When transitioning to a whole food, plant-based diet, the meal that often leaves people in a quandary is lunch. Specifically, what to eat in place of the traditional "meat and cheese" or chicken-salad sandwiches of their childhood. No meat. No cheese. What on earth do you put between the slices of bread? Enter the chickpea. [...]
I grew up in Texas, the land of barbecue brisket, ribs and smoked pulled pork. While I no longer crave meat, I still love the spicy sweet, black-pepper heat of a good, thick Texas-style BBQ sauce. Turns out young, green jackfruit is the perfect whole-food, plant-based substitute for meat in a barbecue-style sandwich or baked [...]
I love a good health transformation story. But I only watched a few episodes of The Biggest Loser. While the contestants’ weight loss was amazing, they were being encouraged to work out like crazy to achieve it. Eight hours a day in the gym, 6 days a week, 1200 calories. They were working so hard! [...]
If you are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, your physician may recommend that you lose weight and adopt a diabetes diet. You have a choice to make. And the choice you make will greatly impact the amount of weight you will lose and how you will feel while trying to lose the weight. The American [...]
Several years ago, when I was out of town at a health coaching conference, I ordered a tofu scramble for breakfast at the restaurant near my hotel. I was not impressed. It was yellow like eggs, but the taste was bland and the texture mushy. Not like eggs at all. I continued to ignore the [...]
If you want to put a plant-based dinner on the table that gets an “Oh, my favorite!” response from family members instead of audible sighs, make this chowder. This meal is my vegetarian teen son’s favorite whole food, plant-based meal. I have also served it to omnivore friends, and watched them clean their bowls. [...]
We live in a toxic world, and today’s food doesn’t provide the nutrition it did just 50 years ago. The results are skyrocketing preventable chronic diseases, like heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and hypertension. Juicing is a fantastic way to detoxify, lower chronic inflammation, and deliver super-charged nutrition to every cell in your body. This [...]
One of the foundations of a nutrient-dense whole food, plant-based diet is to eliminate as much oil as possible. But when I first read about oil-free salad dressings, I was skeptical. What? Don’t we need fat to absorb all the nutrients in the salad? Won’t they taste unsatisfying/too vinegary? Is it really that big of [...]
Burritos are one of my go-to comfort foods. They’re fast, filling, and so full of flavor I don’t miss the oil, cheese or sour cream. This delicious, whole-food, plant-based burrito starts with water sautéed onion and jalapeno pepper. Then I add in diced, cooked sweet potatoes and a couple of handfuls of mixed baby greens. [...]
When transitioning to a whole food, plant-based diet and lifestyle, there is one critical skill that must be mastered. Menu planning! This shouldn’t come as a surprise. All worthy endeavors require some planning. This is especially true when doing something new. Without a well thought out menu, old food habits quickly surface. Like ordering pizza [...]
