?

Don’t you know at least, like, 6 people that have it?

I know I do.

What’s more, I used to be a chronic sufferer myself – twofold, in fact.

What on earth do I mean by twofold? Well, I had good ol’, plain ol’, regular standard asthma; and I also had chronic atopic asthma as an allergic reaction to fur.

Yes, you SHOULD be jealous – I had ALL the fun.

If you’ve never experienced asthma, let me tell you that it can be horrific. Breathing in oxygen is our most basic need, and when you can’t do this effectively it’s frightening. Try breathing through a straw. A VERY THIN one. Sometimes it’s just like that. Sometimes it’s worse.

In the nineties sometime, I heard that eliminating dairy products might help my asthma and eczema (eczema is closely related to asthma in terms of its causes). This knowledge has clearly been around a long time.

I had suffered enough to want to give this a try.

If you’ve read my ‘about’ page, you’ll know that I succeeded in ridding myself of asthma by going vegan. To be more specific; my ‘general’ asthma has completely gone since going vegan – I haven’t had an inhaler in years.

My atopic asthma as an allergic reaction to fur has also significantly improved, and I can enjoy a visit to the house of a friend that has a dog or cat, which I couldn’t before. The allergic reactions haven’t completely gone, I still have to wash my hands thoroughly in hot water after stroking any furry animal, otherwise they itch like crazy; and if, say, I’m visiting a house with a cat or dog in winter, with all windows closed and heating on; I’ll start sneezing and my lungs will definitely let me know THEY KNOW there is an allergen in the vicinity. Some allergies I believe are too systemic to completely disappear.

However, this is a vast improvement on before – and I just avoid putting myself in the ‘hot, stifling house with fur’ situation, so I’m asthma-free all the time!

I personally know of two other long-time asthma sufferers that had always used inhalers. They went vegan fairly recently and after a while no longer needed medication and now consider themselves asthma-free.

So that’s my personal story and some anecdotal evidence – but what happened when actual scientific studies took place?

Incredible huh? (BTW – if you haven’t already subscribed to NutritionFacts.org, you really should. Dr Michael Greger is an expert on all things plant-based and health related).

And in this article on Dr T Colin Campbell’s nutritionstudies.org website, we see that dairy consumption is linked to many diseases, including asthma. The original article was written in 1997 and updated in 2015 – so again, this information is NOT new!

Seemingly, even Hippocrates back in 370BC knew cow’s milk wasn’t the universal health elixir it is cracked up to be:

‘Hippocrates first observed and wrote about negative reactions to cow’s milk around 370 BC, since when, the prevalence, awareness and understanding of this allergy has increased. Milk allergy is one of the major allergies in infants and is caused by the proteins present in cow’s milk’ ~ The Food Safety Hazard Guidebook, by Richard Lawley, Laurie Curtis, Judy Davis, 2008

No-one ever got asthma by eating broccoli. Or brown rice. Or apples.

Disappointingly, on the NHS website you have to click through to the last menu option ‘living with asthma‘ and right down at the bottom it does mention that cow’s milk (along with other animal products like eggs and shellfish) can be a trigger for asthma.

Given the amazing results of the Swedish study in the video above, you think they’d mention this on their asthma homepage.

They also put links to the Asthma UK website where I eventually found an option called ‘asthma triggers’ (really not obvious to find at all in amongst a tonne of other options), and then had to click on ‘food’ (again, this was in among 17 other options; it wasn’t even the first one). I clicked on food, and it DOES cite milk and dairy products at the top of the list of food triggers, but is not very positive and encouraging about avoiding them, and gives FALSE information regarding the impact of dairy on calcium intake and bones!

Milk and milk products – You may have heard there’s a link between dairy foods and asthma, but only a very small percentage of people are allergic to milk products. For them, eating these foods may result in wheezing. Dairy allergy is more common in children but they often grow out of it as their digestive system matures. Calcium-rich dairy products are essential for healthy bones, especially for children and adolescents. And people with asthma can be at higher risk of bone disease osteoporosis (which causes thinning, brittle bones and increases risk of fractures) because of the use of steroid medication. So you should only avoid dairy products if necessary, ensuring you replace them with other sources of calcium under the guidance of your GP, nurse or a dietitian.

Again, the results of the Swedish study conflict drastically with this.

Ugh. Just…Ugh.

