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First steps to tofu mastery

First steps to tofu mastery

Featured author: Emma Levez Larocque, Plant-Based RHN

Tofu was invented more than 2,000 years ago and has been eaten in many Asian cuisines for centuries! As this ingredient has become more popular around the world, chefs and cooks everywhere have been experimenting with tofu in the kitchen. We now know that tofu can be versatile—and incredibly tasty—if you just spend a little time learning how to cook it well. 

There are a few things that people who are new to using tofu should be aware of to ensure a good experience.

Keep reading to learn about the different types of tofu and tips and recipes for cooking it. For more tips check out the PlantUniversity platform and subscribe to receive free weekly recipes.

3 things to know to set yourself up for tofu success

1) There are different kinds of tofu, and the kind you use matters

2) How you prepare and cook tofu affects the texture, and good texture makes it easy to love tofu

3) Tofu doesn’t have a lot of flavour, but it will take on the flavours you add to it (which makes it the perfect “blank canvas” and adaptable to many dishes)

Let’s dig into the details.

Types of tofu

The two main types of tofu are regular and silken (Japanese-style). Both types come in soft, medium, firm and extra-firm consistencies. Part of learning to use tofu is trying different kinds to see what textures you prefer. Below is a description of the different kinds of tofu and what they are typically used for.

Adding flavour to tofu

As mentioned above, tofu doesn’t have a lot of flavour on its own. Some people love the subtle taste of plain tofu, and it works well added on its own to dishes like miso soup or a curry/chili. However, most of the time when you are using tofu as a base, or a featured part of a dish, you’ll want to flavour it with herbs, spices, aromatics, or other flavourful ingredients, and/or a delicious marinade or glaze.

Once you get comfortable with tofu and start experimenting, you’ll realize that the possibilities are endless. However, if you’re new to tofu preparation, where should you start?

These are two simple methods that are great to try out as you get started on your tofu journey:

Method 1: Frying and Glazing Tofu

3 simple steps:

  1. Prepare a simple glaze by combining 2 tbsp maple syrup and 2 tbsp tamari, and prepare 1 block of extra-firm tofu by cutting it into 1- inch cubes 
  2. Heat a no- or low-stick sauté pan over medium heat, and once hot, add a dash of olive oil. Add tofu cubes immediately, flipping and turning occasionally until the cubes are crispy on all sides. 
  3. Once the tofu cubes are nicely browned, turn the heat down to medium-low and add the simple glaze, tossing until the tofu is well covered. Watch carefully so it doesn’t burn, reducing the heat if necessary. Let everything cook, stirring occasionally, until all the glaze has been absorbed and the tofu is nicely coated. Remove from heat once the tofu is looking nice and crispy.

Other flavourful glazes of equal parts liquid sweetener + liquid salt can be used with this method, and the resulting cubes are a tasty addition to salads, stir fries and grain bowls.

Watch how to fry and glaze tofu:

Method 2: Blending Tofu

Let’s make a Silky Chocolate Pudding!

This recipe is a good example of how silken tofu can be used as a base for sweet or savoury dishes since it will take on the flavours of the ingredients you add to it.

  1. Place the following ingredients in your blender: 
    • 1 container silken lite firm tofu (349 g) OR soft (dessert) regular tofu*
    • ¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
    • 5-6 dates, soaked for several hours
    • 1-2 tbsp pure maple syrup, or more to taste (optional)
    • 1 tsp pure vanilla
  2. Blend until completely smooth and creamy. Place into dishes and chill to set. Serve with fresh berries or other fruit of choice. Can be used as a dip without chilling and setting.

*You can use either kind of tofu here, but the silken variety will give you an extra creamy texture.

Watch how to make a silky chocolate pudding:

Let us know how it goes

Have you tried these recipes and tips? How did it go? What’s your favourite glaze to use with tofu? Are there other ways you love to cook tofu? What dishes do you enjoy making with tofu?

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Tips for making your holidays plant-based

Tips for making your holidays plant-based

Holidays provide a special opportunity to try out new plant-based traditions, adapt your favourites, or continue ones that have been in your family for a long time. Keep reading for tips and suggestions from Plant University volunteers and supporters on how to make your holiday deliciously plant-based.

Submissions have been edited for grammar and clarity.

The holidays are full of good food which can all be made compassionately. We start with baking and decorating holiday cookies and sweet treats to share. Our new neighbours are Italian, so this year we found a delicious vegan biscotti and almond cookie recipe to make for them. We also have a few traditions for our Christmas meals. My daughter makes the best vegan cinnamon rolls – the recipe was adopted from our favourite local plant-based bakery To Live For. They are accompanied with a berry platter recipe from Yotam Ottolenghi I vegan-ized by substituting labneh for Yoggu plant-based yogurt.
 
Our Christmas day dinner is completely plant-based. Guests bring a plant-based dish to share so the menu changes every year, but some consistent dishes we serve are puffed pastry filled with mushrooms, lentils, and onions and broccoli, cannelini beans, and vegan cheese for the kids version. We also have mashed potatoes, Brussels sprouts with cranberry and walnuts,  green beans with lemons, and dinner rolls. 
 
Plant-based meals can be intimidating at first but once you break it down, they can be completely nourishing, fulfilling, simple, leaving your belly and your heart full.  
Teresa
For the holidays, I try to appeal to everyone’s dietary restrictions and preferences while keeping everything cruelty free. Beyond beef is a great substitute for ground beef – it’s made with pea protein, has no soy, gluten, GMOs, and is even kosher! I like to make a variety of dishes with it like cabbage rolls, meatballs, lasagna, and meatloaf. For dairy, it’s very easy to swap your favourite recipes with vegan butter and oat milk. Veggie and fruit trays are also a great snack or appetizer that many people can enjoy. Happy holiday hosting!
Monica Hiller
You can be really creative with food during the holidays. I love helping my family make their favourite recipes like hamburgers and enchiladas with plant-based products like Yves. Chips and guacamole are a great snack to bring family together. My family also really likes making tacos as they’re very easy to make plant-based. We replace the meat with foods such as beans, tofu, vegan chorizo with cilantro and tomato sauce – delicious!
Brian J
I make roasted potatoes with rosemary and balsamic vinegar, Gardein stuffed not turkey, vegan gravy, Brussels sprouts, and carrots, and yorkshire pudding made with plant-based milk and egg substitute.
Sue McCaskill
I like The Very Good Butchers Stuffed Beast, mashed potatoes, roasted carrots and Brussels sprouts. Oh, and vegan gravy and whole cranberries.
Phylis Brown
I make a big vegan dinner and try at least one new recipe every year. I make vegan desserts and hot chocolate too! My fave roast to make is the Tofurky ham roast! But I don’t like the ale glaze it comes with so I make my own glaze with maple syrup, cinnamon, and brown sugar!
Melissa Viau
Slowly & gently melt 3 Lindt 90% chocolate bars (broken into pieces) in top of a double boiler: stir in rough-chopped pistachio nuts, dried cranberries, and a bunch of fresh orange zest: spread mixture on a non-stick cookie sheet: press flat, cool until set. Break it up. This is called holiday bark. What’s not to love!
Susan J Broatch
We have plant-based ‘eggnog’, all the trimmings, just no turkey. We don’t miss a thing!
Jill Sonia
I make beet wellington instead of turkey.
Kpswebster

Bonus tip: Wanting to take your plant-based holiday to the next level? Consider donating to a vegan or animal organization – you can even do so as a gift for a loved one!

