Introducing Your Friends and Family to Vegan, Plant-Based Foods

Holy Guacamole!

When you adopt a plant-based, vegan diet, you will probably experience some positive changes in your overall health and well-being. As with anything else, when you notice a benefit in your own health and life, you develop a desire to share your positive experience with others in your life. This is only natural. However, your friends and family might not feel so keen on sharing your enthusiasm and if you try to push your new ideas on them it may end up turning them off completely.

I have found that a soft, gentle approach is more inviting. By this I mean, “walk your talk” and lead by example. As you begin to look better and have a more calm and focused mind people are going to start asking you for your secret recipe. Now of course if you start talking about foods it can stir up a lot of emotion as food is very personal. Nobody wants to feel criticized or again, be told that their favorite foods are killing them quietly.I prefer to go stealth. I enter the scene and arouse interest by showing up to the party with an awesome dish that looks and smells great and everyone is excited to try. By the time they go back for seconds they don’t even miss the meat or dairy!

The best way to pique others’ interest in your new lifestyle is to share foods that are already somewhat familiar to them. For example, try serving a lentil or split pea soup with homemade croutons, or bring a bright, colorful platter of crudité and hummus to a party, or even some guacamole and chips. Go for plant-based foods that are familiar, easy-to-prepare, and delicious. If you want to take things a step further, try serving a three bean chili instead of a meat chili, or a fresh salad with sautéed wild mushrooms and vegetables. Whatever you do, keep it simple. It’s best not to go for recipes that rely on long lists of complicated ingredients or recipes that may just seem weird to the average omnivore (cashew cheese anyone?). If you go out of your way to make elaborate, vegan versions of animal foods, you are not going to convince anyone to include more plant-based foods in their own diet. While some of these recipes may appeal to the already plant-based converted, it is not going to sound appetizing those who are used to eating animal and dairy foods. In many cases these substitutes are not even healthy. Really, vegan dishes can be the most delicious or the most yucky. I guess this supports the macrobiotic theory that everything that has a front also has a back! If you focus on using simple, traditional foods with high-quality ingredients and seasonings, your friends will be more inclined to give it a try. They will be surprised at how great vegan, plant-based foods can taste. More importantly they will notice how great they feel after they eat food that is easier to digest and begin to gain an awareness of the positive effects that pant-based foods have on the body.

Here is my guacamole recipe. It is easy to make, healthful, and delicious. Bring this to a party or share as a snack or appetizer, along with organic, non-GMO corn chips.

Note: you can substitute raw diced onion for the umeboshi pickled onions if you are pressed for time, but the pickled onion is the secret ingredient that brings a unique healthful quality and special flavor to the recipe.

Susan’s Guacamole
Preparation time (20-30 minutes)

Key ingredients!

Serves 2 - 4
Ingredients:
Avocado
1/2 cup of finely diced onion (marinated in umeboshi vinegar)
Fresh sliced jalapeño pepper, center vein and seeds removed (optional)
1/4 cup of finely chopped Cilantro 

1 1/2 - 1 3/4 teaspoons of Umeboshi vinegar (savory vinegar, check out my previous post)
Fresh lime juice to taste

Preparation of the pickle:
Dice the onion and place in a pyrex bowl.
Add a 1/16 teaspoon of sea salt to the onion and use your hands to gently mix the salt with the onion.
Add 1/2 teaspoon of umeboshi vinegar to the onions.

Mix the ingredients together and allow the mixture to begin

to pickle while you continue to prepare the other ingredients. 

Avocado, chopped cilantro and pickled onion

Susan's Amazing Guacamole!

Putting it all together:
Cut the Avocado in half; remove the pit and the fruit.
Place the fruit in a bowl.
Add the cilantro and peppers.
Add the pickled onions and any liquid in the bowl.
Add 3/4 - 1 teaspoon of umeboshi vinegar.
Use a pestle or other wooden utensil to blend all the ingredients. If you like thicker style guacamole
If you like the chunkier style guacamole then do not mash up all the avocado.
Add fresh squeezed lime juice and fold the top into the bottom to blend all the flavors together.

