Masala chai is a milky, spiced Indian tea. It’s delicious on a cold, rainy autumn or winter’s day, and also as a warming drink for your flask when out in the hills.
A variety of spices can be used and the ratios are really down to personal preference, but the mainstays are usually cinnamon, cloves, ginger, cardamom and fennel or star anise.
Ingredients:
Makes 4 cups
Almond/ rice/ soy milk – 2 cups
Water – 2 cups
10 cardamom pods
4 black peppercorns
1 star anise
1-2 cinnamon sticks
2 cloves
4 large slivers of fresh ginger
1 bay leaf
1 pinch of rose petals
2 teabags
1 teaspoon honey per serving – optional
Instructions:
Add the milk, water and spices to a large saucepan
Bring to a gentle simmer over a low heat
Add the teabags and allow to infuse for a few minutes
Strain the tea into mugs
Add a small amount (teaspoon or less) of honey to sweeten
If you use non-dairy milks such as almond or rice (which are naturally sweet) you don’t really need to add much, if any, sweetener
Are you confused by all the contradictory dietary advice out there?
Should you go low fat or low carb? Vegan or paleo? Ketogenic? Mediterranean? Pescatarian?
The truth is, it’s extremely difficult to prove that there’s one universal diet that’s superior to all others, certainly in terms of its effects on health and peak performance.
One thing is clear, we shouldn’t be eating the prevailing low quality Western diet, which is high in refined sugar, processed and red meat and saturated fat. This pattern of eating has resulted in 2 billion people being overweight or obese, and has fuelled the increasing prevalence of non-communicable diseases such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer (1,2).
In reality, many people will derive significant health benefits if they stick to a few simple, evidence based food principles.
However, if we really want to answer the question of “what should we eat?” then we must also consider planetary health, as this is inextricably linked to our own health and survival.
And when we take the planet into consideration, the answer is very clear: we should eat a plant-based diet.
This is the conclusion of a number large-scale, mainstream scientific studies (3,4,5), including the recently published literature review by the EAT-Lancet Commission (1).
So why is a plant-based diet best for the planet?
To answer this we need to look at our current system of food production, which we now understand to be the single largest contributor to environmental degradation.
Food systems account for up to 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions(1,3,5). However, climate change is only part of the story. Food systems drive a range of serious environmental issues that now threaten human health and survival, including biodiversity loss, eutrophication and depletion of fresh water supplies.
Food production is the largest cause of global land-use change, with 40% of terrestrial land used for crops and grazing. This has resulted in massive biodiversity loss, to the extent that we are witnessing the Earth’s 6th Mass Extinction Event. Species are being lost 100-1000 times faster than the natural background rate. 80% of extinction threats to birds and mammals are due to agriculture (1).
The impact of humans and our agriculture is now so great that it has drastically altered the make-up of global biomass (the total weight of living matter in a given area).
Humans comprise just 0.01% of Earth’s total biomass, but our impact is disproportionately large; 96% of all mammals are either humans (36%) or our livestock (60%) – mainly cattle and pigs. Only 4% of mammals are wild. 70% of all birds on the planet are farmed poultry. Only 30% are wild (6).
Food production is responsible for 78% of eutrophication (1,5). This refers to the excessive application of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilisers, which are washed off into streams and rivers, causing algal blooms and hypoxic conditions in freshwater and marine ecosystems, which results in widespread coastal “dead zones,” devoid of aquatic life.
In areas where fish still exist, 60% of the world’s fish stocks are now fully fished, and 30% are overfished. Catches by global marine fisheries have been declining since 1996 (1).
The overall negative impacts of our food systems are very clear, but we still need to eat. So what we really want to know is: which food products are ecologically sustainable, and which are harmful.
To answer this, Joseph Poore and Thomas Nemecek performed the largest study to date of the impacts of agriculture on the environment, and their results were published in Science in 2018 (5).
They undertook a global analysis of data from 38,700 farms in 119 countries, looking at 40 food products, in terms of their effects on five key environmental indicators: greenhouse gas emissions, land use, acidification, eutrophication and freshwater withdrawals.