For more plant-based holiday inspiration, check out this episode of the Vancouver Humane Society’s podcast, The Informed Animal Ally, about adapting to the holidays as a vegan!

Podcast: Adapting to the holidays as a vegan

Go to our recipe library!

Check out PlantUniversity’s original recipe library for more delicious plant-based meal and snack ideas.

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Benefits of Plant-Based Fats

Assorted fruits, vegetables, and grains arranged on a table, with some items in heart-shaped bowls, including lemons, cranberries, blueberries, and grains alongside avocados, carrots, tomatoes, and kiwi.

Benefits of plant-based fats

Featured author: Dr. Matthew Nagra

Hi everyone, I am Dr. Matthew Nagra, a Naturopathic doctor based in Vancouver, BC. I spend my time researching and sharing the latest in evidence-based nutrition across social media platforms to help everyone better understand the ins and outs of this confusing world we call nutrition. In addition to my online work, I’m a public speaker and have worked with medical professionals to help integrate nutrition counselling into their practices.

Today, for the Vancouver Humane Society’s PlantUniversity Platform, I’m going to talk about fats, particularly which plant-based fat sources are beneficial for overall health and whether or not we should be limiting our overall consumption of added fats in the form of nuts, seeds, avocados, and oils. 

Within the plant-based nutrition community, there is a common misbelief that we should avoid all added fats, including nuts and oils, and promote a very low-fat diet for cardiovascular disease prevention and treatment, as well as other chronic diseases. In fact, I myself used to be very much in the camp that believes that all oils are detrimental to health, including olive oil! However, the best available research on the topic may suggest otherwise.

Of course, plant-based diets are consistently associated with good health outcomes, including a lower risk of heart disease, the world’s number 1 killer. In fact, the 2020 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee conducted the most comprehensive review of dietary patterns ever done, which included 153 studies and over 6.5 million participants across 28 countries, and they determined that the healthiest dietary patterns were all dominated by plants with a focus on whole foods. Click the link below to read more about this review. No doubt, there are many benefits to choosing more plant-based foods, including an increase in fibre intake, but I want to hone in on the fats in particular.

There are 4 main groups of fats that we need to discuss: trans fats, saturated fats, monounsaturated fats, and polyunsaturated fats. 

1. Trans Fats

There is very little controversy around the detrimental impact of trans fats on our health, including increasing risk of cardiovascular diseases. In fact, Health Canada has banned the inclusion of partially hydrogenated oils, which are the primary sources of trans fats, in food products due to how dangerous they can be.

2. Saturated Fats

Saturated fat, which is predominantly found in meat, dairy, coconut oil, and palm oil, can also raise risk of cardiovascular disease if not limited in the diet. That’s because saturated fat can increase our LDL (or “bad”) cholesterol, which can end up in our artery walls, lead to the development of a plaque, and can eventually cause a heart attack. In fact, as saturated fat intake is reduced, we also see a reduction in risk of heart attacks or other cardiac events. Of course, there is some nuance within this topic and differences amongst different types of saturated fats, but as a general rule, they increase risk of cardiovascular disease.

I also want to quickly mention that dietary cholesterol, which eggs contain a lot of, can also raise LDL-cholesterol levels and contribute to cardiovascular disease risk, but to a lesser degree than saturated fat.

3. Monounsaturated Fats

Next up are the unsaturated fats. There are 2 main types, monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats. Monounsaturated fats can be found in both animal foods, such as meat and dairy, and plant foods, such as olive oil, avocados, and almonds; however, where you get your monounsaturated fats from matters. One study with over half a million participants and 16 years of follow-up found that, compared to carbohydrates, increasing animal-based monounsaturated fat intake increased risk of dying during the study period by 5%, while plant-based monounsaturated fat sources lowered risk by 2%! You can find this study in the blog post below. 

4. Polyunsaturated Fats

Polyunsaturated fats, which includes omega-3 and omega-6 fats, are largely found in nuts, seeds, their oils, and fish, and may be the most beneficial of all the different categories of fats I’ve discussed so far. They have the most potent LDL-cholesterol lowering properties, and unsurprisingly can result in substantial reductions in cardiovascular disease risk, especially when replacing saturated fat. In fact, a 2016 study comparing different types of fats found that replacing just 5% of calories from saturated fat with polyunsaturated fats can reduce risk of total mortality by an astonishing 27%!

With that overview out of the way, it’s time to talk about the impact that higher fat plant foods can have on our health! After all, we don’t typically eat nutrients in isolation. Food is a package deal.

Avocados:

Starting with avocados, they’re rich in monounsaturated fat and have been shown to markedly improve cardiovascular risk factors. Plus, they can be a delicious source of fibre, B vitamins, and potassium. 

Nuts:

Studies comparing various food groups find that nuts may be the best overall food group for lowering LDL-cholesterol, and studies on different types of nuts have shown that almonds may be of particular benefit in this case. With nuts and seeds, you can’t really go wrong with whichever ones you choose to eat, but in addition to almonds, I would also highlight omega-3 rich nuts and seeds. The type of omega-3 fat found in plants is called alpha-linolenic acid, or ALA for short, and it is recommended that adult women consume at least 1.1g per day and men consume at least 1.6g per day, which is more than covered with a tablespoon of ground flaxseeds or chia seeds, or an ounce of walnuts. In fact, each gram of ALA consumed per day has been associated with a 5% lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease and from all causes combined. One of the most astonishing and very well conducted studies I’ve seen recently found that those consuming at least 5 servings of walnuts per week had a 14% lower risk of dying from all causes compared to those who didn’t or rarely consumed them! Since that study came out, I’ve been making an effort to eat some walnuts everyday.

Omega-3s:

Regarding omega-3s, there are other types called eicosapentanoic acid (EPA) and docosahexanoic acid (DHA) that are predominantly found in fish, although we do convert some of the ALA from plants into those forms. Some individuals believe the conversion isn’t adequate and that non-fish eaters ought to supplement, and there is some evidence suggesting benefit in certain cases, such as during pregnancy; however, there is a lack of convincing evidence for otherwise healthy adults. Regardless, supplementing can be considered a precautionary measure, and vegan options do exist in the form of algae-based supplements, so please discuss your options and individual needs with your healthcare provider.