It seems that as well as avoiding dairy, including lots of fresh fruit and veg in your diet also helps reduce asthma symptoms; so we can easily surmise that a whole food, plant-based diet would be your best bet for improving asthma, and maybe never suffering from it again.

If you’re an asthma sufferer and haven’t tried avoiding animal products yet in a bid to improve your condition – what are you waiting for? Why suffer needlessly? I mean, why?

I know parents of children with asthma who, despite me passing on the above information, are reluctant to take dairy out of their children’s diets.

Now, when parents are advised to do other things to treat disease in their children, they DO it – like giving them antibiotics for example.

Antibiotics have side-effects, while avoiding dairy only has benefits, so why wouldn’t you want to treat your kid in a non-harmful, plenty-beneficial way?

The only reason I can think of is that they genuinely fear their child would miss out on nutrients, or maybe just not be receptive to the idea.

If your child has asthma and you’d like to make their diet more plant-based but don’t know how open to this they would be, maybe this post will help.

If you need more reasons (besides just curing yourself of asthma) to give up cow’s milk and dairy, read this.

If cheese is your downfall, read this.

You know what? If you don’t think you can do it long-term just commit to three weeks. See how you feel then and re-evaluate.

Life is waaaay too short to lose any of it to wheezing and spluttering and feeling like your lungs are about to explode. Take back control over your windpipe and lungs! Don’t let the dairy and animal agriculture industries commit you to a wheezy, hacking, breathless future.

‘Vegan’ Does Not = Eating Fruit For Every Meal

Water melon from Flickr via Wylio — © 2006 Hajime NAKANO, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio

So there is a trend that worries me somewhat…

I’ve watched a tonne of YouTube videos that have ‘vegan’ in the title and are instructional in nature, and I have something I NEEEED to say.

In my opinion, the absolute vast majority of these videos are great, and it’s heart-warming to see so many people so clued up on the ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ of vegan. I’m also hugely jealous of the production values, editing skills, and just sheer confidence of the creators of these videos – but really enjoy watching them despite the ol’ green-eyed monster!

Yet some of them really concern me.

Some of these vloggers, if you watch their ‘what I eat in a day’ videos, eat nothing but fruit. Perhaps a nut here and there.

Of course, if you’re eating mainly fruit, then it’s pretty much a raw diet. My thoughts on raw in more detail are here.

I’m not naming any names or trying to take anyone down, I’m just genuinely concerned.

To be fair, some of these people DO look healthy, and report that their blood work is great. If this is true then good for them. But there are definitely others who don’t look like eating 95% fruit is serving them.

It’s popular and trendy diet plans like ’80/10/10′ and ‘Raw Till 4,’ (both encourage you to eat hyyyuuuuuge amounts of fruit for – supposedly – maximal health and fitness), that seem to have inspired this way of eating.

As a plant-based nutritionist I wouldn’t recommend eating a mostly fruit diet. Yes, of course it’s better than eating the standard US or UK diet full of chicken, fries, burgers and cheese etc, and maybe some people can live on it. But it’s not something I would recommend doing.

These are ALL the reasons these videos concern me:

Health-wise, we know the optimal diet is based around whole grains and starchy root veg. Brown rice, whole wheat products, whole spelt products, oats, quinoa, corn, potato, sweet potato, squash – these types of foods should be the foundation of most meals. After this come beans and legumes, and your veggies on the side.

Fruit appears as dessert; or a snack; or maybe PART of breakfast.

Where do I get off spouting this?

It’s true, I’m a nutritionist not a doctor…

…So I follow the advice of these guys who are:

Dr John McDougall, has practised medicine for many years and successfully treated hundreds, if not thousands of patients with a whole food, plant-based diet, with whole, starchy carbs as the basis. This is what he says on the matter.

The very accomplished and eminent Dr Caldwell Esselstyn, author of Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, who again, has treated hundreds if not thousands of people successfully with the same diet Dr McDougall prescribes, has this to say on the subject.

Here is what Dr T Colin Campbell, author of The China Study, thinks of diets such as 80/10/10 that espouse a raw, fruit-heavy way of eating.

All these guys say THERE IS NO SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE proving that eating mostly fruit is optimal for health.

However – there IS scientific, peer-reviewed evidence proving that a whole food, plant-based diet with a focus on grains and potatoes etc, IS.

I also have personal experience of eating just fruit. About 26 years ago, I’m not going to say I had an eating disorder because I was never diagnosed and I managed to get out of it on my own with no medical help; but I wanted to lose weight, so I started JUST eating watery fruits and veg, knowing that with this regime I could only lose weight as these foods are basically just water and would go straight through me.

