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Mushroom, Mushroom, Mushrooms

There are many types of mushrooms, they can add flavour and texture to a dish. 

Mushrooms

Adding mushrooms to your meal can make it very delicious.

Mushrooms:

  • generally grow on the ground or on rotten trees
  • show up at certain times, for example a week after rains
  • can be distinguished by their shape, colour and the type of underside

The underside of mushrooms can have a frill shape or a sponge shape. So next time you want to identify a mushroom, check the under side of it too. Remember to check with mushroom experts and to learn which mushrooms you can pick in your area. Poison is no joke, but delicious, safe mushrooms add flavour and texture to a vegetarian dish. Some mushrooms give a hearty, almost “meaty” taste and texture, so try one of these in your hamburger instead of a patty next time.

Disclaimer: Obviously there are poisonous mushrooms so you cannot simply eat the mushrooms you find in the forest (or your garden), without checking them properly and consulting experts.

-Graham

graham@thevegetarianman.com

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Great Protein – More than Chicken and 10x Cheaper than Whey Protein

I stumbled upon something that packs a punch in terms of protein and fibre, and realised the power of seeds.

Seeds for health
Seeds for health.

The Discovery

A couple of weekends ago whilst doing my weekly grocery shopping, I made a discovery as life-altering as man’s discovery of black gold. Okay perhaps that is a gross exaggeration, still, it was a noteworthy find. I had stumbled upon flaxseed (flax) flour. I have long known flax (linseed) to be a great source of omega-3 fatty acids, which as we know are paramount for a healthy brain and are essential for the cardiovascular system (heart).  But while perusing the nutritional content of the flour two things stood out, namely the protein and fibre contents. Conventional wisdom leads us to believe that the best source of protein is meat in the shape of chicken and beef or protein supplements e.g. protein shakes.   But as we shall see, not only are the proposed sources of protein sub-par; they are replete with issues.

Issues with the Proverbial Sources of Protein

Elevated fat content (meat)

While lean meats are a high source of protein (chicken and beef contain about 24g per 100g) most of the beef and chicken accessible (and affordable) to the public is not lean. In pursuit of profits, large farms almost unilaterally employ antibiotics to produce jumbo sized chickens and other livestock. In addition to antibiotics, the diet of livestock in factory farms almost sorely consists of corn, a cheaper and fattier feedstock. What all of this culminates in are cows, chickens and pigs with a much higher fat to muscle ratio. Simply put, what we believe are prime sources of protein are nothing but fat-laden, hormone-saturated and protein barren meats.  Unless you are getting your protein from free-range sources, you are most likely consuming substandard products. Continue reading “Great Protein – More than Chicken and 10x Cheaper than Whey Protein”

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Pancakes that Make you Lose Weight?

New year, New Me! Crowds gather at a 5km local park run as part of a strategy to make 2018 a healthy year. 

It’s the New Year and judging by the turnout at the local Parkruns (weekly free 5 km volunteer organized running events), there is a large cohort of people who made 2018 the year get in shape. While exercise is a great start to shed some of those excess kilos that we gained over the holidays, it alone isn’t enough. We have all heard of the saying that abs are built in the kitchen, meaning that what we eat has a far greater bearing on our physique than exercise.

Many studies suggest that if we ate well, 80% of the job would be done.

 

If eating well was easy we would all look swimsuit models, unfortunately, the reality is that many of us are pretty fallible when it comes to diet. We all know what we should eat but sugar, refined carbs, fat and salt are all too damn delicious. Given the choice between pancakes and quinoa after a long stressful day at work – most of us would choose the former. While quinoa is the healthier alternative, cooked quinoa (that is not drenched sauces) is blander than cardboard – it is utterly tasteless.

A few days ago I wanted to make pancakes (anyone who knows me will be aware that pancakes are one of my favourite guilty pleasures – they were the first thing I learned to cook at the tender age of nine) but a part of me was unwilling to make them in the traditional manner.   I wanted to transform them into a snack that was both delicious and healthy. Continue reading “Pancakes that Make you Lose Weight?”

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What about Protein as a Vegetarian?

For many vegetarians, a common question asked of them is, “What about protein though?” Eating a healthy, wholesome, plant based, one can get all the protein needed.

Vegetable stir-fry with cashews
Vegetable stir-fry with cashews

Adding nuts will increase your protein intake in a meal. For example, only 60g of cashew nuts will meet your daily protein recommended amount (*Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.)

Other good sources are legumes, such as beans and lentils.

There shouldn’t even be a question about whether you can get enough protein as a healthy vegetarian. Perhaps one could ask about getting a balanced diet, with enough roughage and nutrients (see a story about getting a balanced vegetarian diet which does not solely consist of cake).

-Graham

graham@thevegetarianman.com

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Flexitarians, Ovo-Lacto Vegetarians, Vegans and More

There are many choices to take with regards to what you eat, from a vegetarian only on weekdays, to a vegetarian or vegan. 

Vegetarian burger

Vegetarian burgerThere are many choices in what kind of diet you eat, depending on what food is available, what is healthy, and what you enjoy eating. I, for example, started as a weekday vegetarian (only eating meat on weekends), and then became an ovo-lacto vegetarian (only eating eggs and milk, but no meat), etc. Here are examples of diets.

Types of Vegetarian Diets

-Graham

graham@thevegetarianman.com

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Cake is Not the Best Vegetarian Food

If you are switching to vegetarian food for health reasons, make sure that you choose healthy food, as well as cutting out meat, and exercising.

Carrot Cake

Carrot cake, has healthy carrots, but does not a balanced meal make.Whatever your diet, remember to have a varied one, and to be conscious of what exactly makes up your food. A vegetarian diet should include a number of healthy foods, depending on what is available and what you like to eat, such as legumes, various leafy greens, vegetables, fruit, nuts, and some grains.

A varied vegetarian diet, with consciously chosen foods, is better than a vegetarian diet of just cake, for example.

-Graham

graham@thevegetarianman.com

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My First Steps as a Vegetarian

Your first steps as a vegetarian can be daunting, but with a few tips, it is much easier to follow.

Spinach quiche, thevegetarianman

Spinach quiche, thevegetarianmanVegetarian meals as a bachelor used to be quite haphazard. I decided to explore alternatives. This is the story of that journey.

I used to eat a lot of meat, perhaps twice what I should have, even if I followed the most generous of the mainstream eating guides. I started to read up on eating in a  healthier way. This lead me to learning more about the vegetarian diet and the reported benefits of it. I soon found that there seemed to be three key themes. These were:

The animal cruelty is easy enough to understand. We raise animals artificially, fattening them up, and then slaughter them to eat. This seems unfair and wrong. (But then, what about protein? I’ll cover that in the next post “What about protein“).

Okay, what about waste reduction? Yes, the inefficiency of the meat industry is well documented. The amount of grains needed to fatten up animals is excessive, with a lot of waste incurred when compared to us just eating the grains efficiently.

Lastly, and perhaps the deciding factor for me personally, was that eating a lot of meat has been found to increase the chances of one getting diseases, such as suffering from cancer or heart attacks.

After reading further into the matter, I found that the vegetarian diet was the best step I could take. I started as a week-day vegetarian until I was happy that I could be healthy on a vegetarian diet alone (see the article on Weekday vegetarians, flexitarians, ovo-lacto vegetarians, vegans and more).

So if you’re thinking of eating more vegetarian food, I would say, go for it, just remember to continue to eat healthy vegetarian food (I ate cake and poor food when I first started as a vegetarian, so avoid that by reading “Cake is not the best vegetarian food“).

 

-Graham

graham@thevegetarianman.com