Oils:

Oils themselves are a hot button topic with a lot of the concerns stemming from the fact that many vegetable oils contain a fair amount of omega-6 fats. One of the beliefs is that the main omega-6 fat in plant-based oils can be converted into an inflammatory fat and wreak havoc on the body. Well, it’s a nice theory, but when we look at studies that feed omega-6-rich oils to people and measure markers of inflammation, there is no increase in inflammation. Not only are they not harmful, but their intake is associated with a lower risk of total, cardiovascular, and cancer deaths.

To add to the discussion on oil, a 2021 study on different types of cooking oils, which included over half a million people found that each Tbsp of canola oil consumption was associated with a 2% lower risk of total mortality and olive oil was associated with a 3% lower risk. When replacing 1 Tbsp of butter or margarine, canola and olive oil lowered risk of total mortality by anywhere from 5 to 7%, and a similar trend was seen for deaths due to cardiovascular disease. As you may have noted, I mentioned that the study was on cooking oils, and you may have been told that cooking with oils like olive oil, which has a relatively low burning point, is not a healthy choice because cooking can produce “dangerous” compounds. Well, the research consistently shows an overall benefit, even when cooking with these oils, with the only concerns I would possibly raise being over continuously reheating the same oil at high temperatures, as is done in many fast food restaurants.

Speaking of olive oil, some of those in the plant-based community also advise against consuming it. These concerns stem primarily from 2 studies (study a, study b) that fed roughly ¼ cup of olive oil to participants and measured their artery function. In these particular studies, olive oil did lead to a temporary decrease in their arteries’ ability to dilate, but one of those very studies also suggested that certain foods like fruits, vegetables, and vinegar can mitigate the impact of the oil on our arteries, so adding olive oil to a salad would be no issue at all! Furthermore, if we review the bulk of the studies on the topic instead of just picking 1 or 2 studies, we actually see an overall beneficial effect of olive oil on artery function! Not to mention the research I discussed earlier that found that olive oil consumption is associated with a lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, which is what really matters.

Since I didn’t know this when I started out on my plant-based journey, I used to avoid oils at all costs, and not only did that deprive me of a key ingredient for many great recipes, but significantly limited my options at restaurants as well. Of course, now knowing that these low saturated fat oils are associated with a lower risk of disease, there was clearly little reason to worry, and even some reason to include them. However, due to their ability to raise LDL-cholesterol, it may be best to limit high saturated fat oils like coconut and palm oil (study a, study b).

Eco-Atkins Diet:

In addition to research on individual foods, we also have data on an overall low carb, higher fat vegan diet called the Eco-Atkins diet. One randomized controlled trial found that 6 months on an Eco-Atkins diet, where the primary sources of fats were nuts, oils, and soy, resulted in lower LDL-cholesterol compared to a high carb, lower fat vegetarian diet. These findings are quite contrary to the dangerous rises in LDL-C we can see with animal-based low carb or keto-style diets. Given that information, it’s no surprise that the data we do have on various types of low carb diets suggest a higher risk of cardiovascular disease if consuming a lot of animal fats, whereas we see a lower risk with the more plant-based approach.

At the end of the day, some people may feel better on a lower fat diet, while others may prefer a higher fat diet. Both can be healthy ways to eat if you’re focusing your diet on plant-based foods, and choosing low saturated fat options. There’s no good reason to be like I once was, worried about those added fats, so I hope this has helped you understand a little more about how some high fat plant foods may actually be very beneficial.

You can check out my website, DrMatthewNagra.com, and my Instagram and Facebook pages  @dr.matthewnagra, and Twitter page @drmatthewnagra.

If you’ve found this helpful, please consider sharing it! Don’t forget to subscribe to Vancouver Humane Society’s PlantUniversity Platform to stay updated on new content and to get involved in their work.

I’m a home baker; here are my tips for vegan baking!

A plant-based vanilla cupcake on a plate.

I’m a home baker; here are my tips for vegan baking!

A plant-based vanilla cupcake on a plate.

When I first went vegan, I spent a lot of time experimenting with new savoury recipes. The curries, chilis, pastas, sandwiches, salads, and other dishes I already loved tasted amazing with plant-based swaps! But there was one area that I was a little more hesitant: baking.

I have a major sweet tooth and have always loved baking. I even became known as the “cookie person” when I got together with loved ones for the holidays.

Fortunately, there are plenty of great vegan treat brands and “accidentally vegan” store-bought goods, from Maynards Fuzzy Peaches to Oreos; but for me, there is nothing quite like biting into a warm cookie fresh out of the oven. So I set out to hone my plant-based baking skills.

It didn’t take long! As it turns out, it’s very easy to make delicious plant-based treats. It might even be easier than baking with animal products—say goodbye to fiddling with eggshells in your batter! It wasn’t long before I was turning out quick desserts that were wowing even my non-vegan friends.

Here are some of my favourite ways to make non-vegan recipes plant-based.

The best non-dairy milk for baking

According to my research, the best non-dairy milk for baking is soy milk, followed by almond milk. If you bake a lot of treats with thin batters, like cakes, you might want to consider those as your top option.

A batch of chocolate chip cookies close up.

However, I mostly bake cookies with a thicker dough that only call for a couple tablespoons of milk. For recipes where your non-dairy milk is not going to be the star of the show, I’ve found it makes no difference to use whichever milk you prefer for your everyday use like sauces, coffee, or tea. When a recipe calls for dairy milk, I normally substitute 1:1 for an equal amount of oat milk.

The best plant-based butter for baking

There are so many great plant-based brands that make dairy-free butter. Here is the best side-by-side comparison I’ve found of the various vegan butters for baking cookies.

My personal favourite cost-effective butter substitution is Becel Vegan Margarine, which I’ve found works well in cookies, squares, and even buttercream.

A batch of vegan brownies cut into squares in a pan.

If you’re in a pinch, a neutral oil like vegetable oil or canola oil works just fine in cake recipes.

Applesauce can also be substituted for butter if you’re oil-free.

The best plant-based egg substitutes for baking

Replacing egg with flax egg

A flax egg is my go-to egg swap in cookie recipes. If a recipe calls for only one or two eggs, a flax egg works flawlessly. Watch the video below for instructions on making a flax egg or see the recipe here.

One thing to be cautious of is using flax eggs in recipes with 3-4 eggs or more. In egg-heavy recipes without other binding ingredients, the flax egg loses some of its power as a binding agent and can leave you with a dessert that doesn’t set properly. A store-bought substitute can work best in these cases.

Using Just Egg in baking

Store-bought egg substitutes like Just Egg are designed to mimic the fluffiness and binding properties that you would see from using an animal egg in baking.

