Netflix Movie Reviews: Forks over Knives, The Engine 2 Kitchen Rescue, Vegucated

I just got back from a health-related conference and one of the topics that came up was diet's effect on disease.  One of the speakers recommended the movie Forks over Knives, and I was so impressed by the speaker's overall talk I watched the movie on Netflix as soon as I got home. From there, it led to another movie, which led to another movie! Here's a quick review of all three movies I watched:

Forks over Knives
I know I'm late to the game on this one, as this movie has been out since 2011 and I've heard people praise it for years! I just never bothered watching it because I feel like I don't need convincing that a vegan diet is the way to go. WELL! This movie turbo-charged me into vegan mode! There seems to be a great deal of peer-reviewed scientific data that shows a strong correlation between animal protein and several diseases such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes.  I do have health issues, and it seems like going vegan is the answer to all my concerns. Also, a lot of the science in this movie is based on The China Study, and I'm Asian so I feel like if anything is going to work for me it should be the thing based on a study of millions of Asians. I just checked out the China Study book from the library....

Engine 2 Kitchen Rescue
I was so excited by the idea of improving my health through diet from watching Forks over Knives, I went ahead and clicked on Netflix's recommended related video, Engine 2 Kitchen Rescue. The main guy in Engine 2, Rip Esselstyn, is the son of one of the physicians in Forks over Knives. He's a former professional triathlete and fire fighter in Austin, TX. He is on a plant based diet, and I have to say, he's an excellent spokesperson for the lifestyle. Let me put it more simply: He's super hot! In this movie he helps makeover two families' kitchens and attitudes towards eating. One thing that really separates this "diet" from any other vegan diet is the avoidance of processed food (there is a cornucopia of vegan junk food out there!) and emphasis on vegan whole food (fresh, unprocessed). It makes sense to me why avoiding processed products would make a significant difference in the health factor of foods.

Vegucated
This movie focuses more on the environmental and ethical aspects of veganism, evidenced by the acceptance of lots and lots of processed and packaged vegan junk food. Overall, I found this movie to be less compelling than the Forks over Knives - it's less data driven and more antidotal.  One thing I disliked was the fact that they do show (very brief) video clips from slaughter houses because I'm very sensitive to those kinds of images.  On a rational level I know it takes place every day at slaughter houses across the country, so I guess it was a necessary wake up call that our society dissociates what's on a plate (or in a bag, a wrapper, a box, etc) with where it comes from. This movie was good at showing the very real challenges of maintaining a vegan diet in our society, and it also shows the very real benefits.

Take aways: See Forks over Knives if you are looking for a new approach to improve your health. Even if you're already on board with veganism, this will give you the added motivation you may need to really commit! See Engine 2 Kitchen Rescue if you're on board with plant-based whole foods but don't know where to start (or if you are trying to convince a macho friend that tough guys can be vegans too!).  See Vegucated if you're new to the ideas of a vegan lifestyle and want to know more about the multitude of reasons why it's good all around!

Easy Recipe: Vikka Masala

(No picture because I ate it all already. It was delicious!)

So I love Indian food.  And lucky for me, a lot of it is vegetarian, and if you can avoid the dairy, it is also easy to get it vegan as well! You should know by now that I barely ever cook.  Ever. So when I manage to make something I like to parade it around like it's a huge revelation.  I'm really proud of this one! And this was SO EASY! It's made mostly of things that people have around.

A note: I don't put quantities or times on anything, because once a friend's Taiwanese grandmother tried to teach us how to make dumplings and the whole time she was like "if you like X, add more X, mix this and that till it looks right, cook it till it's done" etc etc.

Ingredients:

• An onion. The more you like onion, use a bigger the onion
• Garlic.  The more you like garlic, use more garlic (duh!)
• Rice.  In my case, it's leftover rice from the last time I ordered delivery. Those restaurants are always delivering too much rice! You can make fresh rice if you're up for it. 
• Marinara Sauce. A simple one is good, mostly tomato, olive oil, garlic and salt. I had half a jar leftover from when I made spaghetti the other day (also a major event!). 
• A ton of spices.  I added curry powder and lemon pepper from Trader Joe's, coriander (I don't even know what this really tastes like, it was just in the cabinet), and some chili pepper. Basically add in whatever you've got, the more the merrier. Depending on what's in there, this will end up somewhere on the Tikka Masala/Tomato Risotto spectrum.  
• Olive oil.

