We had a very healthy meal tonight from the How Not to Diet cookbook by Michael Greger MD. I love Dr Greger’s How Not to Die cookbook and we eat recipes from it regularly. This new book of his is almost too healthy and I’ve had trouble getting inspired by the recipes. I bought some tempeh this week because it’s such a brilliant super healthy food and so I tried the tempeh and chickpea recipe.
Here’s how it turned out.
It was really delicious! There was basically no cooking required other than baking or steaming the tempeh for 20 minutes. Everything else is just mixed together in a food processor. Here are the ingredients if you want to give it a try.
225g tempeh
1.5 cups chickpeas
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped carrot
1 apple, cored and chopped
1 tablespoon spring onion
1.5 teaspoons curry powder
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon white miso paste
8 to 10 whole leaves round lettuce
Mix everything in the food processor except for the lettuce then serve on top of the lettuce. The kids enjoyed this and cleared their plate. I also served it with some hummus and soda bread I’d made yesterday.
We are what we eat. The fuel we put into our bodies has an enormous impact on our lives. A study that was published in the British Medical Journal earlier this month found that plant-based diets are associated with lower odds of moderate-to-severe COVID-19. The researchers adjusted for age, sex, race/ethnicity and country. They also adjusted for smoking status, physical activity, BMI, and the presence of a medical condition. After adjusting for these factors they found people who followed a plant-based diet had 73% lower odds of moderate-to-severe covid-19 compared to those who did not follow a plant-based diet. Further they found that following a low carbohydrate, high protein diet had greater odds of moderate-to-severe covid-19.
They mention hypotheses for why this might be the case and it seems that a healthy diet improves the immune response. Plant-based diets are rich in nutrients, high in fibre, vitamins A, C, and E, and minerals iron, potassium, and magnesium. Studies have shown that supplementation with some of these nutrients decreases the risk of respiratory infections. And a direct quote, “These nutrients are hypothesised to support the immune system as they play important roles in the production of antibodies, proliferation of lymphocytes, and reduction of oxidative stress”. So eat your veggies, people!
rachel.blog 
Makes sense, as diets high in animal protein seem to accelerate growth, and that is growth of everything. Many years ago when I wasn’t much more than a teenager and I didn’t even know what a vegetarian was, let alone a vegan, I read an article, and I don’t even remember what it was, but one bit always stuck in my head. The author wrote that diets high in animal protein initiate rapid early growth, but also initiate rapid early decline.
Interesting. I hadn’t heard that. The popularity of high protein diets has just been the worst thing on so many levels: for human health, for the environment, and for animals.
Btw – thanks for the recipe, I’ll try it.