You can reap the health rewards of a plant based diet with small baby steps. Contrary to vegan propaganda, it’s not all or nothing, the health benefits are proportional to the percentage of plant based calories you eat. The ability of a plant based diet to reduce the chance of heart disease and cancer is pretty clear. If you interested in improving your health a bit and want to give vegan a try, this crock-pot chili is a perfect way to start because it literally takes 5 minutes and dirties only one dish. Here is the chili recipe:
- soak beans for 8 hours then drain and rinse
- add chopped onion, tomato sauce and spices
- cook overnight in crockpot on low heat
Instant meals!
Here is the best part, this chili freezes well. Keep a supply in your freezer so that when you are late for work, you can just pull it out of the freezer, stuff it into your insulated lunch box, and run. Starved at home and thinking about going out to eat because you have not had time to go to the store? Pull chili out of the freezer and heat it up!!!
But beans give me gas!
Gas production is a sign of a healthy digestive system, poot and be proud. When you go from a highly processed typical American near fiberless diet to one that has lots of naturally occurring fiber, there is going to be a transition period but after a few months your system will adapt. Its your system creating a new healthy colony of good bacteria in your gut to help process that natural fiber.
Vegan Benefits
If you are starting out with plant-based nutrition, please do not fall into the trap of thinking that anything vegan is healthy, its NOT! There are morbidly obese and unhealthy vegans. Remember that “plant based” or “vegan” nutrition in of itself is neither healthy or unhealthy. I can guarantee you that if you walk down the snack aisle at the grocery store and choose vegan cookies, vegan cake, and vegan potato chips you will be just as fat and unhealthy as the average American is. Highly processed food is never healthy, doesn’t matter whether the bold print on the plastic packaging in the store proclaims “Vegan!”, “Gluten Free!”, “Low Cholesterol!” or “Seven Grain!” – its all krap. If you want healthy, head to your kitchen and spend 5 minutes to toss these ingredients into the crockpot before going to bed.