Protein. That protein is good for your body is no surprise. It may be a surprise to learn that most Americans eat too much protein and in forms such as red meat that are not healthy ways of getting protein. Beans, nuts, peas, lentils, and soy products are all great ways to get the right amount of protein in a vegan diet.

Energy. When following a healthy vegan diet, you will find your energy is much higher. This blog post in Happy Healthy Long Life describes how NFL tight-end Tony Gonzalez started eating vegan and gained energy–while playing football.

Cow’s milk dairy. The human body is not designed to digest cow milk and cow milk dairy products, yet the idea of milk being healthy is pushed through advertising. As many as 75% of people in the world may be lactose intolerant and many people suffer from undiagnosed milk allergies or sensitivities. By eliminating cow’s milk from your diet, you are improving your overall health.

Read the whole list here
http://www.nursingdegree.net/blog/19/57-health-benefits-of-going-vegan/

Be sure to seek out the firmest tofu made from organic soybeans you can find. Also, I suspect you could grill these, they seem like they’d hold together. The next time around I’m going to try it. If anyone else gives that a go before I do, let me know, and I’ll update the recipe.

1 pound / 16 oz / 450 g extra-firm tofu, drained and patted dry, then sliced

2 large eggs
1/2 cup / 2 oz / 55 g fine dried bread crumbs
1/2 cup / 2 oz / 55 g cashew nuts
1/2 cup / 2 oz /55g sunflower seeds
1/2 cup / 2 oz / 55g sliced mushrooms
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon shoyu or soy sauce
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne
1/4 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

extras: whatever buns & condiments you like. I did a combination of goat cheese and homemade pickles. You could also do a lettuce wrap in place of buns. And I couldn’t resist the mini brioche buns from La Boulange.

Place all the ingredients except the olive oil in a food processor. Pulse until the mixture comes together and is free of most chunks, stopping to scrape down the sides of the food processor once or twice if needed.

Divide the mixture into eight equal portions and use your hands to press and form into round but flat-ish patties.

Pour the olive oil into your largest skillet over medium-high heat, and arrange as many patties as you can without crowding. Cover, and cook turning once, until deeply browned on both sides. Roughly ten minutes. You want to make sure the middle of the patties cook through. If the pan is too hot you’ll burn the outsides before the middle cooks up, so be mindful of that.

Serve with your favorite burger fixings. I mention a few ideas up above in the ingredient list.

Makes eight tofu burgers.

First from VegWeb

Kale Chips

Simple Directions:
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Wash and de-stem kale. Chop or tear into “chip” size pieces.

Spread onto baking sheet. Pour the apple cider vinegar, oil and seasoning (1-2 tablespoons) onto kale. Mix to coat all pieces.

Bake for 10 minutes or until crispy. Serve immediately!

Makes: 3-4 servings, Preparation Time: 3 minutes, Cooking Time: 10 minutes

That sounds simple enough but what if you’re a raw vegan? try this one from renegadehealth
Ingredients:

2 head Kale, Washed and Torn
¾ cup Tahini
¼ cup Tamari
1/4 cup Cider Vinegar
½ cup Water
2 scallions
1 clove garlic
1 lemon (juice of)
¼ teaspoon Sea Salt
1/4 cup of nutritional yeast

Preparation:

Place kale in a large mixing bowl. Combine the rest of the ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth to get a thick consistency. You may have to add more water. Pour over kale and mix thoroughly with your hands to coat the kale. You want this mixture to be really glued onto the kale.
Place kale onto a Teflex sheet, on top of a mesh dehydrator screen, and dehydrate for 6 hours @ 115 degrees. You’ll need to use two trays. Rotate kale occasionally to dry uniformly.

There are two different recipes to help you with your crunchy snack attack that will satisfy and give you a good daily dose of leafy greens.

You’ll notice, by the way, that many of the tips below have you looking at a food product’s nutrition label and ingredients list for information. If you haven’t become expert at this, time to study up. Go straight to the source — the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — via the Internet at www.fda.gov, put “nutrition facts” into the search line, then click on “go” for a full menu of food-labeling information.