Chop up the onion and garlic. Sautee the onion in olive oil on medium heat until it gets browned. Add in the garlic, stir that around too. Mmmm, enjoy the smell. Dump a ton of spices on top of the onion and garlic, and stir that round too, adding a little more olive oil if you feel like it.  Dump the rice in, stir that around.  Dump in some pasta sauce. Stir that all around, add a little water if it's too thick. Add more spices.  Eat it straight out of the pot with your spatula, but be sure to put a trivet on the table first.

You're welcome!

Wannabegan Cooked! ANGEL HAIR WITH TOMATO AND BASIL

You know I don't really cook, but tonight my husband and I cooked for the first time in... a really long time. First time this year for sure (HA! It's only Jan 2) but honestly it was probably a full year or more since I used the stove to heat anything.

But I had three cans of organic tomatoes that are expiring next month (THAT should give you an idea of how often we cook) and I wanted to use them up!  So I found a recipe (when I was searching for it, I mistyped it reciepes, recipie, and reicipe before my husband told me how to spell it) online that used canned tomatoes (it's from the brand of the tomatoes I bought).

Here is the original recipe, and this is what we actually did (which was DELICIOUS!! I'm so proud of us!!):

Ingredients

• Undetermined amount of extra-virgin olive oil 
• 1 large red onion
• 2 pieces of dried chiles from a garden in Indiana
• Undetermined amount of crushed red pepper flakes
• 3 cans (14.5 oz) of organic tomatoes, 2 crushed w/ Basil, and 1 skinned whole plum tomatoes
• 3 cloves garlic (I learned the difference between a clove and a head of garlic the hard way when I was 24) 
• Undetermined amount of freshly ground black pepper and sea salt (an elderly Taiwanese woman gave me a recipe where every quantity was, "If you like X, add more X....)
• Angel hair (capellini) pasta
• 1 small package of fresh oregano

Directions

• Fill your biggest pot 5/8ths full of water and bring to boil (easy!).
• Peel off the outer layer of the onion, and chop off the ends. Use an apple wedge cutting tool to cut the onion into 9 pieces, struggle to chop a few of the slippery wedges with a knife.  Put all of the onion pieces into a blender and struggle to blend the onion. Put all the onion, including the giant unchopped chunks in your second largest pot with some olive oil and stir around. Remember to turn on the burner so the onion gets mushy.
• Intend to open the 2 cans of crushed Tomato with Basil, but actually open 1 can of Tomato with Basil and 1 can of skinned whole plum tomato by accident. Put can of Tomato with Basil back in the cabinet.
• Turn off the boiling water, because it's going to be a while before you're ready to boil the pasta.
• Pour 1/2 can of crushed Tomato with Basil in the blender with the onion and blend briefly on low. Blend the garlic with everything else as well. Pour everything you blended into the second largest pot. 
• Scoop out the whole skinless plum tomatoes out of the pot and blend those as well, then return to the pot.  
• Add some salt, the red pepper flakes, a ton of pepper, and the chiles to the tomatoes.  Strip the oregano leaves off the stems and add those too.  Stir it around while it boils up, then turn the heat down to simmer.
• Bring the big pot of water back to a boil, add some salt and spill half of the dry pasta on the floor (and sweep up then discard). Boil the remaining pasta for 4 minutes.
• Scoop out the pasta into bowls, and then pour some of the tomato sauce you just made on top! Enjoy!

Serves 2, with lots of sauce left over.

Another Wannabegan Cookbook

I really have my pulse on the Wannabegan cookbook market, considering that I don't cook at all. I like to fantasize that one day I will make all my meals from scratch myself!