A bottle of Just Egg vegan egg replacement on a muffin tin.

Bonus: When you’re done with your sweet recipe, they also work great in savoury dishes like plant-based omelettes.

Replacing egg with pumpkin or banana in baking

One egg can be replaced by ¼ cup pumpkin puree or mashed ripe banana (equal to about ½ a medium banana).

A bunch of overripe bananas on the counter.

Pumpkin and banana make baked goods dense and moist, making them perfect for breads and muffins. This replacement works especially well for recipes that naturally incorporate these flavours, like:

  • pumpkin cookies
  • pumpkin spice muffins
  • pumpkin cake
  • banana muffins
  • banana pancakes
  • banana bread

Replacing egg with tofu in baking

Silken tofu is an effective egg substitute in a wide range of recipes, including cakes, cookies, squares, and breads. Each egg can be replaced with ¼ cup pureed silken tofu.

Silken tofu can be used as an egg sustitute.

What to use instead of egg in meringue

For recipes that call for egg whites to be whipped into a meringue, aquafaba is a naturally effective plant-based substitute.

Aquafaba meringues from chickpea liquid.

Aquafaba refers to the liquid left over from cooked chickpeas. If you’re making a recipe with chickpeas like this scrumptious chickpea salad sandwich, chickpea tagine, or hummus, simply save the liquid from your canned chickpeas or the leftover cooking liquid from cooking dried and soaked chickpeas. The word can also refer to the meringue-like foam made by whipping this liquid.

To make aquafaba, whip the liquid saved from cooked or canned chickpeas for 3-6 minutes. Check out this step-by-step guide on making aquafaba.

The bottom line

There are so many easy plant-based substitutions for baking, and even more unique recipes to explore that are plant-based by default—like these tender and fragrant plant-based cranberry lemon yogurt muffins! Plant-based baking is a wonderful (and delicious) way to get creative in the kitchen.

What did you think of these plant-based substitutions for baking? Do you have a favourite that we missed? Find PlantUniversity’s posts at @vancouverhumane on Tiktok or Instagram and let us know your thoughts!

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Chat with a vegan: Rian Peters, recording artist

Chat with a vegan: Rian Peters, recording artist

As part of our “Chat with a Vegan” series, PlantUniversity’s Brighde Reed sat down and spoke with Rian Peters. Rian is a recording artist based in Vancouver, and a vegan of many years. We hope you find his experience and advice helpful no matter where you are on your own plant-based journey.

You can follow Rian on Instagram at @iamtheliving and @livingplantfoods, or on his website.

If you’re interested in learning more after reading this blog post, you can find great resources on the Vancouver Humane Society’s PlantUniversity Platform and subscribe to get free plant-based recipes and be notified when the next interview is posted.

Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Rian Peters, I am a recording artist. I go under the stage name I Am The Living. I’m based in Vancouver

Why did you become vegan?

I became vegan because a friend of mine sent me a video a few years back and I decided to watch the video, and when I watched the video, it really resonated with me it sparked something inside of me that I would never forget. He was talking about veganism and, the reasons why it’s good for the environment and good for animals, and for your health to turn vegan. There were some images that he showed within the lecture and yeah. I just built a newfound type of compassion and empathy for other living beings. So after I felt that I told myself I can’t continue to consume animals.

What were you concerned about when you went vegan?

To be honest, I didn’t really have any fear, I just felt that it was the right thing for me to do. It was more so just the gradual steps, a lot of people can go cold turkey, excuse the pun. But for me, I decided I’d take it to step by step. That really helped me on my journey to where I am today.

What piece of advice would you give to someone thinking about going vegan?How do you get your protein?

I would just say to them just be confident in your decision and also take your time. But at the same time, if they feel like they’re just ready to cut out certain things from their lifestyle when it comes to what they eat then, go for it. If they’re a bit more on the edge about it, not too sure of what to do take gradual steps. So, just take your time with it and know that this is the best thing for you to do for your health first and foremost, and for the animals, because if you’re not consuming animals, then the animals don’t have anything to worry about.

Yeah. It’s taken me to a place that I never thought I would ever get to. The foundation of my nutritional intake is a raw frugivore lifestyle. I eat an abundance of, natural whole fruits. This is a huge part of what I eat on a daily basis with tender leafy greens, juices smoothie bowls. I stick to uncooked foods. That’s where I’m at right now. I didn’t start that way though. But now, I’m in the best place I’ve ever been to in my life. I’m very happy with how I feel and the energy that I have.

Do you miss eating animal products?

I sometimes still get that question, but I remember when I did transition, a lot of people asked me if I had missed the animal products. From the start, I didn’t miss animal products at all because I knew that it was the best thing for me, for my health, and once my senses started to change and adapt to the foods that I that we are naturally supposed to consume, I didn’t miss the smell or the texture or anything to do with animals.

What benefits have you experienced going vegan mentally, physically, and emotionally?

Absolutely. All of those three. Everything just went onto another vibration. It’s the best I’ve ever, felt inside and out. I wouldn’t change it for the world.

When I was a lot younger I never had this amount of energy and freedom. I feel like sometimes the foods that we eat can really hold us down mentally and spiritually and physically.

What’s your favorite food?

My favorite, my number one favorite vegan food has to be the mango. Fruit is definitely my number one go-to. The creator created mangos for us to eat, you can just grab it off a tree and eat it. That’s my top fruit.

What do you cook when you’re trying to impress?

So there was a time I had a really fun gathering with a bunch of vegans. It was like a potluck, people brought, different foods and I decided to prepare some plantain wraps. They’re literally just made from raw plantain, I blend it up in the Vitamix add a little seasoning, and spread it out on the dehydrator trays, leave them in a dehydrator for a few hours and you can use them as a burrito wrap. So the plantain wraps definitely were a winner.

This interview from PlantUniversity’s “Chat with a Vegan” series was hosted by Brighde Reed of World Vegan Travel and featured Ravi Boghan.

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Plant-Based Eating in the Classroom

Plant-Based Eating in the Classroom

Featured author: Emma Levez Larocque, Plant-Based RHN

It is said that we tend to be as healthy as those we spend the most time with. This is one reason why encouraging the consumption—and enjoyment—of nutritious plant-based foods in the classroom can be such a powerful influence.

As a Registered Holistic Nutritionist and Community Educator I have delivered a number of plant-based workshops in schools, in partnership with teachers, and sometimes parent helpers. Though there are almost always students who vehemently declare at the beginning of the class that they “hate all vegetables,” when they are invited to help make the food, and see how tasty and vibrant it looks, they can rarely resist taking a bite. Even the most reluctant veggie eaters are often won over by simple, colourful plant-based dishes that they have had a hand in making.

Helping students make connections between what they’re eating, their own health, planetary health, and compassion for non-human animals can arm them with wisdom that will last long past their school days.

