Journey to a Plant-Based Life
by Dawn Emery Ballantine
Heart disease is the biggest killer in America, followed by cancer, and trailing not far behind, complications from Type Two Diabetes. Nevertheless, I was shocked when my husband—a healthy, lifelong tennis-player—recently suffered a heart attack. Coming home from the hospital with a heart stent and a pile of meds, he immediately began to search for some alternatives. He read articles and watched documentaries (Forks over Knives, The Game Changers, What the Health, to name a few). Researchers were demonstrating tremendous improvements in cardiovascular health and a reduction in diabetes and cancer rates in people who removed all meat, eggs, and dairy products from their diet, and instead ate whole-foods (non-processed) meals made exclusively from plants.
Our research convinced us that this plant-powered diet would be the way to both heal his heart and continue to play tennis into his dotage. So, though he was a stalwart carnivore, we are now following a vegan diet and mostly loving it, in spite of reactions from friends and acquaintances that range from surprise to dismissive frustration.
Apart from health considerations, there are other compelling reasons to consider a more plant-based lifestyle. Greta Thunberg, the young climate change activist, has contributed to the conversation, amplifying the message that animal agriculture is responsible for 18% of global warming and climate change (a greater impact than the total of land, air, and sea transportation). This industry uses 20-33% of the world’s fresh water and occupies 45% of the world’s total land, which might otherwise be used for cultivation of crops.
Greta is not the only one calling out the ag industry’s impacts on the climate. A study by the University of Oxford showed that switching to a plant-based diet could reduce both your personal water use “footprint” by 50% and your contribution to greenhouse gas emissions by 73%.
Initial interest in the vegan diet came out of the animal rights movement, whose leaders encouraged people to avoid animal products because of the heinous way animals are treated in factory farms. And indeed, the more one researches this aspect, the clearer our personal choice remains. So begins our journey to plant-powered eating.
Cooking at home, I’ve enjoyed learning a host of new recipes and can usually whip up a feast of goodness, comfort, and health with the help of some plant-based cookbooks and Pinterest. The local food movement has made wonderful produce available year-round, whether through farmers markets or grocery stores. But sometimes it’s nice when somebody else does the cooking.
It’s easy to say that any restaurant should have at least one gluten-free, vegan option. There are a few fairly simple substitutions one can make to any traditional recipe (the delicious vegan tacos at Little River Inn come to mind), and concocting a stir-fry vegetable and rice/quinoa dish, or a baked potato with black beans and a salad, would go a long way toward making customers feel cared for. Even Forbes, a financial magazine, recently published an article on “How to Make Any Recipe Vegan.” Chains like McDonald’s, Chipotle, and Panera are now offering vegan options, the latter vowing to make at least 50% of its menu offerings plant-based. Celebrities are all aboard the vegan train, with the Golden Globes, the Oscars, and the Screen Actors Guild awards celebrations all offering vegan meals this year, the latter serving, for the first time ever, an entirely plant-based menu.
Our initial eating-out reality was not so shiny. My much-beloved Mexican restaurants often cook beans in lard and rice in chicken broth, and they put that yummy cotija cheese on everything (oh, how I miss that!). American-style restaurants have been the most challenging. With fewer alternatives, even the salads showcase cheese or have non-vegan dressings, and paying $15+ for a bowl of raw veggies is a bit off-putting. I recently went to a very nice restaurant, which we had enjoyed greatly in our omnivore phase, where I could “build my own” pizza. I came away with a $29 bill and the saddest pizza I’ve ever seen or tasted. (Note, I have made delicious gluten-free, vegan pizza at home, so I know it’s not that complicated or expensive.)
We have discovered that many restaurants put in the effort to provide options for folks with limiting dietary needs, like Plank in Cloverdale, where they made a delicious gluten-free, vegan sandwich with no fuss at all. And there are more than a few restaurants that feature plant-based cuisine in Mendocino County. Try The Ravens at The Stanford Inn (Mendocino) for multiple delicious vegan and gluten-free choices, as well as Fog Eater Café (Mendocino), Taste Buds (Ukiah), and Café One (Fort Bragg)—all yummy and happy to accommodate alternative diets. Little River Inn also offers super tasty vegan menu items, and it’s hard to beat that view! Asian and South Asian restaurants usually have a few options, such as vegan sushi or veggie rice noodle bowls—try Miss Saigon (Ukiah), Oco Time (Ukiah), Thai Spice (Cloverdale), and the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas restaurant (Ukiah), to name a few.
By following these new food tenets for the past few months, my husband’s lab numbers have enormously improved, and his medications have already been reduced. Greta and others are convinced that a plant-based diet will help to save our planet, and Joaquin Phoenix makes a poignant plea for the more humane treatment of our animal friends by not eating them and their by-products. I am on board for all of these reasons.
This seismic shift in our eating has been made easier thanks to the many vegan blogs and websites (check out WorldOfVegan.com or PlantBasedOnABudget.com). Some include shopping guides, tips on popular food chains with vegan options, and recipe alternatives to make the food we love healthier for us and the planet. In the interest of cleansing and hitting the restart button after the quiet of winter, going plant-based even one day a week could make a difference to our health, our animal friends, and our carbon footprint. Meatless Mondays, anyone?
Dawn Emery Ballantine lives in Anderson Valley, where she curates books for her bookshop, Hedgehog Books, edits this magazine, and enjoys learning new recipes to please the plant-based palate.
Photo by Mariana Medvedeva courtesy of Unsplash.
