Comprehensive email

In an email that my wife put together lately, we worked together to go over some of our readings and learnings that have helped us to see the advantages of a Whole Food, Plant Powered lifestyle. We sent it to some people that were curious about the way that we are choosing to eat, and exercise, and I hope that this list of resources can help you as well. So here are some of my wife and my favourite books and recipes and websites:

Resource Books that are great to have:

The China Study: T. Colin Campbell. The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted And the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss, And Long-term Health- This is likely the foundation that may help shape any change that you may be thinking of undergoing.
http://www.amazon.com/The-China-Study-Comprehensive-Implications/dp/1932100660
My Beef with Meat - Rip Esselstyn http://www.mybeefwithmeat.com (side note - his father is the Doctor in Forks over Knives-did you watch it yet?) This is a great book, as it gets down to all of the myths that surround plant based whole food lifestyle, and shows the benefits in a very easy to read fashion for the first half of the book. The second half is the glory part. It is all recipes that we have fallen in love with. Here are a couple of examples:
-kale pesto (No oil or cheese), cashew cheese, plus others that are all fantastic!

Thrive Energy Cookbook - Brendan Brazier http://www.amazon.ca/Thrive-Energy-Cookbook-Functional-Plant-Based/dp/0143187074
- Great smoothies, salsa's, burgers, sauces etc

Eat and Run - Scott Jurek's Book (ultrarunner) he has great recipes in there, really good burger http://scottjurek.com/eatandrun/
- lentil burgers - so good, I will attach some pictures in the email from the book of the recipes

Rich Roll- Finding Ultra- you should read it, http://www.richroll.com
-he has a great cook book and a comprehensive program on Mind Body Green, plus his podcasts are awesome, recently #77, #78 were really good, one by a Dr and the other an Ultra runner, he has alot of other ones as well
www.richroll.com

No meat athlete- Awesome stuff that I like to combine for recipes http://www.nomeatathlete.com

More Websites

https://puremamas.squarespace.com, just recently renamed purekitchen- this is a website I visit very very often, I know the lady who owns and authors the site, so many great ideas for kids, she has raised both of her kids 99% vegan, my wife did her first IM with her husband - who was also plant based.
She has a vegan mac and cheese on there her kids love, kale chips, we used to eat them a lot,
March 12th-she had an article on tips on going dairy free and a recipe for vegan gold fish crackers:)

I just found this site and made these vegan rice krispie square, ( I used agave nectar instead of brown rice syrup)
-http://www.healthfulpursuit.com/2012/06/5-ingredient-vegan-rice-crispy-treats/
Ingredients
8 cups gluten-free brown rice cereal (use crispy rice, NOT puffed!)
¼ cup ground flax seed
1 cup brown rice syrup
⅔ cup unsweetened sunflower seed butter
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
Instructions
Lightly oil a 9×13 pan with whatever oil you have on hand. Coconut oil, safflower, sunflower, or vegan butter spread, would work well. Set aside.
Place brown rice cereal and ground flax seed in a large bowl. Stir to combine and set aside.
In a medium-sized sauce pan or frying pan, add rice syrup, sunflower seed butter and vanilla extract. Heat over medium heat, stirring often, until ingredients have liquified, about 5 minutes.
Pour syrup over rice crisp mixture and stir to coat.
Once all crisps have been coated, drop the mixture into the prepared pan and even it out with a spatula, pressing down firmly.
Allow to sit for 1 hour in the refrigerator before cutting into squares.

Morning Cereal (Our version of HOLY CRAP cereal you buy in the store)
-1/3 of each Chia, Buckwheat and Hemp seeds, add Almond Milk (you can buy it or we make our own - super easy and no extra stuff in it- Just 4 cups of water and 1 cup of raw almonds, blend on high - need a pretty good blender, then sift through with a nutmilk bag or really fine cheese cloth) you can add vanilla or honey or dates if you want to sweeten it, our kids love it plain- they haven't had any other milk in the last 5 yrs.
Anyway - add the milk and let sit for about 5min so the chia expands and softens, and then I add chopped up apples, so good.

Best Pancakes - we have these every sunday morning - kids love them. I came up with this recipe after toying with one that a friend of mine sent me (it had eggs
Dry Ingredients
2 Cups of Oats
1 Cup Buckwheat
1/2 TB each of baking powder and baking soda
1 TB of ground flaxseed
as much Cinnamon as you want, 1/2 Tb we use
Grind all of the above until consistency of flour - need really good blender/food processor (we use a vitamix)

Wet Ingredients
1 Banana
3 Cups Water
3/4 Cup of Raw Almonds
dash of vanilla extract
Grind up all of it until pureed

Then Mix 2 together and wait 5 min, then cook them, we use a bit of coconut oil on our pan

We also use coconut oil and sea salt on our popcorn and many times add Nutritional Yeast, it gives a cheesy flavour

Staple Salad Dressing
1/2cup nutritional yeast flakes (this is non-active yeast- really high in B12)
1/3cup water
1/3cup soya (Braggs)
1/3cup apple cider vinnegar
2 cloves garlic
2Tbs tahinni-sesame seed paste
1 1/2 cups vegatable oil
Add oil after all is blended, and do not overblend with oil.

No Bake Brownie Recipe (our kids love)
1 Cup Walnuts- pulse 5 in food processor
1 Cup Pitted Dates
1 TBS Cacao Powder

Grind until all mix together in food processor

Then transfer to small dish and press down fairly hard-so they stick together, into brownie like shape- or into small balls, then refrigerate for about an hour or so,

Eatmore Bars - great for cycling and kids like them too

All natural (and yummy healthy!) Eatmore Bars

1/2 cup honey
1/2 almond butter (or you can use all natural peanut butter or any type of nut butter)
1 cup semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips (can use 1/2cup carob chips w/ 1/2cup of chocolate chips as well)
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups rolled oats/or quick oats/or steel cut oats
1 cup chopped nuts (any kind...I've used peanuts, almonds, cashews, walnuts...you name it!)

Melt honey and nut butter in saucepan on low. Stir in chocolate chips and vanilla. Mix well. Remove from heat. Stir in rolled oats and chopped nuts. Pour into greased pan (the larger the pan, the more thin the eatmore bar will be). Cool in fridge and cut into squares.

I tend to store these in the fridge as they get soft pretty fast (depends on what texture you like). These also freeze really well! So I'll take them out of the freezer before a ride then they're soft when I eat them on the bike 😉

 

Do you have any suggestions that you think are comparable to the ones in this post? Email me at info@getu2thetop.com, and I will add them if they are worthy:)