1. Rule number one: Buy fresh food! There is no simpler, no easier, no plainer measure of the healthiness of your food than whether it comes in boxes and cans or is fresh from the farm or the fields. If more than half your groceries are prepared foods, then you need to evolve your cooking and eating habits back to the healthy side by picking up more fresh vegetables, fruits, seafood, juices, and dairy.

2. Shop the perimeter of the store. That’s where all the fresh foods are. The less you find yourself in the central aisles of the grocery store, the healthier your shopping trip will be. Make it a habit — work the perimeter of the store for the bulk of your groceries, then dip into the aisles for staples that you know you need.

3. Think of the departments (dairy, produce, meat, and so on) as separate stores within the supermarket. You wouldn’t shop at every store at a mall the same way, would you? You know better than to idly browse through a jewelry store, don’t you? So apply the same approach to the grocery store. Target the sections that are safe to browse through — the produce section, primarily — and steer clear of the dangerous sections (the candy, ice cream, and potato chip aisles).

4. Shop with a list. Organize your shopping list based on the tip above — that is, by the sections of the store. This will have you out of the supermarket at the speed of light. If you’re a woman, consider getting your husband or son to do the food shopping, says Joan Salge Blake, R.D., clinical assistant professor of nutrition at Boston University’s Sargent College. The latest survey from the Food Marketing Institute shows that compared to women, men are more likely to buy only what’s on the grocery list. But shopping with a list has benefits beyond speed and spending. By lashing yourself to the discipline of a well-planned shopping list, you can resist the seductive call of aisle upon aisle of junk food, thereby saving your home, your family, and yourself from an overload of empty calories.

5. Food-shop with a full stomach. We’re sure you’ve heard this one before, but it’s worth repeating. Walking through the grocery store with your tummy growling can make you vulnerable to buying anything that isn’t moving, says Blake. If you can’t arrange to shop shortly after a meal, be sure to eat an apple and drink a large glass of water before heading into the store. View healthy snack ideas and recipes.
via rd.com

As of January 2008, 175 unique zeolite frameworks have been identified, and over 40 naturally occurring zeolite frameworks are known.[3][4] Zeolites have a porous structure that can accommodate a wide variety of cations, such as Na+, K+, Ca2+, Mg2+ and others. These positive ions are rather loosely held and can readily be exchanged for others in a contact solution. Some of the more common mineral zeolites are analcime, chabazite, clinoptilolite, heulandite, natrolite, phillipsite, and stilbite. An example mineral formula is: Na2Al2Si3O10-2H2O, the formula for natrolite.”

via Wikipedia

The findings suggest the trend of bigger plates and portions that has been noticed recently and linked to obesity may have been in the works for much longer, the researchers suggest.

“I think people assume that increased serving sizes, or ‘portion distribution’ is a recent phenomenon,” said Brian Wansink, director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab. “But this research indicates that it’s a general trend for at least the last millennium.”

In his lab, Wansink and his colleague investigate eating behaviors and how they might link to the current obesity epidemic in the United States and elsewhere. One factor they have linked to being overweight is large food portions, which can cause people to overeat.

Wansink teamed up with his brother Craig Wansink, a religious studies professor at Virginia Wesleyan College, to look at how portion sizes have changed over time by examining the food depicted in 52 of the most famous paintings of the scene from the Last Supper.

“As the most famously depicted dinner of all time, the Last Supper is ideally suited for review,” Craig Wansink said.

From the 52 paintings, which date between 1000 and 2000 A.D., the sizes of loaves of bread, main dishes and plates were calculated with the aid of a computer program that could scan the items and rotate them in a way that allowed them to be measured. To account for different proportions in paintings, the sizes of the food were compared to the sizes of the human heads in the paintings.

The researchers’ analysis showed that portion sizes of main courses (usually eel, lamb and pork) depicted in the paintings grew by 69 percent over time, while plate size grew by 66 percent and bread size grew by 23 percent.