Well I lost weight alright, and I lost my period too (if you’re a female human, you NEED your period so everything can function as it should).

Everything went back to normal eventually when I added starchy plant foods back to my diet, but for a while there, I was not the healthiest!

This isn’t to say that it doesn’t work for some people, perhaps it does, I don’t know. But I don’t understand scientifically how it could be a good idea long term.

The other thing is – what kind of climate do you live in? In Chinese medicine (not that I’m an expert, but a close friend is a Chinese Herbalist) they believe that some foods are cooling and some are warming.

Tropical fruits, for example, are believed to have a very cooling effect. If you live in a cold climate it doesn’t make sense to be eating lots of mangoes, watermelons and dragon fruit that are meant to cool you down.

The couple of fruit-heavy vloggers I’ve seen who DO look healthy, I believe DO live in hotter climates.

If you live in the UK, Northern or Eastern Europe, East US, or anywhere where the temperatures can drop; eating fruit all day just ISN’T gonna cut it. You need your stews, chilli’s and curries to warm you and fill you up.

Also – how expensive is eating 3 melons for breakfast, 6 mangoes for lunch, 2 dragon fruit as a snack; and 4 oranges, 2 more melons and 3 dates for dinner? Tropical fruit isn’t cheap and with the amounts people are eating in order to fulfill their caloric intake, the cost must rack up pretty quickly. Compare the price of six decent mangoes with a 2kg bag of lentils that will last you months!

The final reason these ‘fruity’ videos concern me, is that, to me, they are somewhat misrepresenting a vegan diet. If these vloggers called themselves ‘fruitarians’ instead of ‘vegans’ this would be helpful, so people don’t think that this is a typical version of a vegan diet.

Veganism and plant-based diets are, at last, gaining traction. More and more people are interested. But imagine a person who eats a meat and dairy-heavy diet that starts to be curious about veganism and wants to learn more. So they whack ‘vegan’ into the YouTube search engine. Then imagine the first video they see is someone who tells them that eating 3 melons for breakfast and 12 mangoes for lunch is the way to be vegan. I worry this is off-putting. Lots of people think vegans are weird anyway. I don’t believe the ‘fruity’ vegans are helping this perception any.

If YOU are the meat-eater tentatively looking for info on going vegan and want to do it healthfully, then type ‘whole food, plant-based’ into your search engine; or read anything by the doctors I mention above – these dudes are the real deal; they’ve done the science and published it. They’ve witnessed hundreds of times over how healing a whole food, plant-based diet is and they live to spread the message.

And if you need any help transitioning….YOOHOO!!!!!! You know I’m here to help you. I offer my programs, and have addressed lots of the common questions and stumbling blocks around going vegan here in my blog posts.

Let me know if there’s anything I haven’t talked about yet that you’d like me to, and I’ll get to it in one of my next posts.

How Do You Get Enough Protein As A Vegan? (Yes, I know! But It’s Still An Issue!)

Protein® from Flickr via Wylio — © 2011 Ilias Bartolini, Flickr | CC-BY-SA | via Wylio

I’ve been blogging for almost two years on all things vegan and I’ve never yet written a post on protein.

Why?

Because SO many excellent vegan educators have written on it before me, and I genuinely thought we were past that. I thought there was enough info out there with the truth on how much and what sort of protein we actually need and how we’ve all been led to believe a shedload of garbage concerning this.

I was wrong. The protein issue is still coming up frequently.

I’m still seeing comments under vegan articles like ‘we need animal protein or we get weak and tired,’ or ‘I’ve never seen a vegan that didn’t look pale and sickly.’ Never mind the fact that there are plenty of healthy and strong vegans out there (including these ultra-strong guys); the oft-spouted ‘pale and sickly vegan’ shizzle comes from the belief, as erroneous as it is deeply entrenched, that we need a certain amount and certain sort of protein (i.e. meat) for strength.

Admittedly, I DO live in a bit of a vegan bubble, and I reckon I underestimated just how profoundly ingrained the whole ‘YOU NEED PROTEIN FROM MEAT OR YOU WILL DIE’ thing was.

My bad.

If you are a new vegan and wondering where you’ll get your protein, or more likely, if you are coming up against this question from concerned friends and family, this is for you.

What’s the deal with ‘complete’ and incomplete protein?

Protein is an essential macronutrient and we need it, this much is true.