Inviting a qualified guest into the classroom is one way to bring this type of information to students. However, there are lots of ways to work plant-based learning into classroom curriculum or the school day on a regular basis too.

3 ways to bring plant-based learning into the classroom

1) Incorporate regular food preparation and cooking in the classroom

Most kids love to eat, and many love to cook or help prepare food—especially if it involves getting their hands dirty! Exposing children to healthy, tasty food can have a huge impact, particularly when it is done consistently and over time. Keeping the recipes simple and low tech makes it easy to implement these types of lessons more often. Massaged Kale Salad is a recipe that I have made with many groups of children, and they love it because they get to crush the avocado into the kale and get their (clean!) hands dirty. Because they have made the salad, they are usually eager to eat it too.

Power balls, no-bake cookies and fruit/veg “face pizzas” on pitas or tortillas are other things that don’t take a lot of equipment and are very hands-on for students. When cooking and food prep is part of your classroom routine students have opportunities to try new foods, develop and practice important life skills, and it can help encourage the regular consumption of plant-based foods.

2) Use activities that make eating plants visual and fun

An example of this is teaching kids about “eating the rainbow,” a very visual concept that often resonates with young people. Colours in foods often correspond with the nutrients they contain, and this is one reason why eating vibrant, colourful foods is so good for us! Counting the number of colourful foods they have eaten in a day can become a fun game for students.  In addition, using the rainbow framework can be helpful in discussing how colourful foods can be beneficial for different aspects of our health (e.g., orange foods are good for our eyes and help protect us from getting sick, etc). There is a free infographic download from Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine on the Nutrition Rainbow that may be helpful here.

3) Talk to students about where their food comes from

As a society we have become disconnected from our food and farms. However, that is beginning to change as mainstream society acknowledges the impacts our food choices have on planetary health and the wellbeing of non-human animals.

Eating more plant-based foods is a positive, pro-active thing we can all do to tread more lightly on the earth and understanding this can be very empowering for students. Discussion content will necessarily depend on the age of the students involved.

For younger students a great place to start may be an activity that compares various environmental impacts—like water use or pollution—of animal foods versus plant foods. This information from The Vegetarian Resource Group could help teachers interested in creating such an activity. PETA’s Share the World kit may also be helpful for elementary school teachers looking to bring education about the importance of compassion and empathy into their classroom.

Conversations with older students may be inspired and informed by documentaries like Seaspiracy, Game Changers or David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet.

As major organizations like the United Nations are recognizing the merit of a global dietary shift toward more plant-based foods, schools and universities around the country and continent are beginning to embrace their important role in educating students about the connections between food and health, environment, and compassion.

Are you a teacher, educator or parent who has helped to introduce plant-based learning into your school? How are you doing it? Let us know in the comments below. Or, if you’re interested in helping to implement more plant-based learning into your classroom/school and need support, we’d love to hear from you!

Don’t forget to subscribe to Vancouver Humane Society’s PlantUniversity Platform to stay updated on new free resources and tips uploaded to the site.

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Chat with a vegan: Ravi Bohgan, entrepreneur, body builder, and supercar enthusiast

Chat with a vegan: Ravi Bohgan, entrepreneur, body builder, and supercar enthusiast

As part of our “Chat with a Vegan” series, PlantUniversity’s Brighde Reed sat down and spoke with Ravi Bohgan. Ravi is an entrepreneur, app developer, body builder, and supercar enthusiast who is passionate about plant-based eating. We hope you find his experience and advice helpful no matter where you are on your own plant-based journey.

You can follow Ravi on Instagram at @vegainsonline.

If you’re interested in learning more after reading this blog post, you can find great resources on the Vancouver Humane Society’s PlantUniversity Platform and subscribe to get free plant-based recipes and be notified when the next interview is posted.

Where are you from and what are you passionate about?

I’m a dad to three children, and two lovely dogs as well. I’m married and living in Chilliwack, BC. We are entrepreneurs. We run a marketing firm, an online marketing firm – email and Facebook – a lot of stuff with Google, Facebook, that kind of thing. We also are launching a brand new app in the automotive industry in September targeted at the automotive enthusiast. We’ve also developed a completely different type of GPS than the world is currently using.

I’ve always grown up very into sports. I don’t get to play as much, but I still keep very active in the gym. The last competition I did for men’s physique was back in 2019. COVID ruined a lot of the shows but I still do photo shoots prepping for just men’s physique promotion.

Our other personal hobby is the automotive world, which is where we developed the app for I’ve developed my supercar out of a Mercedes AMG. The whole concept of it was veganism.

I have owned that car for four years. I always didn’t like that I couldn’t find a high-performance vehicle without leather in it. So I decided to take the car because I still wanted a four-door. After all, I take my kids with me to every car show and car event that I go to. We ripped out all the leather from inside the car and we replaced it all with Alcantara which was expensive. We branded it Vegains, which is my bodybuilding name Vegains online. So I branded everything Vegains inside and we turned it into a full show car.

It sparks a lot of conversation at the different car shows. And, when I get into it and talk about how the interior is redone. It’s not tuned on gasoline anymore, it’s tuned on ethanol, which is a plant so it’s fully vegan. It gets a lot of conversation started and we win many trophies at different shows.

How did you get into bodybuilding and how did that turn you vegan?

I moved back to Canada from England when I was 18. I was very thin, I only weighed about 120 pounds being just under six feet, which is common for the British lifestyle. All my cousins were all farm boy builds, very wide, a lot bigger than me. I wanted to gain some size, fit in, and defend myself against my cousins who would push me around. 

I started working out, not knowing what I was doing though it was more ego-lifting. I was young and immature and I just enjoyed being at the gym.

I trained throughout my twenties. I didn’t learn how to work out properly until I was 27. I met a bodybuilding coach who taught me how to lift properly, taught me a lot about nutrition, but more the traditional fitness way of eating, keto lifestyle, high protein, low carb days, that kind of thing.

And while I saw results, when I turned 29 going on 30, I got sick. It came from food poisoning from either chicken or cheese, we never could identify it. But my bodybuilding took a turn for the worse.

Everything went downhill, food poisoning lasted about six weeks. It wouldn’t go away. I had doctor appointments, MDs, and naturopaths, but nobody could identify it besides the fact that I had lost about 20 pounds in weight, nothing was healing. I couldn’t digest food anymore. I went on a journey after the MD agreed with my naturopath saying it appears I was allergic to animal proteins. At that point, I had no idea what vegetarian or vegan even was.

They said, I needed to change my lifestyle and go plant-based to heal my gastrointestinal system, which I did with the help of my mom cooking lots of traditional east Indian food – lentils, quinoa, garlic, ginger, and a lot of really healthy things.

