Eat More Plant Foods for your Health
(RECIPES ATTACHED!)
Your parents were right “eat your vegetables!”. It is no surprise that eating more plant-derived foods in your diet like fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes, dried beans and grains are healthy for you. Consuming a predominately plant based diet, or being a vegetarian (consumes plant derived foods, dairy and eggs and avoids animal flesh. Vegan is strict avoidance of any animal derived products.), can improve your health substantially.
Benefits:
Springmann et al, found that eating fewer animal products could result in 5 million preventable deaths per year globally, while a vegetarian or vegan diet could prevent 7.3 -8.1 million deaths/year.
The long-term Seventh-day Adventists study shows that they remain healthier into an older age, in fact they tend to live 10 years longer than most Americans. This religious group practices age enhancing behaviors like, exercise, maintaining a healthy weight and consuming a vegetarian diet and avoiding Tabaco and alcohol.
Research has shown that the therapeutic use of a vegetarian diet is effective for treating overweight and obesity in both the short term (< 1 year) and the long term (> 1 year), and may be a better alternative then an omnivore diet (not conclusive though, since eating fish has high health benefits). The range of weight loss ranged from 3.2%-9.3% at 12 months across several studies
Type 2 diabetes: A vegetarian diet has shown to decrease hemoglobin A1c as well or better than omnivore diets. A predominately plant based diet can reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes. In the Seventh-day Adventist vegetarians’ risk of developing diabetes was ½ the amount of non-vegetarians.
Cancer: Hundreds of studies suggest that eating lots of fruits and vegetables can reduce the risk of developing certain cancers, and there’s evidence that vegetarians have a lower incidence of cancer than non-vegetarians do. But the differences aren’t large. A vegetarian diet can make it easier to get the recommended minimum of five daily servings of fruits and vegetables, but a purely vegetarian diet is not necessarily better than a plant-based diet that also includes fish or poultry. For example, in a pooled analysis of data from the Oxford Vegetarian Study and EPIC-Oxford study, a plant based diet with fish (pescetarian) had a lower risk of certain cancers than vegetarians.
Vegetarian and vegan diets are a valid therapeutic way to decrease total cholesterol and improve LDL (bad) cholesterol. In fact there is a 7.2% – 26.6% range decrease in total cholesterol and 8.7%-35% range improvement in LDL cholesterol. There is strong evidence of this.
Consume a diet that is predominately plant based for your overall health. You don’t have to become a vegetarian of vegan to reap some of the health benefits above. However, I haven’t listed all the health benefits of a vegetarian diet. Vegetarian diets have economic and environmental benefits as well. Nutritional deficiencies CAN be common in vegetarian diets, seek helpf from a registered dietitian to help you become educated about those nutrients and their food sources to alleviate those potential issues.
Fill your pantry and refrigerator with these convenient healthy plant derived staples:
1) Always choose ORGANIC when you can!
Nuts and seeds unsalted, raw organic put in jars so you can see them. Add to salads, oatmeal, or a snack. Use ¼ cup measuring cup to keep calories low
Canned beans, variety of types. Rinse them out of the can before you use them to get most of the sodium off. Quick and easy to add to salads, or as a side dish, or a main dish in burritos, etc.
Dried fruit in glass jars. Use in moderation because they are high in calories but packed full of iron, fiber, and other nutrients dependent on the type
Whole wheat or brown rice pastas
Fresh organic fruit, keep in a bowl on the counter to remind you to eat. Frozen fruit can be used in a healthy smoothie.
Whole grains: Brown rice, quinoa, millet, you can get these frozen for quick convenient use for meals. Instant plan oatmeal (you can get the rolled or steel cut, just using a convenient source), corn tortillas, rice chips, whole wheat crackers
Vegetables: Cut up pre bagged and washed fresh vegetables to have on hand. Frozen vegetables without sauces, steam quickly in a microwave or pan.