They found that even the most sustainable animal products exceed the average impacts of plant protein. As a result, if we were to switch to a plant based diet, it would reduce land use by 76%, greenhouse gas emissions by 49%, acidification by 50%, eutrophication by 49% and freshwater use by 19%.
In countries such as the UK, Australia and the USA, where meat consumption is 3 times the global average, the effects would be even greater.
The authors concluded that moving from a meat-based to plant-based diet has “transformative potential” and that avoiding meat and dairy is the single biggest way we can reduce our ecological impact.
But what exactly should we eat? What does a diet that is both healthy and ecologically sustainable look like?
This key question was finally addressed by EAT-Lancet Commission (a joint project by the Norway based NGO EAT and the Lancet Medical Journal), which undertook an extensive literature review and published its results earlier this year (1).
They came up with a universal healthy reference diet, or Planetary Diet, which is predominantly plant-based, provides 2500 kcal per day, and consists largely of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts and unsaturated oils. It specifies a low to moderate amount of seafood and poultry, and no or low amounts of red meat, processed meat, added sugar, refined grains and starchy vegetables.
In practice, the Planetary Diet is similar to a Mediterranean or Okinawan Diet, which for many Europeans represents quite a shift in the way they eat. It would involve a 77% reduction in red meat consumption (by allowing only 1 beef burger per week), 15 times more intake of nuts and seeds, 2 servings of fish per week, 1-2 eggs per week, and 1 glass of milk per day (or 250g of full fat milk products).
So, having read this, are you now going to adopt the Planetary Diet, or perhaps go completely vegan? Maybe not…
Behavioural change is notoriously difficult. Even if there was widespread acceptance of the problems associated with our current level of consumption of animal products, awareness of an issue is no guarantee that people will adopt a more sensible path, as most health practitioners will attest.
This is certainly true for plant-based dietary change, probably because for many societies, eating animal products is the traditional, dominant eating pattern. A rejection of meat represents a rejection of social norms. It’s also important to appreciate that food confers much more than nutritional needs. It’s a source of pleasure, personal identity and economic status. In many developing countries eating meat is aspirational and symbolic of wealth. For some people, meat is associated with masculinity.
This is borne out by studies of public perceptions surrounding food impacts and dietary change, which suggest that there can be scepticism of the scientific evidence, resistance to the concept of reducing meat intake, and that non-food related behaviour change is deemed more acceptable (7).
However, eventually a threshold is usually reached, beyond which our resistance to change is overpowered by the realisation of the gravity of a situation, accompanied by a sense of urgency; such as when a patient receives a diagnosis of a life-threatening condition and finally feels compelled to make radical lifestyle changes. Perhaps as a society we are approaching that point with environmental degradation and non-communicable diseases.
Recently it feels as if the tide may be turning, with the global support for Greta Thunberg and the climate strikes, the Extinction Rebellion protests, and the increasing cultural acceptability of plant-based eating.
Make no mistake, we have very little time left to limit climate change to a survivable level and prevent further irreversible biodiversity loss. We urgently need to make transformative changes if we hope to do this, and there is no doubt that a global shift towards healthy, plant-based diets represents a very powerful tool.
If you still need some convincing, or are finding it difficult to make the leap to a more plant-based lifestyle, here are a few tips and suggestions:
First, watch the movie “Cowspiracy” (you can find it on Netflix).
Start experimenting with plant-based eating. There are now tonnes of resources out there (even confirmed omnivorous chefs such as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Jamie Oliver are jumping on the bandwagon). The key is to find a tribe that suits you.
Willett W, Rockström J, Loken B, Springmann M, Lang T, Vermeulen S, et al. Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems. The Lancet. 2019 2019/02/02/;393(10170):447-92.
Afshin A, Sur PJ, Fay KA, Cornaby L, Ferrara G, Salama JS, et al. Health effects of dietary risks in 195 countries, 1990–2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017. The Lancet. 2019;393(10184):1958-72.
Aleksandrowicz L, Green R, Joy EJM, Smith P, Haines A. The Impacts of Dietary Change on Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Land Use, Water Use, and Health: A Systematic Review. PLOS ONE. 2016;11(11):e0165797.
