Plant Powered for Life!

I get a fair number of emails from new vegans looking for advice on how to stay vegan. I usually point them toward Colleen Patrick Goudreau's 30-Day Vegan Challenge or, lately, Elizabeth Castoria's new How to Be Vegan book. Both are filled with tips, tricks, and recipes. But what about old vegans looking for ways to stay healthy? There aren't as many step-by-step resource guides out there for that.

But there's a new book on the market by Sharon Palmer that may do the trick. It's called Plant-Powered for Life, and although it's not designed for veteran vegans per se, it reads like a refresher course on what we all should be doing. Of course, it'd be excellent for new vegans too!

Y'all know I'm a 50/50 junk food vegan, right? I spend about half my days being good (salads, kale, whole foods) and about half my days being bad (french fries, beer, chips, candy, deep-fried everything). It's all about balance. But sometimes I need a reminder about the health stuff, and I think this book will do the trick.

It includes 52 simple steps to "Eat your way to lasting health," and each step is a header for a chapter with a few recipes. For example, one step/chapter is "eat more, weigh less" and it's all about how plant foods are low-energy dense. You can eat more of the healthy stuff and still not gain. Recipes in that chapter include an Endive Salad with Peas, Pea Shoots, and Creamy Lemon Dressing and Roasted Lemon Sage Brussels Sprouts with Hazelnuts.

Other tips: "Eat a dark leafy green every day," "Eat well on the run," and my personal favorite, "Indulge moderately in alcohol, especially red wine." I know it's telling me to moderate, but in my mind, it's telling me to drink more wine. There's even a "Make it coffee or tea time today" chapter with recipes for Whipped Hazelnut Iced Coffee and Flower and Pomegranate Tea!

I've made a couple recipes from this book so far. The full-color pics make the recipes seem so enticing! I'm going to share one pic today and another tomorrow. Earlier this week, I made a dish from the "Make variety your motto" chapter, which is all about incorporating new foods into your diet. Truthfully, the recipe I chose didn't include any new-to-me foods. But it was so good! I made this Tofu Cobb Salad.

Wow! I'm bad about always making "kitchen sink" salads with whatever I have on-hand, but I love the very specific ingredients in this. They work so well together — avocado, baked tofu, black beans, tomatoes, and walnuts. And they're topped with a homemade olive oil/vinegar/fresh herb/garlic/mustard vinaigrette. So very good.

Anyway, I plan to actually work my way through this book, one chapter a week, focusing on the step for a week at a time and hopefully making a lot of these recipes. I'm hoping it can help me stay more on track with healthy food goals.

I'll have more from this book tomorrow!