Why Hubs is No Longer Vegan, How We Eat at Home, + the Perfect Side Dish
Happy Monday! Hubs went strict vegan a few years ago. He has hereditary high cholesterol and he was having unreasonable reactions to the two statins available at the time, so he had to stop taking them and was walking around unchecked and unmanaged. Pretty dangerous actually. He went vegan to see if that would help his lipids. Vegan is not quite the same as plant-based or plant-exclusive. Vegan just means you don’t eat animal products. You can eat potato chips, Oreos, Coke, and fake meat substitutes and that’s vegan. Plant-based means you eat whole, plant foods. Let’s just say Hubs ate a hybrid of vegan and plant-based and his numbers came down a bit but not enough and he had an episode that made him realize he needed more than just dietary changes. His story is not mine to tell, so suffice it to say, he is being managed by different cholesterol-lowering meds + a mostly plant-based diet.
I bring this up because I receive a lot of messages and DM’s questioning Hubs’ diet - “I thought he was vegan!” We pretty much eat everything but lean heavily on vegetables, legumes, and lean protein like seafood and poultry. He restricts saturated fat and I hardly ever eat red meat because I don’t like it. I am playing around with protein quantities and seeing how I feel with more or less and at different times of the day. So far I am noticing I like a higher protein, lower carb lunch. Dinner doesn’t really matter as much. Breakfast I need protein and fat otherwise I am starving pretty soon after. I recently posted this recipe for pasta alla vodka, which is traditionally made with heavy cream, an ingredient I almost never use other than during the holidays. I never keep heavy cream in the fridge, so I have learned to figure out swaps for heavy cream. In sweet preparations, I can often sub in full fat coconut milk. In savory preparations, I like making what I call “rich cashew milk.” I take ½ cup of raw cashew butter (I use JOI cashew base) blended with 3.5 cups water to make a quart of rich cashew milk that can sub in for heavy cream.
Other options are to blend cooked white beans like Great northern or cannellini beans with stock or water for a soup or pasta sauce. ½ beans + ½ cup liquid is a start.
For actual whipped cream, my favorite junk food is CocoWhip found in the freezer section of the supermarket. In some soup recipes, if I know I am blending the soup, I’ll add potato, white beans, or even rolled oats to the soup and then blend.
Consider being a paid subscriber to get Even More Musings! Today I am sharing my go-to side dish, Herby Rice, plus the best pot to cook grains. It’s perfect for a weeknight or dinner parties and can be used in leftovers so easily!
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