Clark M, Tilman D. Comparative analysis of environmental impacts of agricultural production systems, agricultural input efficiency, and food choice. Environmental Research Letters. 2017 2017/06/01;12(6):064016.
Poore J, Nemecek T. Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers. Science. 2018;360(6392):987.
Bar-On YM, Phillips R, Milo R. The biomass distribution on Earth. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2018;115(25):6506.
Macdiarmid JI, Douglas F, Campbell J. Eating like there’s no tomorrow: Public awareness of the environmental impact of food and reluctance to eat less meat as part of a sustainable diet. Appetite. 2016 2016/01/01/;96:487-93.
I think I could eat a Buddha Bowl every night of the week. Endless variations on a simple theme: one third grains, one third veggies and one third protein. Then top it off with a delicious sauce.
Serves 4
Ingredients:
Carbs/ Grains
Brown rice – 1 cup
Quinoa – 1 cup
Veggies and protein
Medium broccoli – half
Medium cauliflower – half
Medium carrots – 2
Red capsicum – 1
Chickpeas – 1 tin (approx 230g)
Cumin – 2 teaspoons
Coriander – 1 teaspoon
Smoked paprika – 1 teaspoon
Cayenne pepper – 1/2 teaspoon
Tamari/ soy sauce – 1-2 tablespoons
Garlic – 2 cloves
Lime -1 squeezed
Avocado – 1 chopped
Satay sauce
Almond/ peanut butter – 1/2 cup
Warm water – 1/2 cup
Japanese rice vinegar – 1/4 cup
Tamari (or soy) sauce – 2 teaspoons
Sesame oil – 2 teaspoons
Honey – 1 teaspoon
Lime juice – 2 teaspoons
Instructions:
Rinse the rice and quinoa and place in a saucepan
Cover with water and bring to the boil
Once boiling, reduce the heat to minimal, place a lid on the saucepan, allow to cook for approximately 20 minutes. Turn off the heat and allow the grains to absorb for another 10 minutes or so.
Meanwhile, roughly chop up the brocolli, cauliflower, carrots and capsicum and place in a baking dish
Add the drained chickpeas, spices and tamari to the veggies and mix together well
Place in the oven (at 180°C) and cook for 20 minutes
Meanwhile, make the satay sauce…
Mix together the nut butter and warm water until it has a smooth consistency
Then add the tamari, sesame oil, rice vinegar, honey and lime juice and mix together
After 20 minutes in the oven remove the veggies, add the garlic and mix together
Bake for another 10-15 minutes
Remove the veggies and make your Buddha Bowl…
Place the rice and quinoa mix at the bottom of the bowl and cover with plenty of the baked veggies
Top with a few table spoons of the satay sauce and some chopped avocado
A rich, nutty, chocolate mousse. There are other takes on the plant-based chocolate mousse but this one is a favourite, and uses silken tofu as the secret ingredient. Don’t let this put you off! (but check out this recipe for avocado chocolate mousse as well)
Ingredients:
(Serves 4)
Mousse
Silken tofu – 300g (drained)
Smooth nut butter – 100g
Maple Syrup – 1 tablespoon (substitution – honey)
Dark Chocolate – 100g (melted)
Chia seeds – 1 tablespoon (optional)
Fine sea salt – pinch
Berry Compote
Mixed frozen berries – 1 cup
Honey – 1 tablespoon (optional)
Instructions:
Place the tofu, nut butter, maple syrup, melted dark chocolate, chia seeds and salt in a food processor and blend until smooth
Spoon the mousse into individual bowls, cups or glasses (spatula also required)
For the compote, heat the frozen berries (+/- honey) gently in a saucepan
Stir gently to prevent sticking
Allow to cool
Place a few spoonfuls of compote on top of the mousse
Leave in the fridge for a couple of hours before eating
This is a great plant-based alternative to the usual go-to option of eggs on toast for breakfast or lunch. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of scrambled or poached eggs, just not all the time. We also need to get over our preconceptions about tofu – it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but it provides an extremely useful source of healthy protein, and is very tasty when cooked properly, especially with an asian style sauce. Stir-frying tofu works well; marinading and baking it is even better.
