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What is Aquafaba and What Do I Do with It?

What is Aquafaba and What Do I Do with It?

I had never heard of this ingredient either, before my foray into plant-based cooking.  Aquafaba is the liquid from a can of chickpeas (garbanzo beans) or other canned beans. Translated, aquafaba means bean water. Aqua (water). Faba (as in fava bean).  

It can be used for loads of different things in plant-based cooking. 

I use it as a replacement for oil in tofu bites and they are just as good.

I have used it in recipes that call for egg replacement that specify aquafaba.

I also use aquafaba when I roast veggies instead of oil. I admit it’s not as crispy as with the oil, but when the veggies are paired with something flavorful, it usually doesn’t matter.

And I made meringue cookies with it last year! I don’t bake as much anymore because I’m trying to avoid sugar, but I missed the egg-based chocolate meringues that I used to make and gave it a go. Once I added the cocoa powder to the recipe the fluffiness fell (which I was warned might happen) but the cookie still tasted good. Flat, but good.

Now when I open a can of chickpeas and don’t need the liquid for that recipe, I save the aquafaba in an ice cube tray. Each cube is approximately one tablespoon. So, if the recipe calls for two tablespoons of oil, I pop out two cubes of aquafaba. 

PRO TIP: TOMORROW’S (June 9, 2022) RECIPE WILL CALL FOR CHICKPEAS. If you are so inclined, save the liquid from the can rather than tossing it. It may come in handy. You can store it in the fridge for a couple of days and then after that it needs to get frozen (which I recommend). 

Why would we bother substituting aquafaba for oil? Well, even though plant-based oils (olive oil for example) are less unhealthy than animal fats (i.e. butter), there’s still a ton of calories from fat in each tablespoon. Since I learned about increasing fiber and decreasing fat, I have cut down dramatically on my oil intake, at least when I cook at home. When I eat out of the home, I expect many dishes will have oil in them. So, I try to offset the unhealthier prepared foods with healthier home-cooked dishes that use ingredients like aquafaba. 

Interested in some more recipes that use aquafaba? Check out this link.

My Favorite Plant-Based Butters

My Favorite Plant-Based Butters

I used to love butter — on toast, in a baked potato, in baked goods. You name it. But when I decided to give up eating animal-based products, that also meant switching away from butter. This was one of the last things I gave up too. Even when I had theoretically given up dairy, I couldn’t resist traditional baked goods.

Fortunately, there are now tons of alternative vegan butters to choose from in the plant-based butter aisle in the grocery store.

In years past, people ate margarine as an alternative to butter. Apparently, there could be animal products in margarine whereas the newer plant-based butters are 100% plant-based. Further, the margarines of yesteryear were filled with transfats, and the new plant-based butters are made from plant oils.

Why is this important? Studies show that it’s the actual saturated and transfat found in animal fats that are harmful. While too much oil from any source isn’t healthy, a plant-based, non-dairy butter is certainly better, all in moderation. 

Many proponents of a whole foods plant-based diet eschew oils because they are processed and we tend to use too much of them anyway. But we all draw the line in the sand somewhere and switching to a plant-based diet and utilizing some oils (in moderation) is going to be necessary for some people, especially in the beginning. 

I still enjoy a hearty grainy toast with some buttery spread on it from time to time and you might too. Plus, many other recipes that call for butter are still possible with the new plant-based butters.

We can eat plant-based and still enjoy the foods we’ve always enjoyed! Here are the plant-based butters that I enjoy in moderation: 

The first plant-based butter that I tried was Earth Balance. They’ve been around for a while.  Their product is pretty good, and it comes in soy free and organic options. You can purchase it in a tub and also in baking stick form which is handy depending on what I’m looking to use it for.

Earth Balance does use palm oil.  I contacted the company to ask if the palm oil is ethically sourced and they said yes, though maybe it’s best to avoid palm oils altogether just to be safe. To learn more about why eating palm oil isn’t ok, check out this video 

And FYI, palm oil is in MANY processed foods, so please read your labels carefully.

More recently though, I learned of Miyoko’s Creamery. Miyoko Schinner (the founder) not only makes superior plant-based products (including butters and cheeses), she is also a champion for the plant-based and animal welfare movements.

My friend, Diane K, swears that she could only replicate her family baklava recipe when she started using Miyoko’s. (And I recently got to sample it, and man it’s good.) 

I like it too and the packaging of their original plant-based butter is eco-friendly. They also offer a version in a tub that adds oat milk and gives it a creamier consistency. That is my husband’s favorite plant-based butter, and we no longer have animal-based butters in our home. (We even snuck it on my son’s bagel, and he couldn’t tell the difference.) 