I ate no junk food, no meat, and no animal products at all. When I got healthy again, a different coach asked me to start eating chicken again and eggs and train to compete the next year to gain everything back. I had a moment where I went to cook a chicken breast and I cooked it and sat down to eat it and I couldn’t eat it.

Not because at that point I had made any sort of ethical connection. It just looked disgusting. I went back to my lentils and I went back to my chickpeas and went back to eating that way which he wasn’t happy with because he was more the traditional bodybuilder. He said, okay, how about fish? I decided to eat fish. After two months of eating specific tuna, salmon, and cod, I got mercury poisoning. I went through a nine-month detox after that was officially diagnosed and got my reflexes back.

Then I started to make the ethical connection shortly after that, just comparing things with my dog Lola.

How did going vegan improve your life?

I just felt better-being plant-based and started to question everything about the fitness industry based on, what my MD and my naturopath said I probably got sick due to the aggressive keto dieting. They educated me on a lot of topics the fitness industry will never educate you on.

I was shocked to hear it all went down my own rabbit hole of research, which lined up everything that I was taught by the MD and the naturopath.

How do you get your protein?

I use Ergogenics protein powder. They have a hemp protein powder so I use that in my smoothies. I use hemp seeds in my smoothies as well, along with peanut butter. So it’s very easy to get a smoothie up to 40, 50 grams of protein to what my current coach still wants me to hit per meal.

My other sources are vegan meats, Yves Ground Veggie, Beyond Meat, and Impossible Burgers, I’ll have one, I go out to eat at restaurants. I still use it in my meal plans at home as well, more of the healthier sources would be tempeh, tofu, lentils, and chickpeas.

You kind of get protein from everything. Like when I write out all my meal plans with macros and the calories involved in them, so I can understand and envision what I’m intaking. So like when I’m making my meal plans and I add in even the rice that I’m having or the bread with the gluten protein along with the soy milk when I’m having smoothies or even a bowl of cereal, it all adds up very quickly. So hitting protein amounts is very easy. When somebody asks me in the gym, where do I get my protein?

I relay that question in a different way to say, do we even know how much you’re supposed to in terms of how much protein per day, based on your body weight and your activities and your goals in the gym?

What’s a typical day of eating for you at the moment?

So for breakfast in a general off-season meal, I do a large hash brown veggie meal. The protein source will be like the Yves Ground Veggie and tofu mixed. Sometimes, tempeh diced in just to keep a diversity: hash browns, then, veggies I’ll have like zucchini, spices, onions, garlic, and any veggies I have on hand. I do stick with the majority of low-fiber veggies. I found going plant-based originally, I didn’t need that much fiber in my diet, so I don’t eat broccoli, cauliflower, or asparagus every single day just once or twice a week. I stick to low-fiber veggie foods throughout the day which helped my gut stay consistent and just continue healing. 

For lunch, I’ll make a smoothie. I’ll have a large smoothie, chia, hemp, soy milk, my protein, peanut butter, and a greens powder also from Ergogenics and then a pre-workout meal, I’ll usually make a small sandwich and then I’ll have simple sugars, like a bowl of cereal with some light granola in it so it’s higher, simple sugars and lower in fat. Doesn’t need to be high in protein, it’s just so my body has that energy at the gym to fill up the glycogen in the muscles and have a great workout. Post workout I’ll usually do another smoothie with cream of rice.

Again, get some simple sugars to heal the body, heal the muscles, and get, the energy it needs to start recovering. 

For dinner, we’ll usually do some type of rice bowl with tofu, whatever protein source we’re eating as a family, I’ll do something similar to that. And then before bed, I’d usually make a peanut butter sandwich to make sure I’ve hit my macros for the day.

Because I generally eat a lower fat diet. So I started adding avocado toast, peanut butter, chia, and hemp, to my meals, especially in the off-season. Use more of the fat content to help gain some weight and make sure I have enough calories to keep scaling and then when I look to cut in the summer, it’s very easy for me.

What’s your favourite meal?

My favourite vegan meal would probably be my wife’s Shepherd’s Pie with the gravy, or she makes a heck of a Mushroom Wellington, it’s an occasion meal. It takes a lot of effort to make, but it’s just absolutely incredible.

What’s your favourite restaurant in Vancouver?

I’d probably say Chi Vegan. Yeah, we became good friends with Chi, the actual head chef. She’s amazing. The food there is fantastic as well.

This interview from PlantUniversity’s “Chat with a Vegan” series was hosted by Brighde Reed of World Vegan Travel and featured Ravi Boghan.

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Chat with a vegan: Natasha Tatton, owner of BReD

Chat with a Vegan: Natasha Tatton, owner of BReD

As part of our “Chat with a Vegan” series, PlantUniversity’s Brighde Reed sat down and spoke with Natasha Tatton. Natasha is the owner of BReD, a plant-based bakery in Whistler, British Columbia. We hope you find her experience and advice helpful no matter where you are on your own plant-based journey.

You can follow Natasha on Instagram at @eds_bred.

If you’re interested in learning more after reading this blog post, you can find great resources on the Vancouver Humane Society’s PlantUniversity Platform and subscribe to get free plant-based recipes and be notified when the next interview is posted.

Can you tell me who you are and what it is that you do in Whistler for work and for fun?

I’m Natasha and I am the co-founder of BReD, the Sea to Sky corridor’s only vegan bakery. I run it with my husband, Ed, who makes the bread. We’re most famous for our organic sourdough bread. I run the front-of-house section. I also do a lot of the finance and marketing work for the business and everything else that needs to be done.

For fun, I enjoy snowboarding in the winter, hiking in the summer, and anything else that gets me outdoors, like kayaking, going for a run, and sharing good vegan food with people.

When did you become vegan and what was your motivation?

I became vegan in the year of 2014. It wasn’t an overnight thing for me, it was a gradual progression. I had been a vegetarian for many years and when I came to Whistler I got a job at Whistler Blackcomb Ski School in the kitchen, which meant cooking for 800 ski instructors and kids every day. 

It was the first time I’d ever had to cook meat and I really didn’t enjoy cooking the meat. I was preparing food like wieners and pot pies and the meat and dairy products were really low quality too. At the same time, a juice bar opened in Whistler village. I would go there every day to eat and chose smoothies or juices to cleanse my body a little bit. 

As the ski season went on I noticed that my colleagues at ski school (who were eating the food that I was told to cook) started to put on weight, and became more depressed and spotty whereas everyone at the juice bar was glowing and they were all basically vegan. 

I realized that I wanted to be more like them. I got a job with them in the summer when ski school was over. I became a raw vegan chef and quickly started experimenting at home with vegan food.

That year, I started to watch vegan documentaries, such as Cowspiracy and Food Choices and I had my eyes opened to not only how catastrophic a non-vegan diet could be for our health, but also the environment. As time went on I learned more about how our diet impacts animals. I guess I went vegan for my health, and to look good and feel good as well as for the environment, but I stay vegan for the animals.

