Update on Whole Foods Plant-Based shopping in the Starling Avenue Triangle

This is just a very practical list with some recent items from local stores that are worthwhile:

Chang-Li Supermarket:

Braggs Liquid Aminos on the shelf in aisle 3 at Chang-Li

 

• 4lb Himalayas Blessing Brown Basmati Rice for $8.99. That is a good value.
• Braggs Liquid Aminos. Right now, Chang-Li carries Braggs Liquid Aminos again, albeit only in the 16 Oz bottle for now. I have asked them to stock the 32 Oz bottle again also. I have also asked them for the nutritional yeast.
• Their selection of whole wheat pasta is growing and recently, they also have whole wheat lasagna.
• The fruit and vegetable selection remains great.
• They have some Hodgson Mill Milled Flaxseed, which is a great option if you're in a hurry. Ideally you should mill your flax seed in a Magic Bullet or some such, as flaxseed does lose some nutritional value when it's milled, but sometimes convenience wins out...
• They have quite a selection of Dunya Harvest Organic grains and pulses - including rice, quinoa, lentils, peas, and various beans. And there's another brand, Heartland, which provides some good staples as well.
• Lately they also have raspberries occasionally, which is a great addition to your morning steel cut oats. Sometimes they have steelcut oats from Dunya Harvest.

On of these days, I will do a more extensive survey.

KeyFood on Unionport:

There is a lot to like in this KeyFood, including:

• Steel cut oats: they sometimes carry Bob's Red Mill, and sometimes Quaker Oats. Stock up for it is not always in stock and steelcut oats are sooo much better!
• A great selection of balsamic vinegars, and some good deals!
• A regular supply of great products from Bob's Red Mill, grains and legumes. This section is always worth a stop.
• A great selection of whole grain pasta.
• Often a good selection of berries in the produce section.

Pioneer on Castle Hill:

Supplies at this store can be erratic. One day they have a great selection of whole wheat pasta, and then they are sold out for quite a while before they get restocked. It is a bit of hit or miss.

• Produce dept. is usually worth checking out.
• A small section of organics is worthwhile.
• Whole wheat pasta. In spite of the irregularities noted above, they still have a decent selection most of the time.

  That's it for now. I will periodically do an update on the changing selection. For many of the staples, the Good 'n Natural healthfood store on 2173 White Plains Road by Pelham Parkway is a good option, and there is a great green market across Pelham Parkway also, as well as a well supplied C-Town at 640 Pelham Parkway, and the green market is across Pelham Parkway on Boston Road. Be sure to hit all three when you have to go that far.

Secret Weapons for Vegans: Rice Cookers

For one thing, in going vegan, you'll have a lot more fun cooking than ever before in your life, there's lots to discover, and as per usual, the key to it all is to make your kitchen efficient.

The pattern that has evolved for me is preparing some cold dishes ahead, so they're always ready to grab. That might include Tabouleh, or French Lentil salad, Black Bean Salsa, and usually I make some hummus so I can quickly make crackers with hummus and cucumber (and I like some sprinkles of Tajin or Siracha, or Sambal). Also I always have some quinoa, which I like to add to salads (minimum one a day, and meal size), and brown rice, or other whole grains.

Some of the tools you will find yourself looking for are a salad spinner, a mandolin, and generally sharp knives, plus I like to have a mortar and pestle around for crushing garlic and grinding spices. All these and more add convenience to your life. However, the one instrument that is absolutely indispensable and the key secret weapon for the vegan lifestyle is the rice cooker. And with rice cooker I mean a serious, top of the line automatic rice cooker, which must have a GABA brown rice (GBR) cycle and a timer function. The reason for having GBR is nutrition: GABA brown rice is simply more nutritious because the germination cycle allows Gamma-aminobutyric_acid (GABA) and other nutrients to develop, making it much more nutritious in the same way that various sprouts (beans, broccoli) are so exceptionally healthy. The timer thingy is phenomenal because it makes your life easier than having your own cook (rice cookers are endlessly patient), and you can put on your breakfast at night, to be ready when you wake up, and put on brown rice for dinner after you finish breakfast, so it's ready when your day is done. The extra money for the fancy models is easily worth it.
Here are two of my favorite designs (I am considering primarily the smallest models, for a one person household):

• The ideal might be a rice cooker with Induction Heat and a pressure cooker, but Zojirushi doesn't make one in the smallest size, so my favorite is their NP-GBC05 which has a 3-cup capacity that is great for one person households and small families. I have had this one for years, and I can honestly say that without it, my transition to a fully vegan lifestyle would have been almost unthinkable.
• Another phenomenal option would seem to be the Cuckoo CRP-EHS0309F, which is the same small size (3 cups), and offers generally the same conveniences as the Zojirushi, but it adds the pressure cooker feature, which does save time when you're in a hurry. Admittedly the timer should allow you to always cook ahead, but sometimes you forget, or you have a change of plans, and then saving time does count.