I have both brands in my house and use them for different things (they have different consistencies) though I use Miyoko’s more in order to support them because I love the company and what they stand for.

If you are new to eating plant-based, these are my two favorite options though there are others readily available in most markets. I have learned to use less and less of it since I eat more whole food plant-based, but it’s great knowing that we have some really good choices.

What in the World is Nutritional Yeast?

What in the World is Nutritional Yeast?

I’ve got a gazillion topics to blog about but since I mentioned nutritional yeast in the recipe post last week, I figured I’d start here.

Not sure what I’m talking about? Each week we post a new recipe in our super exclusive top-secret group.

KIDDING.

It’s open to everyone and it’s free! You can find us here.

Last week we posted our first recipe. It’s easy and yummy —so please join us so you can cook with us too!

One of the ingredients from last week’s recipe is nutritional yeast. I’ve briefly mentioned nutritional yeast a few times, but it deserves its own post.

According to The Spruce Eats, nutritional yeast is:

“An inactivated form of yeast commonly used to leaven bread, nutritional yeast looks like red pepper flakes, only yellow, or powdered Parmesan cheese, with which it shares a deceptively similar flavor, despite being non-dairy.”

Nutritional yeast is found in many recipes as it offers a cheesy flavor. It is so popular in the plant-based world that it even has its own nickname! “Nooch.” The first couple of brands I tried I didn’t like. Then I learned that some brands add B12. I prefer it without. The brand I like is Foods Alive and I add it when I make plant-based cheeses, pestos, scrambles and more! There are other highly regarded nutritional Yeast brands too.

As you may know, vitamin B12 is the only vitamin that vegans and vegetarians must take as a supplement. The reason animals have it in their system is that they graze on and eat the dirt (including feces) that contains B12. A few plants do contain B12, but for the most part, it must be supplemented.

Some people, like Dr. Michael Greger, the author of How Not to Die and also, How Not to Diet, eat B12 fortified Nutritional Yeast as their B12 source.

He has a very comprehensive website called Nutrition Facts.

You can pretty much learn everything you need to know about the health benefits of a plant-based diet from Dr. Greger.

He includes a couple of videos about nutritional yeast and also reminds us that if you have Crohn’s disease, that nutritional yeast is not for you.

Personally, I use the nutritional yeast in recipes for its taste and then supplement with vitamin B12 separately. I always have a spare bag on hand because I seem to use it a lot.

Have you tried nutritional yeast? I’d love to know your thoughts.

Why and How I Went Plant-Based (and Vegan)

Why and How I Went Plant-Based (and Vegan)

I don’t remember having a particular passion when I was a kid. I loved being outdoors which is a good thing because I grew up in the 70’s and we were always in the backyard, making “clubs” in the woods with my siblings, playing outside with friends, walking to the neighbor’s house.

We had pets growing up and I did have an incredible bond with one of our cats. (You can learn more about my connection with the human-animal bond by visiting here.) But I never thought: I want to work with animals, or be a veterinarian, or live somewhere in nature. I don’t remember answering the question: What do you want to be when you grow up?  

And I certainly never thought about my food choices either. I ate what everyone else ate which was a ton of meat, dairy and eggs. We had fruits and vegetables at every meal and lived around the corner from a working farm. (I also didn’t appreciate how special that was either.) But it was all unconscious, which, for most of us, is normal. We do what our families do and celebrate holidays with traditional foods and don’t think much about it all.

It wasn’t until a philosophy class in college when we read Animal Liberation, by Peter Singer, that I started to think about where my food came from. This was in the 80’s when there wasn’t much information about factory farming available. I was rather horrified about what I did learn and tried being a vegetarian for a bit. (Vegan wasn’t a term I had heard of back then.)

Ultimately it was a lot easier to eat what my friends ate than rock the boat, and being a vegetarian didn’t stick.

As a young adult I began thinking about it more. At this point we had pets and I was involved with companion animal rescue including writing books on the subject. And just by being in that world I was also, from time to time, exposed to farm animal rescue.

Sometime around then I visited The Gentle Barn where I got to brush cows and hang out with rescued pigs, horses, goats, llamas, chickens and other farm animals. There is an innocence to all of these animals, and I saw them as individuals. This was another opportunity to educate me about the plight of farm animals.