Ingredients:
Olive oil – 1 tablespoon
1 small red or brown onion -finely diced
1 small cauliflower – chopped into small floret
1 red capsicum – diced
2 handfuls of kale – roughly chopped
225g block of extra-firm tofu – roughly chopped into walnut size pieces
Garlic – 2 cloves
Fresh ginger – 1 inch block – grated
Tamari or soy sauce- 1 tablespoon
1 carrot – shredded
Fresh coriander – 1 handful – roughly chopped
Directions:
First drain the tofu, wrap it in kitchen roll and place between two plates or small chopping boards. Now place a weight on top to help compress the water out. Allow 30 minutes for this if possible.
Get a large frying pan or wok and cook the onion in the olive oil for a few minutes
Now add the cauliflower, red capsicum and kale and stir fry for 5 minutes or so (try not to overcook the veggies)
Then add the garlic, tofu, tamari and ginger, and cook for another few minutes
Finally stir through the shredded carrot and coriander
I wouldn’t exactly call scones a superfood, but they can certainly be made into a vaguely healthy snack: they’re home made, delicious, especially with home made jam on an autumn or winters afternoon, and can be easily be made dairy and gluten free.
There are countless recipes for scones, but the basic method is extremely simple, which means you can knock out a batch in less than 30 minutes: 5 minutes preparation and approximately 20-25 minutes baking time.
Some recipes add egg to the mixture, but I’ve never found any advantage to doing this, and adding sugar is completely unnecessary – you’re about to cover them in jam!
I’ve given the basic scone recipe below, which is very quick and easy, but check out this other recipe for a more interesting variation.
Basic scone recipe:
Ingredients:
Self-raising flour (gluten free works fine) – 3 cups
Olive oil or butter – 3 tablespoons
Milk (cow’s milk, rice milk, oat milk, it doesn’t matter) – 1 cup
That’s it!
Instructions:
Pre-heat oven to 180°C
Mix the flour and oil/ butter in a bowl
Rub together with your fingers until you get a fine breadcrumb-like texture. (you can sift the flour if you want but I find it doesn’t makes a great difference to how the scones rise)
Make a well in the middle of the mixture and pour in the milk
Mix, just enough so you get a smooth dough, but try not to over-mix or knead
Flour your hands and roll out the mixture into a slab about 3-4 cm thick
Use a cookie cutter (or knife) to cut out your scones – you should get about 6-8 depending on size; place on a baking tray
Brush the tops of the scones lightly with milk
Bake in the oven for approximately 20 minutes, or until a light brown colour
Serve immediately with jam or honey
(Tip: pack the scones tightly together on the baking tray – they will rise better)
Essentially this a big bowl of goodness – rice, quinoa and veggies, set off with plenty of fresh herbs. As always, swaps and variations are possible; I like to add peas and tofu to the mix.
Serves 4
Ingredients:
1 small leek
1 large clove of garlic
1 tsp of ground cumin
1 tsp of ground coriander
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1 cup quinoa, washed
1 cup brown rice, washed
1 tsp miso paste
1 small can corn (160g)
1/2 can black beans or kidney beans (200g)
1 small red pepper, chopped
1 avocado, diced
Handful of cherry tomatoes, quartered
Small bunch each of fresh coriander, mint and parsley, chopped
Squeeze of lime
A pinch of dried chilli flakes
Instructions:
Add the leek, garlic, cumin, coriander and smoked paprika to a large pan and soften over a low heat for a few minutes, with a splash of olive oil or water
Then add the rice, miso paste and 3 cups of water
Increase the heat, and bring to the boil, then cover and simmer on low heat for about 5 minutes
Then add the quinoa and simmer for another 20-25 minutes until the rice and quinoa mixture is cooked
Next, add the corn, beans and pepper, and up to 1 cup of water to prevent to mixture becoming too dry
Cook for another further 5 minutes, until all the water has absorbed
Remove the pan from the heat and add the chopped herbs, avocado and cherry tomatoes
Finally, add a squeeze of lime and a pinch of dried chilli flakes and serve