Anyway, this yoga lady, Tara Stiles, that my yoga friend is a big fan of just put her own cookbook, called the "Make your own rules diet." Make your own rules?!? ? That sounds like a Wannabegan plan to me!   Actually I think this is more than just a cookbook, there is some talk about meditation and yoga too, it's so nice that this book is a holistic approach to FEELING GOOD. I want to be that energetic green juice drinking, meditating, yogaing, positive change inducing beauty that Tara Stiles is.

More Chloe!

I have a crush on vegan chef  Chloe Coscarelli (see previous post here), even though I haven't actually made any of her recipes yet!  I just think she's so gracious, I love her message, and obvi she's super cute.  So I was really excited when I saw her make a guest appearance on another blog I follow, Marie Forleo!

Marie focuses on inspiring entrepreneurs, and she interviewed Chloe about how she built career.  In the process, Chloe talks about her own wannabegan approach to food! "It's my goal to show people that hey, this food is actually good, and it can make you feel satisfied, and it's not something that you have to commit to 100% of the time if you're interested in it so I like to think of it not as an all or nothing, you're either an extreme vegan or nothing, I like to think that you can eat vegan once in a while... and maybe you start to like it!"

Check out her vegan recipes online, or go out and get one of her cookbooks!

Italian Apple Cake WANT

This post is entirely lifted from a newsletter email of this vegan chef I am fond of, Chloe Coscarelli, who is promoting her new vegan cookbook, Chloe's Vegan Italian Kitchen. I don't cook but if you make the recipe, let me know how it is, or even better invite me over for a slice!  You know how every family or household has “the cake”? Well, this is the cake in my New York City apartment. In advance of any birthday or snowy day, my roommates will ask, “Are you making the cake?” We’re all obsessed with it. Everyone has her own copy of the recipe and makes it frequently. I have no doubt that if you try this cake once, it will become the cake in your house, too. If you’re feeling adventurous, try replacing one of the apples with a pear!

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 9-inch round pan and line with parchment paper. Grease again. In a large bowl, whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. In a separate bowl, whisk oil, water, vanilla, and vinegar. Pour wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix with a large spoon until just combined. Do not overmix. Batter will be very thick, but the apples will release moisture as they bake. Arrange some of the apples in a circular pattern to cover most of the bottom of the prepared cake pan. Then gently fold in the remaining apples into the batter. Spoon the batter into the pan, being careful not to disrupt the apple pattern on the bottom. Use a spatula or your fingertips to pat it evenly into the pan. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, or until the center is set and the cake is lightly browned on top. Rotate the cake halfway through baking time. Once cooled, run a knife around the edges to loosen the cake, and gently unmold so that the apple design is on top. Peel off the parchment paper. Dust with powdered sugar and serve.

1½ cups all-purpose flour* ¾ cup sugar ¾ teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon ¼ teaspoon salt ½ cup canola oil ¼ cup water 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract 1 tablespoon white or apple cider vinegar 3 apples, peeled and thinly sliced Powdered sugar for serving *For a gluten-free alternative, substitute gluten-free all-purpose flour plus ¾ teaspoon xanthan gum (page 257 from Chloe's Vegan Italian Kitchen).

VB6?!?!

Breaking news (to me, maybe not you):

There is a book called VB6: Eat Vegan Before 6:00 to Lose Weight and Restore Your Health . . . for Good and it sounds like Wannabegan plan if I've ever heard one!

I love the author, Mark Bittman (he's the NY Times guru), and there is an accompanying cookbook for this VB6 plan too - The VB6 Cookbook: More than 350 Recipes for Healthy Vegan Meals All Day and Delicious Flexitarian Dinners at Night that I would totally buy if I ever cooked.  (I peeled at ate some grapefruit this week, does that count?)

I'm happy that one of the major culinary influencers of our generation is talking about going vegan to a mainstream audience (actually, let's say an affluent, educated, yuppie audience, that's my impression of NYTimes readers). My hope that is people will open their minds a bit, dabble in a few vegan meals here and there, notice how good they feel, and then gradually transition to a predominately vegan diet.

PS while we are talking about books, I'm reading Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us, super fascinating and a little scary when you think about what these big food corporations are doing to us.

I just downloaded the ebook from the NYPL, crazy easy and FREE!