Meatless Monday: Go Meatless and Get Cooking

One Step At a Time...

You Can Go Meatless

For All Three Meals

Author and Food Activist, Mark Pollan, wants you to get cooking and go meatless one day a week. By going Meatless Monday and making the simple choice to avoid meat one day a week, you already know that you’re doing something good for your health and the health of the planet.

But if you’re looking to make your Meatless Mondays even more meaningful,the best-selling author, and longtime Meatless Monday supporter has a suggestion: cook your food yourself!

That is the message of MarkPollan’s latest book, Cooked: A Natural History of Transformations which argues that cooking meals from scratch is a powerful act that can help make our food system more sustainable and make us even healthier.

Having previously examined the complex ways modern food is grown (in 2006’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma) and the nutritional importance of eating real food instead of manufactured “foodlike substances” (in 2008’s In Defense of Food), in Cooked Pollan turns his attention to the significance of how we prepare our meals.

So why is cooking so important?

One reason is that when we cook for ourselves from scratch we’re bound to pick healthier ingredients than those found in processed, ready-to-eat foods. Another is that cooking is prime bonding time, a chance to bring friends and family closer together (this idea is the driving force behind another initiative of The Monday Campaigns, The Kids Cook Monday, which aims to get families to prepare and eat a healthy meal together every Monday.

So this week (and as often as you can going forward) why not cook your own Meatless Monday meal? Stumped on what to cook? Follow the LQ- Wellness blog for healthy, meatless recipes and search my archives for great ideas.

Healthy Meatless Recipe:

Vegetable Pancakes

(adapted from Mark Bittman)

A surefire way to get anyone to eat any vegetable, these crisp babies are delicious as a side dish, alone as an appetizer, or served on a bed of greens as lunch. Root vegetables are most common, but you can use whatever looks good to you, alone or in combination: zucchini, yellow squash, winter squash, corn, or chopped scallions; even spinach or chard is good (just cook it, squeeze it dry, and chop it first). And consider tossing in a tablespoon of fresh herbs or spices. Sweet potato and corn benefit from a bit of cilantro, zucchini comes to life with dill, and ginger or cardamom will warm up winter squash beautifully.

Ingredients:

• About 1 1/2 pounds grated vegetables, peeled first if necessary (3 cups packed), and squeezed dry
• 1/2 small onion, grated; or 4 scallions
• 1 egg or 2 egg whites, lightly beaten
• 1/4 cup white or whole wheat flour, more or less
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Olive or vegetable oil or butter for greasing the pan

Directions:

• Heat the oven to 275°F.
• Grate the vegetable or vegetables by hand or with the grating disk of a food processor.
• Mix together the vegetables, onion, egg, and 1/4 cup of the flour.
• Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
• Add a little more flour if the mixture isn’t holding together.

• Put a little butter or oil in a large skillet or griddle over medium-high heat.
• When the butter is melted or the oil is hot, drop in spoonfuls of the batter, using a fork to spread the vegetables into an even layer, press down a bit.
• Work in batches to prevent overcrowding.
• (Transfer finished pancakes to the oven until all are finished.)
• Cook, turning once, until nicely browned on both sides, about 5 minutes.
• Serve hot or at room temperature.

Enjoy and Bon Appetit!

Healthy Weekly Motivator:

Serve Up A Healthy Portion

Often the actual serving size of our favorite foods is significantly smaller than we assume.

When checking nutrition labels, be on the lookout for the suggested serving size. It’s at the very top and can help you avoid some serious damage to your diet.

Learn about portions this week by laying out some of your favorite snacks according to their “sug- gested” serving size. Consider whether or not the amount matches your usual consumption.

Have a great week everyone and remember a better tomorrow starts with what you eat today!

Do you have a favorite meatless recipe you would like to share with us? Send it my way!

Wishing you health and wellness from the inside out,

Lisa

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“It's not what you eat,it's why you eat that really matters.”

~ Mike Scott ~