For me, the events that led to the creation of this blog, started with the discussion of nutrition with my 5 year old right after Halloween last year. The conversation revolved around why we couldn’t eat Halloween candy for every meal and we needed to eat nutritious foods that were good for our bodies.
I could tell he wasn’t quite understanding and I have found that educational videos or shows seem to best get the point across when conversation is not working. So I put on “Super Size Me” and while he zoned out halfway through, he did understand the big picture that if you eat burgers, fries, and sweets every day it eventually makes you sick and overweight.
After we watched “Super Size Me” Hulu recommended more food documentaries and 5 documentaries later I decided to switch to a primarily whole foods plant based diet. It was tough at the holidays, but I participated in family meals and work pot lucks by mostly selecting fruit and veggie options and just tried to limit what else I put on my plate.
At New Year’s my husband decided to join me as he had found most of the vegan meals I had been cooking were quite tasty and we were on our way to a permanent change in household eating habits.
The decision to start the blog stemmed from my attempts to adapt my old recipes to whole food plant based ingredients. It has been more difficult than I expected, especially when baking, the recipes fall flat or are gummy, and it has required me to learn to cook with new ingredients and new techniques.
Most of our extended family members are not vegan, so some of the recipes I’ll share are what I make for holidays, special occasions, or an occasional stray from our plant based diet. However I do cut sugar, salt and dairy as much as possible while still maintaining taste standards. It’s amazing, you can usually cut salt almost in half and sugar by a third on most recipes and it tastes almost the same.
The positive side effect of the switch to a vegan diet? Both my husband and I have lost weight, the eczema I’d been fighting for 10 years disappeared almost overnight, and we feel better. The negative side effect? I can’t fit all the produce in our produce drawers in the fridge 😉
A couple of disclaimers, I’ve listed some of the recipes as vegan or vegetarian, but that all depends on what ingredients you use and in some cases what brand you buy, so please check the labels. I actually found when I was trying to cook cornbread here recently, the cornbread mix I bought had animal shortening as the 4th ingredient so that one ingredient changed my recipe to where it was no longer plant based and it quadrupled the calories compared to regular cornbread mix.
I’m not a nutritionist or doctor, so please consult your doctor before making any radical changes in diet. Please exercise caution regarding you and your family’s safety by using safe kitchen practices and awareness of food allergies when trying these recipes. This website shall not be responsible for any adverse reactions resulting from using the recipes listed.
These recipes work for me, you may have to modify based on your local humidity, altitude or food sensitivities. If you found a modification that works well for you, please list it in the recipe comments as it may help others.
I’ve included nutritional information as a courtesy through Nutrifox. It gathers nutritional information from the USDA Food Composition Database. Actual nutritional information will vary based on the ingredients you use and amounts of each ingredient used. I’ve classified low sodium recipes as less than 140 mg per serving, moderate sodium as less than 400 mg per serving, low cholesterol as less than 20 mg per serving and low sugar as less than 8 g per serving based on current dietary recommendations.
I appreciate you visiting my website and hope you can find some recipes that work well for you and your family. If there’s any recipes that you would like to see, please email me at jennifer@homemadesbetter.com.
Best wishes,
Jennifer