Pre bagged lettuces, arugula, spinach, kale, etc. place in bowl with some cherry tomatoes and already shredded carrots and you have an instant salad!
Buy low sodium V8 or some of the Green juices like Suja or Naked juice. Watch the calories!
Starchy vegetables: Sweet potatoes , quick cooking options below
Quick way to cook, is cut them vertically in ½ inch slices ,place on a Panini grill, cooked in 15 mins.
Shred up, add and a beaten egg to bind and shape into hash brown pancakes, with a touch of olive oil in a fry pan, cook until golden brown and cooked through)
Regular potatoes, boil and eat.
Corn, peas buy frozen organic and steam quickly
Squashes, like butternut, buy cut up in chunks for easy prep and cooking
Daily Goal for Plant derived foods:
At least 5 vegetable servings/day, you can always have more!
Get 2-3 at dinner, make ½ your plate veggies and a salad
Snack on veggies throughout the day to keep you full and get your servings in
Serving sizes: ½ cup cooked, 1 cup raw and 2 cups of greens all equal 1 serving
Fruit 3 servings/day (varies/individual if you are an athlete, more may be needed)
1 serving= 1 tennis ball size, 4 oz. juice, ¼ cup dried fruit, 1 cup of chopped fruit, ½ cup of canned fruit (in it’s own juice!), 1 cup of berries, ¾ cup of blueberries, 1 ½ cup of strawberries
Whole grains and starchy vegetables
Keep it at about ¼ of your plate at all meals. Again this varies with individual, athletes who train almost daily will need almost a ½ plate!
Nuts, nut butters and seeds: servings /day 2-3
1-2 tbsp. of nut butters
1-2 tbsp. of seeds
¼ cup of nuts unsalted
Legumes, dried beans 1-2/day
½ cup of beans or legumes = 1 serving
Eat your greens! The rest of the rainbow as well! The high fiber content will keep you full and displace opportunities that you may take to eat junky food, thus you may see weight loss. Most people experience some without trying.
Click on the links below to see the Recipes
COLLARD GREEN WRAP
Ingredients
4 large collard leaves
1 red bell pepper
1 avocado
2-3 ounces alfalfa sprouts
1/2 lime
1 cup raw pecans
1 tablespoon tamari (gluten-free soy sauce)
1 teaspoon cumin (or 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic and 1/2 teaspoon grated ginger)
1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
Instructions
To prepare collard leaves wash leaves, cut off white stem at the bottom that has no leaves and place them in a bath of warm water with juice of half a lemon. Let soak for 10 minutes. Dry the leaves off with paper towels and using a knife thinly slice down the central root (to make it easier to bend the leaves for wrapping).
Slice avocado and pepper.
In a food processor combine pecans, tamari, cumin (or garlic ginger mix) and olive oil. Pulse until combined and mixture clumps together.
Place a collard leaf in front of you and layer nut mix, red pepper slices, avocado slices, a drizzle of lime juice and alfalfa sprouts. Fold over the top and bottom and then wrap up the sides. Slice in half and serve.
GARBANZO BEAN TACO
Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small yellow onion, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 red peppers or 1 green pepper, chopped
1 jalapeno pepper, de-seeded, minced (or to taste-can substitute hot sauce or a dash of cayenne)
1 garlic clove, minced
(19 ounce) can garbanzo beans, drained
3 -5 tablespoons of your favorite chunky salsa
1⁄2 teaspoon cumin
1⁄2 teaspoon chili powder (I like the color this gives the beans)
1⁄2 teaspoon ground coriander (your choice)
8 taco shells
Directions
In large fry pan, heat oil over medium heat.
Cook the onion, celery, red or green pepper, jalapeno, and garlic until softened.
Add garbanzo beans, spices, and a couple tsp of salsa.
Stir until heated through.
I like to fit the taco shells in a baking pan, spoon in filling evenly into the shells and bake in a 300°F oven for 5 minutes or so.
It helps the shells from falling apart when you take the first bite.
Remove from oven and top with your favorite toppings
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