What was your biggest surprise when you became vegan?

My biggest surprise when I became vegan was learning the versatility of foods like nuts. I never really knew that you could make milk, butter, creams, and all those dairy substitutions with cashews and any other type of natural seed. I started making cashew cheesecakes. These desserts were really trending then and I got into making my own plant-based milk too.

What has becoming vegan brought to your life?

I think there’s a shift in consciousness in people after they’ve been vegan for a while. It sounds quite hippy-dippy, but I’ve heard a few other people remark on this as well too. You start to see animals in a different light.

Not that I was eating meat, but to be honest, I was vegetarian because I just didn’t like the taste of meat. I still wore leather and I still ate dairy products and eggs. I hadn’t made a connection between the animals that I was using and what they were going through to get on my plate.

Now, I look at animals as brothers and sisters and I’m more empathetic to them. I love watching the birds whenever I’m just walking down the street and I always look out for the crows. Before I went vegan, I wouldn’t have even noticed them and if I had noticed them, it would’ve been because they were making a loud noise and I probably would’ve been irritated by that. So I’ve just found a lot more compassion towards and an interest in animals since becoming vegan.

What did you eat yesterday?

For breakfast yesterday, I had watermelon in the morning. It’s really good for the body to get digestion going. Then I had a fruit smoothie a bit later in the day with some berries, banana, and coconut water with a few superfoods chucked in for fun. For lunch, I had leftover burritos with cauliflower and quinoa and for dinner I was emptying the fridge. I had some leftover Oh She Glows nacho cheese dip from an Oh She Glows cookbook with sautéed potatoes, some avocado that needed to be eaten, and some sprouts because I love growing my own sprouts. That’s it!

This interview from PlantUniversity’s “Chat with a Vegan” series was hosted by Brighde Reed of World Vegan Travel and featured Natasha Tatton of BReD.

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10 strategies for your busy vegan kitchen

Assorted bowls of colorful plant-based dishes, including a salad bowl with vegetables and chickpeas, avocado toast, and a bowl of soup.
Vegan lunch table. Chocolate smoothie bowl, Buddha bowl with tofu, chickpeas and quinoa, lentil soup and toasts on a gray background.

Featured Author: Anna Pippus

10 strategies for your busy vegan kitchen

Today for Vancouver Humane Society’s PlantUniversity Platform, we are going to provide you with strategies shared from animal rights lawyer and cookbook author, Anna Pippus, that will help you manage your busy vegan kitchen! You can follow Anna on Instagram at @easyanimalfree for more great plant-based tips and recipes. We hope you find these strategies helpful, whether you’re just starting the shift to plant-based or you’re well on your way. 

 If you’re interested in learning more after watching this video, you can find great resources on VHS’s PlantUniversity Platform and subscribe to get involved in VHS’s work to help animals, people and the planet

1. Learn to cook.

Being able to cook for ourselves is liberating! It doesn’t need to be complicated or fancy.

Consider checking out cookbooks from the library and watching YouTube videos—not just the food pros, but “what I ate in a week” videos are also great to get a sense of how ordinary people really feed themselves.

2. Get comfortable with leftovers.

Cook more than you need for dinner and eat the leftovers for lunch.

Some foods, like pasta and stir fries, usually need a splash of water when they’re reheated to keep from being too thick or dry.

Leftovers can be repurposed into new meals. For example, rice and beans for dinner can be tacos for lunch; roasted sweet potatoes keep well for 4 to 5 days and help make lunchtime salads filling; and leftover rice is ideal for fried rice.

3. Plan ahead.

If you’re not great at meal planning, instead consider cooking by theme. For example, Mondays are pasta, Tuesdays are bowls, Wednesdays are one-pot meals, and Thursdays are stir fries and other pan-Asian inspired meals. On Fridays you could do something fun like burgers and air-fries, and over the weekends coast on leftovers, have long lazy brunches, and get together with friends and family for meals. Having themes means you have some direction but also some flexibility.

For more ideas on how to organize meals around themes, check out “The Vegan Family Cookbook” by Anna Pippus.  

4. Have some back pocket meals.

For most of us, being prepared 100% of the time is impossible. The hungries will strike and you’ll need a low-effort meal in a hurry!

For lunch, try chickpea crepes, chickpea salad sandwiches or tacos. Or simple favourites like peanut butter and jam toast, with veggies and fruit. Or a big salad with roasted sweet potato and lentils or beans.

For dinners, some quick go-tos could be cashew cream pasta, red lentil curry or rice noodles with tofu.

5. Learn to cook without recipes.

Recipes are a great way to learn a new recipe, and to replicate an old favourite.

But following recipes every day can be exhausting, because it takes more mental effort to read through instructions, using measuring tools means more dishes, and it can feel like a chore rather than a creative expression.

Don’t be afraid to go off-recipe! Use the vegetables that are going bad and the spices you prefer. Skip the ingredient you don’t have, or look up a substitute.

Many meals don’t even require a recipe at all, like stir fries, bowls, and soups. The Vegan Family Cookbook also includes a section on how to make a bowl and soup without recipes. YouTube and instagram are also great resources for this.

6. Stock the pantry.

It’s useful to have a variety of grains, legumes, and flavour enhancers on hand. A few key pantry staples are brown rice, oats, pasta, rice noodles, red and green lentils, pinto beans, chickpeas, coconut milk, soy sauce, jarred tomatoes, a few kinds of vinegar, and tons of herbs and spices.

7. Buy produce that lasts

Consider buying foods like cabbage, carrots, apples, potatoes, onions, frozen berries, and frozen peas. That way even when the fridge is getting bare, you can come up with a fresh meal.

Cabbage is good raw as slaw, in tacos or on bowls, or as a side for burgers. It is also perfect in soups and stir fries, where it’s barely detectable, even by kids.

Frozen peas can be thrown into pasta water in the last five minutes of cooking. Add some cashew cream sauce, and it’s a nearly-instant dinner.

8. Keep it simple.

Consider ways you can make cooking easier – like cutting out multiple steps when one step will do just fine. For example, instead of boiling and then roasting potatoes –  just roast them. The goal is yummy and nutritious, not gourmet.

Over-complicating things is a fast track to overwhelm and burnout.

9. Cook and clean as you go.

Conventional cooking wisdom is that we should prepare all of our ingredients before we start cooking, but a rolling prep strategy can save you time. For example, chop an onion and get it sautéing before prepping the rest of your soup ingredients, or get rice or noodles boiling before making your sauce.

Dishes are easier to clean when food hasn’t had a chance to get stuck onto them. When you have downtime while cooking, this is a great time to clean any prep tools you’re finished with and wipe the counters.

