Sprouts, Sprouts, Sprouts. They are so easy to make, it’s not even funny. Take some alfalfa seeds, soak ’em, then throw them in a mesh bag (I bought mine for $5 online) and rinse morning and evening for 5-7 days. Wahlah! You have a ton of sprouts for very little cost and effort. So easy to throw in virtually anything and everything: soups, salads, sandwiches, burritos, ect. It adds a ton of nutrients, few calories, and of course, great taste and texture.
My kids love sprouts; proof that kids CAN eat healthfully. But it all begins in childhood (or even earlier than that, as I would argue, in the womb). While each child does have certain preferences, we teach our kids what to like and what not to like. If we never feed them anything green or colorful, their only exposure to fruit is through canned applesauce or gummy fruit snacks or fruit roll ups, all foods they eat have been refined and/or processed with added sugar, salt, and fat, don’t be surprised if you give them a salad and they say, “ewwww.” But don’t despair, EVERYONE’s taste buds, even the most stubborn, can evolve and change to desire healthful plant-based foods.
I’ve been talking about the Compassionate Cooks podcast lately, as I just happened to find out about it a few months ago. While there are a lot of veg podcasts out there, I haven’t found one that compares to this one. Coleen Patrick-Goudreau is articulate, kind, thoughtful, and she puts things in a way that gives you a whole new perspective on things. She also represents, in my opinion, a whole new wave of veganism–no longer the fringe, stereotypical punk non-conformist, she shows that to be vegan is to be awakened and live your values.
I recently listened to two excellent podcasts (found on I-tunes for FREE): Motherhood & Maternal Instincts, and I Eat Only “White Meat”–In Defense of Chickens.
In the first episode, Coleen talks about how the animals we eat and drink milk from, primarily female cows, are denied their most fundamental desire: to nurse and nurture their babies. Being a nursing mother, I could barely listen to the whole podcast because it hit so close to home. “But they’re not human, they don’t have feelings, they are animals and we are meant to drink their milk and eat their flesh…” I hear some of you say. While it’s true they are not human, they do have feelings (anyone have a dog before? or a cat? they certainly have moods and personalities), pain receptors (so they DO feel pain), and their sole purpose of existence isn’t simply to give us pleasure through our palate.
In the second episode, Coleen talks about how of the 10 billion land animals that are killed each year in the U.S. alone (check the USDA website if you don’t believe this figure), a majority of those animals are chickens. A lot of people won’t eat red meat, but instead will replace it with chicken, popularly thought the “healthy” meat. It is interesting to note that chicken has nearly just as much cholesterol and saturated fat as beef does. So if you’re eating it for health reasons, give it a second thought: while it’s touted as a good source of protein, it’s also a good source of casein protein (animal protein linked to cancer; see T.C. Campbell’s work, in The China Study), high amounts of cholesterol as well as saturated fat, growth hormones and antibiotics as well as pesticide residue from the feed they consumed. All this, so you can “get yer protein”? Which as discussed previously, is easily found in all whole plant foods.
Further, chickens are treated with such cruelty, their lives (if you can call it that), are often lived out in cramped cages, never seeing the light of day. They are born, live, and die with sole purpose of getting as fat as they can, as quick as possible in order to produce meat for our consumption.
So if you’re a podcast junkie or just needing a little something to listen to while you clean, check out the above episodes, and it will certainly make you think twice before you take a swig of milk or dice up some chicken for a salad.
