Makes one 400 gram (14 oz) block
(Vegan; no gluten, dairy or eggs)
Yes, dairy-free cheese. The texture is believable and it grates well. It’s most notable feature is how it convincingly melts over strong or direct heat… Read more
Featuring the culinary star of:
• Modern medical research.
• Time-honoured traditional practices.
• Contemporary convenience.
Scrumptious dairy- and gluten-free fare to enhance your health, pleasure and longevity.
By MARIA MIDDLESTEAD, Reg. Clinical Nutritionist
* * *
Benefit instead from the lessons of history and international research.
What is the secret ingredient to:
• The nation with the greatest longevity?
• The differing lifespans of individuals within that nation?
• Steady blood sugar regulation and easy weight management without restrictive, monotonous diets?
• Lowered risk factors for cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, sub-fertility, PMS, menopausal problems, breast, prostate and many other cancers?
The answer comes packaged in the form of diverse and adaptable convenience foods with over 2,000 years of safe and venerated use: soy products.
But what about the taste? No one blames the likes of pasta and potatoes for being bland. That very quality lets them successfully showcase a myriad of flavours, colours and textures. The same is true of soy – a playful cook’s best friend.
Let this book help you discover a new world of innovative yet simple recipes, tested by and designed for the tofu-shy. By using such products as soy-based yoghurt, cream cheese, milk and strategically incorporated tofu you can seamlessly update household favourites without fellow diners even noticing the difference. Try Salmon and Red Pepper Dip followed by Courgette and Walnut Fritters, Spanish Paprika Pasta, and Smoky Summer Salad with Mango Dressing. Save room though for a gasp-eliciting Mocha Cherry Gateau. While catering to your immediate visual and sensual pleasures, such dishes also promote the long-term good health and vitality essential for life’s sustained enjoyment.
From their hormone-balancing isoflavones, a critical ratio of amino acids that stimulates metabolic efficiency, key antioxidants to discourage abnormal cell growth, hard to obtain fatty acids critical to routing the inflammatory symptoms of most diseases, to their unusually advantageous proportion of calcium to magnesium essential in the right ratio for healthy sleep, moods, hearts and bones – soy brings an impressive menu of physiological and culinary benefits to your table.
While superbly advantageous in their own right, soy products also provide an easy substitution for modern, highly manipulated dairy products. By minimising your dairy intake you can limit its contribution as: the # 1 dietary source of adverse endocrine disruptors (linked to the growing incidence of hormonal problems and sub-fertility for both men and women); the # 1 most likely food sensitivity in New Zealand; an inflammatory protein source that respected scientific studies associate with the development of diabetes; and a poorly absorbed calcium content that can encourage osteoporosis.
Enjoy Maria’s latest e-book, which can only be purchased from this site.
(Mostly vegan options; no gluten, dairy or cane-sugar – plus options for nightshades)
Tofu Quick Tip
This is my favourite way of easily using tofu. It solves many a lunch and dinner dilemma. Guests assume it is cheese. Yet it has more protein, little saturated fat, and none of the adverse hormone disruptors of modern dairy products.
Bones are like massive bridges. They have to support an enormity of weight and pressure. Yet important maintenance must somehow be accomplished while the structure is still in use. Small areas are constantly being broken down and reformed: sections get removed and stronger new bone is deposited. In youth, bones grow in width, length and increase in density until about age 30. From then on breakdown is faster than bone formation, and density begins a gradual decline. Or the rate can be speedy depending on your lifestyle.
Breeding and Technology
Human and animal milk is not just a food but also a powerful concentrator and transmitter of hormones. These hormones and associated factors are designed to rapidly and substantially influence growth, metabolism and cell division. Just one of these constituent stimulants is IGF or insulin-like growth factor. Each type of mammalian milk has a unique formulation to suit the specific nurturance of a baby rat, elephant or human being.
Avoid all saturated fats. This is not only foolish but close to impossible. However it is a handy way to disqualify those who issue such sweeping nonsense. Every one of your 50 trillion cell membranes needs enough saturated fat and cholesterol for a firm, protective surround and enough unsaturated fat for flexibility. It is the quality of your fats that is most critical and the proportion of one type of fat to another in relation to your body-type and symptoms.
Consider this line of reasoning. If all tables have four legs, does that make everything with four legs a table? Or what about the incontrovertible fact that most people who develop breast, ovarian or cervical cancer wear dresses. Should we then assume that dresses cause cancer?
This is the problem when a real or apparent fact is applied broadly and taken out of context – which alters its meaning. Marketers and lobbyists with big budgets have successfully implanted public and institutional mindsets with concepts about calcium that are similarly askew. Calcium is critical for bones: fact. Dairy products contain calcium: fact. Therefore everyone needs milk for their bones: fiction. Yale University researchers reviewed 34 published studies in 16 countries and found that countries with the highest rates of osteoporosis (weak bones) “…are those in which people consume the most milk…”. Read more
Makes 1½ cups
(Vegan; no gluten, dairy or soy)
Even when the many options to butter substantially and tastily suffice, there will still be times when butter remains your preferred partner. Perhaps it and no other serves for the rich drip off corn on the cob, or a melting slather on just baked bread. If your lips cry, “Yes, yes”, but your hips, arteries or allergies say, “No, no”, then this is the recipe for you.
“The body…is the subconscious mind”. From Molecules of Emotion by neuroscientist Candace Pert PhD.
The nutrients in food help create and sustain your flesh, blood and bone. What may be more of a challenge to imagine is how your food choices can affect and alter your moods, perhaps your cravings for substances, rewards and experiences – even what you assume to be the nature of your personality.