I’m fairly new to the large world of vegan eating, I never thought I would ever even consider being vegan, but since I’ve started discovering all of these amazing plant-based superfoods I’ve really got a taste for a vegan way of eating, and animal products don’t particularly appeal to me any more.
Why did I become vegan in the first place, you might ask? Well, it all started in May 2015, when I read the startling evidence in ‘The China Study’ linking the consumption of animal products to the rise in almost all of our western diseases: Cancer, Heart disease, obesity, alzheimer’s, auto-immune diseases, diabetes and so on. The answer was simple, avoid animal products and avoid the top biggest killers in the Western world.
I’m now transitioning to a whole food (mostly unprocessed, natural foods) plant-based diet. It sounds incredibly restrictive, particularly when I add only natural-sugars and wholegrain and gluten free into the equation. But as I close doors to meat, dairy, processed foods and chemicals, refined sugars, white flours and white rice, I open the door to a whole kingdom of amazing new foods I’ve never discovered before, that now I not only love for their amazing tastes and textures, I love for the astonishing things they do to nourish my body better than I’ve ever been nourished before. Some of these things include chia seeds, nut butters, oats, sweet potato, quinoa, spinach, red rice, nut milks, seeds and nuts, dates, cacao.. I could go on all day!
Transitioning to a new lifestyle takes work, trying out what your body loves and hates is hard, and it’s the fine-tuning to get the best out of what I eat that I’m working on a lot at the moment. I’m researching vitamins and minerals, and super-sources for each one to make sure I nourish my body correctly and get all the nutrition I need to feel amazing. I’m hoping that years from now my body will be thanking me for it 10 times over, I’ve always hoped for beautiful glowing skin, silky hair and heaps of energy, and technically if I do this right that’s what I will finally get! (New instalment: May 2016, one year later, and I’m absolutely buzzing, happy and my body feels amazing. I still have minor issues with acne but this has improved dramatically).
My Cooking Explained
I’ve loved cooking all my life, food has always been a big part of it, and even more so now. But there’s a limit. I don’t like being in the kitchen for any more than an hour in a day or I get really stressed out that all I’ve done all day is cook. So I can guarantee nearly all of my recipes will be fairly quick and stress-free. I don’t like to use excessive amounts of ingredients, I won’t be one of those bloggers who asks you to use a whole jar of expensive coconut oil or 20 medjool dates in one recipe, because I just don’t see the need for it. And I don’t like using weighing scales. I’ll only use them if it’s really necessary, I will tend to use handfuls to measure dry ingredients (that’s one cupped hand, filled until the ingredients flow over the sides of my palm. Most of my recipes don’t need complete accuracy, as long as the consistency looks as I describe). For wet ingredients I usually use teaspoons, tablespoons and regular dessert spoons.
I’m not here to tell you what to eat or how to live your life. I just hope to inspire you to eat food that’s not only the best thing you’ve ever tasted, but with every mouthful you’ll nourish yourself too. You don’t have to be guilty about anything that’s so delicious it can’t be healthy, because I don’t cook with ANYTHING that’s unhealthy, so scoff away and eat yourself to the best you possible!!
If you have any questions, about anything, please don’t hesitate to ask using the comment boxes on any of my posts and pages!
laurenheartsfood.wordpress.com 
Many food products that contain gluten can damage the epithelial cells which line the small intestine that are responsible for enabling the body to absorb food into the bloodstream. Gluten becomes trapped in the protein pumps embedded within the microvilli (which are part of those epithelial cells), then the body’s immune system destroys the microvilli tissue to unclog the gluten (protein) that became trapped.
This basically happens because your body lacks the gene that’s needed to produce an enzyme capable of breaking it down/digestion of gluten, and so does every other lifeform on this planet because gluten is not a natural protein, it was genetically modified by humans so that wheat could produce more crop to make the farmers more profit £££.
A lot of distributers also state that their plant based products are “natural”, but that won’t mean that the plants were given an organic diet throughout development. Deadly pesticides and toxic chemicals are usually also used during production of none organic plants to increase yield. Even when they say that a plant based food product is “natural”, it doesn’t mean that the plant was fed on an “organic” diet, but if the plant is natural, and fed on an organic diet then that means that it has been completely untampered with by man, and that the food you are eating is 100 percent natural/was given its natural diet throughout development, so is less likely to contain mutations/toxic substances which are responsible for causing all of the problems that people are having.
From my own experiences… if it’s been tampered with by man, such as genetically modified, or given an unnatural/inorganic diet, then it’s probably going to be bad for you. You are what you eat!
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Thank you very much for this information. I am definitely going down the completely natural route as you state, I have noticed myself that a lot of things are clearly not meant to eaten as we do today. Have a wonderful day! x
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