You know when you check food ingredients and you find a list of incomprehensible food additives? Yeah, it can be disconcerting. I’m hoping to share a bit about what why they’re there and what ‘E numbers’ are. That way, you can empower yourself to make more informed food choices – since the food industry doesn’t always play along.
Healthy vegan snacks
The snack situation on a vegan diet typically needs a little more planning than otherwise, since a lot of stores don’t have vegan convenience foods besides expensive nut mixes. Homemade snacks are your best bet, and the healthiest too, since even vegan store-bought snacks often have funky ingredients and E-numbers like flavourants, preservatives and emulsifiers – not all bad, but whole …
Coffee Naps
Spoiler alert: I’m about to share a brilliant secret to napping. The key? Coffee. Better than either coffee or naps, are coffee naps! Napping fails For a long time, particularly in my first year of undergrad, I got trapped in a really unhealthy sleep cycle. I’d get home after a long day of lectures and tutorials, too done in to …
Smoothies, Salads, Soups & Stews
I’m an avid habit-tracking (and bullet journaling) enthusiast, and one of the things that I try to check off daily is “Smoothie, Salad, Soup or Smoothie”. Even if my other meals are monotonous and dull, just having that one “S-meal” (as I call it) per day helps ensure that I ingest a wider variety of foods. A diversity of whole, plant-based …
Tips for eating out (or ordering in)
Avoiding animal products when you’re cooking at home is relatively straightforward, once you’ve got the hang of reading ingredients while shopping, and you’ve got your vegan shopping list favourites. Eating out (or ordering in) is a different ball-game though. If there’s a 100% plant-based eatery you can order from, that’s definitely the easiest! Apps like HappyCow or abillionveg make finding these places a breeze. …
How to substitute eggs in baking
Oh, eggs. The baking ingredient with the most complex and interesting properties: no wonder pastry chefs everywhere rely on them for their beautiful creations. But fear not, vegan culinary geniuses have cracked the secrets*. The trick is to understand why chicken’s eggs play such a big role in baking, and then to find egg substitutes that best mimic the most important …
What every vegan kitchen should have
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve mentioned nooch or miso only to be met with blank stares. While they’re by no means staples, and I can definitely live without them, here are some magical foodie discoveries that make plant-based cooking so much more interesting and flavourful (I’ll assume that you already have the staples: whole grains, vegetables, legumes, fruit, nuts/seeds): Nutritional yeastAka nooch. Of course, the first …
Save money on your grocery bill
A lot of people think that plant-based eating is expensive. Makes sense, with companies (big and small) doing their very best to market their products to a fast-growing target audience. So you’ll see all kinds of vegan products advertised, from vegan cheeses and burgers to imported superfoods and nutritional supplements. What’s less visible, though, is the simple whole foods that …
7 tips to crowd out the meat & dairy
Heading towards a plant-based diet? Maybe the idea of cutting out familiar foods is overwhelming, especially if you’re used to eating meat, dairy or eggs daily and the thought of eating only plants (eep!) is a scary one. I get it: ‘cutting out’ foods can feel a bit like you’re depriving yourself—that your new diet is some kind of punishment, …