Plus, The Gentle Barn is vegan. They explicitly explain that if you are bringing food to eat there, that it be plant-based out of respect for their animals. I also remember seeing a cartoon that asked why we eat cows, but dogs sleep in our beds. It all started to click. Why was it ok for me to eat one but not the other? More societal stuff. 

I gave up eating red meat and pork.  That was easy enough to do. But I had an internal hierarchy as to which animals could be eaten and which ones were off-limits.

A few years later I decided that even though I didn’t view chickens as “cute”, that they were equally deserving to not be consumed by me and I gave up eating fowl.

I was a pescatarian for years, which was easy. It enabled me to enjoy sushi and made cooking at home and ordering in restaurants effortless.

Eventually I had a nagging feeling that fish were happiest in the ocean and not on my plate and I was looking for an excuse to stop eating them. Without getting into the woo woo details, it was for spiritual reasons that I decided to stop eating fish.

I was a vegetarian.

Yet, it didn’t take long to get exposed to the horrors of the dairy and egg industries and in 2018 I decided to go plant-based. I live in Los Angeles, not only a food Mecca but also a plant-based food Mecca. It was easy enough to find prepared food at the market and wherever we ordered food from in restaurants.

“I’ll have the chopped salad, no meat, no cheese, dressing on the side, please” became a mantra.

Drinking non-dairy milk was easy and alternatives to butter are really good now. I had been eating a ton of eggs before going vegan and I only missed them for a minute. And now there are a bunch of egg alternatives. (More about those in upcoming posts.) 

What I didn’t have a handle on at first was desserts. I have a sweet tooth and got jealous when we were out with friends and they ordered the cake or ice cream. So, I would have a few bites. I was a convenient vegan. Soon enough, I learned to bake vegan desserts that are very satisfying and are even kid and husband approved. Plus, there are a number of vegan bakeries, and many other bakeries and markets now carry plant-based desserts.

By the end of 2019 I was fully vegan. That meant that in addition to not eating animal products, that I also endeavored not to wear or bring them into my home in the form of cosmetics, clothes or household supplies.

But I also wanted to start cooking more plant-based and I joined a vegan cooking class. Note, the class was to learn recipes that are easy and vegan. Not necessarily for good health but that wasn’t really on my radar (yet) and I was (and still am) delighted to have a bunch of recipes that I enjoy cooking that are also husband-approved.

In an effort to know more about plant-based eating, I completed the Plant-Based Nutrition Certificate program at Cornell. Knowing what I know now, I feel more empowered about my health than ever. My health has always been good, but since learning to eat whole food plant-based (WFPB), it’s even better. My cholesterol has come down and when I eat WFPB, I easily drop a couple of pounds too. What is fascinating is that consuming a whole food plant-based diet can potentially prevent and reverse diseases that are common to people who have been eating the typical Western diet. Learning how to eat clean natural foods that keep me healthy makes sense to me. Hopefully it makes sense to you too. 

In fact, that’s why I started What’s Plant-Based Cooking Good Looking?. Now that I know how empowered we are by our food choices, it behooves me to spread the word. Not sharing this information would be unethical. 

Speaking of ethics, not only are we empowering our own health with our food choices, but we are also positively affecting the earth and of course the animals when we choose a healthy plant-based lifestyle. It’s pretty cool. 

What’s Plant-Based Cooking Good Looking?  focuses on eating plant-based for all the reasons mentioned above. And we include information about the benefits of eating whole food plant based.

But it has to be yummy and easy too. 

I don’t think I would have made the leap from eating animal products to whole food plant-based and I suspect many of you are in the same boat (unless you have an underlying health condition that needs to be addressed immediately). So we offer recipes that are easy and yummy as well as healthy and we are building from there. This is already fun, and sharing this information and supporting you is most rewarding.

My biggest regrets are not going plant-based sooner and not having exposed my children to the benefits of eating plant-based. Yes, I am leading by example now, but they are college students and I remember what it was like for me in college. They seem to be a lot like I was at their age.

Eating a plant-based diet is totally doable everywhere I travel locally and increasingly in far-away places. All it takes is commitment and a little bit of preparation. 

Is everyone reading this going to go 100% plant-based? Of course not (though it would be awesome if everyone did!).

But hopefully some of the resources will offer you the tools to try more recipes and eat more plant-based and not just the processed fun foods, but also integrating whole foods (though the processed fun foods are an ok place to start). I subscribe to moderation and balance and it makes it all a lot more fun and doable. And who knows, maybe you will be inspired to eat more and more whole food plant-based too.

Welcome to What’s Plant-Based Cooking Good Looking?! Be sure to join our community so you can get all the information and recipes and support we will be sharing each week.