It is composed of amino acids that are essentially building blocks for every function in our bodies

There are 20 amino acids, 8 of which are essential to our bodies – i.e., they cannot be synthesised.

Some people may tell you that meat is a ‘complete’ protein (i.e. contains all the necessary amino acids), and that plant protein isn’t, and think they’ve won the protein argument.

It is true that plant food doesn’t always contain all the amino acids, but it’s also a fact that we don’t need to eat complete proteins.

We can eat foods that contain the amino acids separately, and our bodies are clever enough to put the pieces together themselves. Rice and beans combined, for example, are an excellent way to get the full complement of amino acids, (lots of world cultures have known this forever, think of chana masala and rice in India, or rice and beans in Cuba); beans and wholewheat works great too – think beans on toast, or wholewheat pasta dishes that contain beans. See? It’s as simple as that. And the steamed broccoli you have on the side? Well that actually contains more protein per calorie than beef!

However, please don’t think you need to pay lots of attention to food combining in order to get enough protein, you really don’t. Eat whole, plant-based foods and you’ll easily be getting enough – without the health risks associated with animal protein!

How much protein do we need?

Just remember, it serves the meat and dairy industries well to have us believe that we need as much protein as possible.

We actually need about 10% of our daily calories to come from protein, a little more if you are pregnant, breastfeeding, or an athlete.

Considering that around 11% of the calories in brown rice come from protein, 40% of the calories in leafy greens come from protein, and 5% of the calories in a banana come from protein, it’s not difficult to reach your daily protein needs.

It’s actually harder to NOT reach them than it is to reach them!

How best to get that protein?

It also serves the meat and dairy industries to have us believe that there is only protein in animal products.

Some people even know there is protein in plant foods (food scientists and dieticians for example) yet they still believe (thanks to meat and dairy industry advertising) that animal products are the BEST source of protein.

Just look at the food plate the United States Department of Agriculture and the US government (who subsidise the meat industry) use for dietary recommendations to the public.

This plate graphic does not represent the fact that there is plenteous and sufficient protein for us in vegetables, grains and fruit without needing the meat. To be fair, in the text on the USDA website they do include nuts and seeds as protein, but many people don’t read the information on the website. They just focus on this graphic and think that ‘protein’ means meat – which was very possibly the intention.

This graphic does little but perpetuate the idea that protein = meat and meat only.

Those with interests in livestock agriculture have, quite frighteningly, well and truly achieved making this belief mainstream.

As we’ve seen above, protein is in all whole foods.

Getting enough protein on a vegan diet is NO PROBLEM AT ALL!!!!

As well as the brown rice, bananas and greens mentioned above, other protein superstars are beans, lentils, legumes, nuts, seeds, tofu, tempeh.

Just eat a variety of whole foods and you’ll be good.

**Look, I really need convincing – is there any chance at all of becoming protein deficient on a vegan diet?**

Anyone heard of kwashiorkor?

Kwashi-WHAA..?

Exactly.

Yet you’ve surely heard of cancer, heart disease and diabetes. This is because these are diseases of excess – which are the majority of diseases we suffer from in the western world.

Kwashiorkor is the medical term for protein deficiency. You haven’t heard of it ‘cos it doesn’t happen where you are. It is a disease of ‘lack’ as opposed to ‘excess.’ It can happen to emaciated children in parts of Africa, or in singular cases of seriously neglected children here, but that’s it.

I can bet you don’t know anyone who’s had it.

Yet there are millions of vegetarians and vegans NOT suffering from kwashiorkor. There are all the HUGE herbivores – cows, gorillas, elephants, horses etc – all NOT suffering from kwashiorkor.

To the people who say ‘well, I was vegetarian but I felt weak and tired all the time so I had to go back to eating meat and the first time I bit into a steak I burst into tears of joy as I could feel the strength returning to my body’ – if you were feeling weak as a vegetarian or vegan, this was NOT a protein issue, but something else; very likely an iron issue. Possibly not enough energy-giving complex-carbohydrates were consumed; or maybe it was the fact that they just weren’t eating enough nutrient-dense food. If you just take the meat out of your diet and don’t replace it with nutrient-dense whole foods, you may have energy or strength problems, but this won’t be because of lack of protein.

Are there any dangers in consuming too much protein?

Li’l bit!

Too much protein is highly detrimental to us. Excess protein (specifically animal protein) is linked to osteoporosis, heart disease, cancers, and kidney disease.