Bringing a little joy to the kitchen
Photo by travelingmcmahans [Dana McMahan] via Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0)
A number of the items on her list aren’t necessarily specific to vegetarian cooking, but #1 is: “Vegetarian meals are satisfying to the point that meat is superfluous.” As she writes,
I rediscovered how delicious, how satisfying all-veggie meals are and that we really don’t notice the lack of meat on the plate when we skip it. So many vegetarian dishes are flavorful and hearty, completely filling and interesting to the senses. Should we crave meat, sure, we can add a small portion of a locally raised chicken or something. But we haven’t once cared to add meat to the menu since I started cooking again. It feels great to return to a way of eating that I know is more sustainable, more healthy, and have it not feel like a deprivation.
And, for one more preview, here’s a bit of her explication of reason #3, “Making food pretty makes you feel more satisfied during and after a meal”:
Jan Chozen Bays, in her book Mindful Eating, writes of the seven hungers: eye hunger, nose hunger, mouth hunger, stomach hunger, cellular hunger, mind hunger and heart hunger. We eat for different reasons, and usually because we are feeling at least one of these hungers though we may not be hungry in the way we normally think we are, when our stomach is empty. Our bodies might be craving a certain nutrient, or our hearts might be craving a childhood comfort food. But in this culture of rushing and hurrying, what we often don’t realize is how many hungers we can satisfy by taking the time to make our food beautiful and enjoying that process and sight before we eat.
Find the full post here.
And, for a little inspiration, check out Heimbuch’s “12 Easy recipes for eating local and vegetarian in March.”
The Conscientious Omnivore 