Both Wansinks suggest that as food has become more available over the last millennium, the way people, including artists, view and depict food has changed accordingly, with the same dinner scene being viewed as having more on the table in more recent decades and centuries.

The results of the study are detailed in the April issue of the International Journal of Obesity.

via livescience

Why Does a Salad Cost More Than a Big Mac?

via good.is

It is estimated that food wasted by the US and Europe could feed the world three times over. Food waste contributes to excess consumption of freshwater and fossil fuels which, along with methane and CO2 emissions from decomposing food, impacts global climate change. Every tonne of food waste prevented has the potential to save 4.2 tonnes of CO2 equivalent. If we all stop wasting food that could have been eaten, the CO2 impact would be the equivalent of taking one in four cars off the road.

In the US, a report in Plos One at the end of last year found that per capita food waste has progressively increased by 50 percent since 1974 reaching more than 1400 calories per person per day or 150 trillion calories per year. Food waste now accounts for more than one quarter of the total freshwater consumption and 300 million barrels of oil per year.

The study funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases – The Progressive Increase of Food Waste in America and Its Environmental Impact, found that 40 percent of all the food produced in the US is thrown out.

According to the CDC, Americans consume about 2600 calories a day on average. Based on that estimate, 1400 calories is roughly a meal and a half of food wasted every day (or a Big Mac meal with a large Coke).

The impact of domestic food waste on climate change

Over in the UK, things don’t fair much better. Each year, 8.3 million tonnes of food is thrown away by households in the UK. This equates to a mountain of leftovers, enough to fill 4700 Olympic-sized swimming pools, says the government’s anti-waste arm, Wrap. Of this food, 5.3 million tonnes could have been eaten.

Reducing food waste is a major issue and not just about good food going to waste; wasting food costs the average family with children GBP£680 a year and has serious environmental implications too.

Survey on food

A new survey in the UK by the business intelligence company, Retail Active has found that fruit, salad and vegetables are the most wasted items in the weekly shopping basket, with bananas being the most wasted item, closely followed by fresh milk.

The data found that people who live cities generally waste the most food but the worst culprits are city-dwelling single men, aged between 25 and 35, who waste food worth an average of GBP£17.43 a month.

Retail Active, says the South East of England has the highest food waste tally, second is the North West and the area with the least wastage is Scotland.

It says a family of four throws away an average of GBP£15.70 worth of food every month but people aged over 57 are the least wasteful, throwing away an average of just GBP£3.36 per month, the British paper The Telegraph reports.

Also high on the wastage list was fresh meat and uneaten prepared food. Tinned food is the least wasted.

Retail Actives used a representative sample of 2000 people, to find nearly three quarters of the responders said they believed their food waste had little or no consequence for the environment. Forty percent actually think food waste is good for the economy because it keeps production moving. Seventy seven percent said they do not consider the impact on the global environment when buying food.

The main reasons for food waste were identified as poor planning, busy lifestyles, bad habits, laziness and too large portion sizes for both ready to eat and prepared food.

Only six percent of the purchasers polled checked sell-by dates but of those that did, the vast majority, 92 percent, chose food from the rear of the shelf to get maximum food freshness.

Food wastage is an issue all around the world, not just in the US and the UK.”

Homemade Granola Bars

2 cups rolled oats
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup wheat germ
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup honey
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped nuts
1/2 cup dried cranberries

*** See Matt M’s comment below for conversions to ounces and grams ***

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9×13 inch pan.

In a large bowl mix oats, brown sugar, wheat germ, cinnamon, flour, chocolate chips, nuts, cranberries and salt. Make an indention in the center of the mixture, and pour in the honey, egg, oil and vanilla. Mix well. (Using your hands makes it easier to get everything coated.)

Press the mixture into the pan. Don’t spread the mixture all the way to one edge of the pan (see photo). This makes it easier to scoop out the finished bars. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes until the edges begin to brown. Cool for 5 minutes, cut the bars while they are still warm, and store the granola bars in an airtight container so they won’t dry out.

via witandwhistle