So, there you have it. The one thing to know is that brown rice has a shorter shelf-life than white rice, because it is more "alive." So you do not want to over-buy brown rice, lest you end up eating stale rice all the time. There are plenty of choices at most good supermarkets, and in our neighborhood Chang-Li is my favorite destination for rice, although, when I have a chance, I like to get some mixes like Organic 10 Mixed Grains at MayWah, or any one of the Lundberg varieties. Lundberg is the leader of the pack in terms of quality organic rice varieties and various products. The closest place you can get it in our neighborhood is at Good 'n Natural on White Plains Road by Pelham Parkway, which is one amazing health food store. Other places where you'll find Lundberg rice include Fairway, Whole Foods, and most any healthfood store in town.

Forks over Knives, with black bean salsa

Finally the time came to watch Forks over Knives, the brilliant documentary about the vegan life style, which for me ties it all together. I already have the FOK recipe app on my phone, which is a tremendous inspiration for recipes. Then there is also the Engine2Diet site and book - and there are the excellent books by Dr. Esselstyn, In short, sources of inspiration to learn vegan cooking abound.

What an inspiration to see people who dump a whole regimen of medications, and instead simply commit to eating a healthy, vegan diet. I have now had that same experience myself twice, the first time, almost thirty years ago, I asked my doctor exactly what a certain allergy medication did (it was Claritin), and when he explained it, I said don't even bother writing the prescription - all it does is suppress the symptoms. I was determined to find the cause instead, and, besides drinking more water, after trying numerous supplements that promise to boost glutathione (GSH), which is the core of your immune system, I ended up on the advice of a biochemist friend using Jarrow's NAC Sustain, which is a sustained release N-Acetyl Cysteine, combined with a 500 mg Glycine, at a combined cost of less than $10 per month. Not only did my allergies go away, I have barely had a cold to speak of ever since then, and that was 25 years ago. The poor doctor would have had me on Claritin from then on out. The same thing happened again at my physical in 2014, when the doctor found me 'slightly overweight' at 190 lbs, and marginally hypertensive, I took the BP meds for a while, but by May 2015, I went vegan instead, and without effort I'm down to 166 lbs, and feeling noticeably better and I am sure at my next physical I will pass with flying colors.

Clearly, the economics are that we cannot afford to continue the SAD, Standard American Diet, which by the way was similar to the SDD, the Standard Dutch Diet that I was raised on. Despite being raised a vegetarian, there was a deep conviction that animal proteins in the form of milk were essential. Now it is clear, animal proteins promote cancer growth, plant-based proteins do not, and the over-consumption of fats and sugars feed into diabetes and heart disease. The whole ED-epidemic is just an early warning signal of compromised circulatory systems, and the canary in the coalmine for heart disease. In short, the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries thrive on sick-care, preserving illness and tending to more and more sick people, who follow the USDA dietary guidelines, which serve the agricultural industry, instead of worthwhile nutrition and healthy eating habits. I've looked more deeply into the environmental economics recently, in a parallel post on my green energy blog, here.     

I definitely use all of the resources listed above, and more, for inspiration, and recently I also visited a vegan supper club in the Bronx, on Meetup that is hosted at a private home in the Throggs Neck section (still walking distance for me). What an inspiration that was! And the experience of many people is that once they make the change, they make it quickly and lose the urge to go back, because they feel so much better. My own private little vegan joke is that the butcher on my street has a daughter who's vegan, and admits that meat is heavy to digest, but like so many who never seriously tried, he feels like he didn't eat if he did not have meat. He is a very nice man, whose store has been there for 50 years, and even now I stop in for a chat periodically, even if I don't eat meat any more. He's going to retire sooner than later, and who knows, maybe he'll switch to vegan too, that would be hoot.

As part of the further exploration for vegan shopping in the area, I made my regular expedition to Good 'n Natural on Weschester Avenue by Pelham Parkway the other day. It is always a delight to shop there. Their organic  produce selection is always great, but yesterday I was hunting for rice cakes, and fortuitously found a whole selection and some were even on sale. Some supermarket rice cakes are made with white rice, but the health food store variety are made with whole grain rice, and nowadays they have many flavors, including with wild rice, etc.

I use the rice cakes to serve one of my favorite snacks of the moment, which is Black Bean Salsa. Here is the basic version from Ann Crile Esselstyn that is posted on Meetup in the No Oil Vegan, Dr. Esselstyn's & Rip's E2 Diet NE Ohio:
http://www.meetup.com/Dr-Es-Vegan-No-Oil-Diet-Cleveland-Akron-Ohio/pages/Recipes_by_Ann_Crile_Esselstyn/

You can make endless variations on this simple salsa, with adding non-GMO corn to the black beans (one can of each), or different kinds of salsa, and adding more peppers, depending on how hot you like it. Chipotle peppers in Adobo sauce, or Jalapeno's (or both, or, eh well, if you're totally no-oil, skip the adobo sauce...). As a light snack on a puffed whole grain rice cake, or with corn chips, you can eat this any time of the day, I love it... I am continuing to have more fun with interesting dishes than ever before, and the weekends become the time to cook some staples of rice, and beans, ahead for the week so I have an easy time putting meals together.