This recipe will keep longer than most others because of using the savory vinegar. The onions start to pickle, bringing more of a balance for the rich vegetable fat of the avocado. Additionally by not using un-cooked salt my recipe does not have a bloating effect on the body. Keep the guacamole refrigerated in a glass dish together with the pit until
you are ready to eat it.

The pit helps to maintain the freshness. When you are ready to serve remove the pit and place in a bowl. Serve with good quality corn chips (again made with non-GMO, organic corn and sea salt), lightly blanched or raw carrots or celery sticks. Or top off a beautiful vegan rice and bean burrito.

Connecting the Dots, and a recipe for Roots and Greens

Life is filled with choices and each day we will make choices that directly effect our lives.

If we take this a step further and think about how our choices also effect our family and loved ones, what about our community, what about society and what about the world?

There are so many things to think about it can be a bit overwhelming. The state of the world is in crisis- I don’t even need to go into all the problems. I would rather spend my time talking about the simple things we do have control of and begin to teach people how to implement some of these ideas. Start by making small changes on a personal level, and really, what is more personal than the food we eat? Making subtle changes to your diet and lifestyle creates positive momentum in both your own life as well as in the lives of others. This is like connecting dots on a sheet of paper. At first, only one or two dots might be connected, but after a while you start to see that all of the dots become connected as part of a whole.

When we choose to adopt a plant-based diet we are making an impact on the health of the planet and reaping the benefits of obtaining personal health. I am in support of a plant-based diet centered around grains and vegetables. Eat plant foods that are grown in a sustainable, organic way, free from GMOs, and do your part to help preserve the Earth.

Roots and Greens 

Baby turnips with Greens

This is a unique vegetable dish which involves cooking the roots of a vegetable together with the leafy greens. When you eat a dish like this you get the health benefit of uplifting energetic quality of the greens in addition to the gathering and centering quality of the roots. It may have the ability to help us see a more complete or bigger picture, and after all, isn’t that really what macrobiotics is about? Maybe if we eat more roots cooked with their tops we will complete more projects! Give it a try- at the minimum, they taste delicious!

Ingredients:
Choose from the following vegetables:                                                
Carrots and carrot tops
Daikon and Daikon greens
Turnip and Turnip greens
Radish and Radish greens

Roots may be cut into matchsticks, diced, or a half-moon wedge shapes (keep in a bowl)
Stems may be cut more finely and separated from the roots and leaves (in the case of carrots the stems need to be cut super fine).
Leaves may be cut thin or left whole, as in the case with baby turnips and red radishes.
Sea salt (a tiny pinch, about 1/16 of a teaspoon)
Shoyu (Just a few drops will do it)
Water 

Preparation:
Roots and greens may be prepared in by using a steam method or a sauté and simmer technique. They are also delicious cooked together in savory soups.
Sauté and simmer method:
Gently heat a cast iron pot. Add the roots with a small amount of water and begin sautéing.
Add a tiny pinch of salt and continue to sauté.
Add a small amount of water, cover and simmer a few minutes to reach the desired texture.
Create a space in your pot by gently pushing the roots to one side. Add the stems, then gently fold the roots on top of the stems. Cover and continue to simmer a few more minutes.
Add the leafy greens. Lightly season the dish with a couple drops of shoyu, then fold the bottom into the top to thoroughly blend the seasoning.
Cover and steam for another 30 seconds to 1 minute.
Place in a serving dish and cover with a bamboo mat.

Steam Method:
Place roots in a pot with a small amount of water.
Place the greens on top of the roots.
Cover and cook with high steam for 5 minutes or longer.
Season with a little shoyu toward the end of cooking and continue to simmer for 1 minute.