That way, after dinner when you just want to relax and hang out together, you’re not staring down a giant mess. The prospect of a big kitchen mess can deter us from wanting to cook in the first place, so nip this in the bud with a clean-as-you-go approach!

10. Have fun.

Cooking can become genuinely enjoyable and is an opportunity to get creative.

At dinner time, consider playing some beautiful music and make a simple meal. It’s relaxed and enjoyable.

We love these strategies from Anna Pippus and hope you find them helpful in your own kitchen! We encourage you to check out her cookbook, “The Vegan Family Cookbook”, for more plant-based recipe inspiration!

If you’ve found this helpful, please consider sharing it! Don’t forget to subscribe to Vancouver Humane Society’s PlantUniversity Platform to stay updated on new content and to get involved in VHS’s work.

Adapting meals to be plant-based

Vegan or vegetarian Thanksgiving, Friendsgiving holiday celebration. Flat-lay of friends eating at Thanksgiving Day table with pumpkin pie, roasted vegetables, fruit and rose wine, top view

Adapting meals to be plant-based

Featured Author: Asha Wheeldon

Hi everyone, I’m Asha Wheeldon, the founder of Kula Kitchen and co-host of Chop It Up. We focus on creating plant-based food to nourish and empower our community. Many of the meals and flavours are inspired by food I grew up enjoying with my family in East Africa and Toronto. We are driven by community through collaborations with other food producers and local partners.

Today, for the Vancouver Humane Society’s PlantUniversity Platform, I’m going to share some tips on how to get creative in your own kitchen and help you adapt traditionally non-plant-based recipes to be plant-based. 

If you’re interested in learning more after watching this video, you can find great resources on VHS’s PlantUniversity Platform and subscribe to get involved in VHS’s work to help animals, people and the planet.

I remember the first couple of months during my transition to PB diet. The first dishes I was looking to recreate were some of my favourite childhood dishes that were mostly my mother’s, such as stews, sauces and baked goods. Over time I came to terms with the fact that what I create will not be the same, the texture and flavour will not be the exact copy of the “original” recipe. I found myself enjoying the process and the outcome of the dishes, I would share with my friends and family who also loved them.  

I want to share some of the things I think about and steps I take when I’m trying to adapt a recipe that is not traditionally plant-based, to be plant-based:

I think about what I want the food to taste like, the texture and flavour:

  •  Some of the more versatile alternatives are tempeh, textured vegetable protein; they come in granules, slices, curls and cubes. Coconut milk for yogurt, nutritional yeast for cheese. For the most part, you can use the same seasoning with a few adjustments. 
  • Mushrooms like oyster and king oyster mushrooms are a great alternative for  fish. 

Small adjustments go a long way:

  • One of the great eye-opening moments I had was realizing that most of the foods I loved were mostly plant-based, all I had to do was remove or replace 1-2 ingredients. For example…Sukuma wiki is sautéed collards or cabbage prepared with meat protein and enjoyed with chapati or ugali, a corn based porridge. I often add soy or mushroom to make it plant-based. It’s still one of my favourite meals.

I have my favourite ingredients available:

  • Some of them include: lentils, collards, and black eyed peas.
  • Before I learned about some of the meat alternatives like soy,  I would cook with ingredients I was familiar with and love. This made for a comfortable experience. I cook with lentils and black eyed peas often, you can find them in most grocery stores, they have lots of protein and fibre. 

Seasoning is gold; I like to keep stocked with various spices in my pantry. 

One of the most important things to me about food and recipes, are the flavours! I love foods that are rich in flavour so the first steps includes stocking up on my favourite spices and adding some new options (I may have and continue to go overboard sometimes).

I have a few suggestions that can help you with getting the perfect flavours for your dishes: 

I found that if you keep to the original seasoning which is often already plant-based, you can still maintain the original taste of the dish.

Some of my favourite spices and herbs are:

  • Cayenne, Turmeric, Berbere, cumin, curry powder, cardamom, cinnamon. 
  • A tip: I often blend the spices to create different flavours. For example, if I am preparing a rice dish, the spices would be on the lighter side and not as spicy. For stews I can go all in and sometimes add in some of the sweeter spices like cardamom. 

What’s great about blends is you can use your staples to expand your seasoning options. This also applies to marinades when incorporating spices and sauces.

I’m going to show you how to make one of my favourite and super simple spice blends:

You take 1 tablespoon of cinnamon, cardamom, turmeric, cumin, chili and cloves and mix. There you have it – a simple spice blend you can use on your next dish like rice pilau!

Herbs, Limes and lemon are always a good idea:

  • You can enhance nutritional impact with citrus for greens, many leafy green vegetables like collards and kale are great iron source and they activate with adding citrus.
  • I find herbs like cilantro provide that fresh and elevated flavour. Add fresh as garnish or cook with your meals like rice pilau, and stew.

I have a couple favourite dishes at Kula Kitchen. One of them is our portobello curry bowl with black eyed peas, mushrooms, collards, and carrots and served over rice pilau. This dish is warming and a perfect meal on colder days.

I also love our nourished bowl with tofu and mushroom scramble, black eyed peas, collards, and roasted sweet potatoes. This is a perfect dish for breakfast and lunch. They are available to order on our website, KulaKitchen.ca, along with our packaged plant-based meats, stews, curry, and sauces.

I would encourage anyone starting their plant-based journey to be more intentional and meet yourself where you are at, try not to be hard on yourself. Nothing is perfect, you will slip up, make mistakes, and create a completely different dish and that’s ok! What happens next is an abundance of ideas, creativity, and fun. Lots of Fun! 

For this reason, I think it’s also important that we support each other during our journey. As a vegan, if you know someone who is trying to introduce more plants in their lives, support them where they are at. Also recognize each person has different identities, stories, and viewpoints. I think it’s important that we encourage each other; let’s meet each other wherever we are and have more meaningful discussions that are free of judgement and exclusion. I have witnessed family and friends through their journey, who have shared how  they were inspired by the encouragement and judgement free discussions, the food and support. It really does take community support for better outcomes for animals, humans and the planet.

I hope this has inspired you to get cooking and to get creative in the kitchen. And remember, always be gentle on yourself and others in this plant-based journey.

To stay connected you can find us online at www.kulakitchen.ca,  ChopItUp.ca and Kula Kitchen and ChopItUpyvr on Facebook, Instagram, and Kula Foods on LinkedIn. We offer weekly delivery and pick up services that include offerings from our community. You can also find our products at our local partners spaces in BC. We love hosting events like our collective cooking classes to get folks together over food, and keep in touch to find out about events in the Vancouver Area.

If you’ve found this helpful, please consider sharing it! Don’t forget to subscribe to Vancouver Humane Society’s PlantUniversity Platform to stay updated on new content and to get involved in their work.

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