Most of us grow up with the conception that milk is the number one source of calcium and a crucial part of a healthy diet. However, much of this hullabaloo is the result of strategic and clever ad campaigns by the dairy industry. Milk is actually neither the most reliable source of calcium, nor the beacon of health it’s cracked up to be.

Babies Drink Milk

Babies consume milk because it is a customized food that is easily digestible and provides them with the nutrients they need to grow and develop in the early stages of their life. But after they wean off mother’s milk, humans stand alone as the only species on earth that continues to drink milk, let alone from that of another animal!

It takes humans some sixteen years to reach maturity versus cows who do it only one year. And with cow bones three to four times bigger than human bones, just imagine the chemistry of cow milk in relation to that of human milk. Their calcium-protein ratios are geared towards the individual needs of their respective species. When humans consume cow’s milk, they are ingesting something that is not only ill-suited for their body’s needs, but something that also can be conducive to disease.

Over-Processed

Grocery store shelves are lined with pasteurized milk varieties. Pasteurization involves boiling milk to kill all bacteria. Most milk boxes that you see in grocery stores have undergone ultra-high temperature (UHT) pasteurization, which is when the milk is raised to a temperature of about 285 degrees Fahrenheit, enough to sterilize the milk and kill not only bacteria but also any beneficial enzymes. Homogenization is the process of breaking up fat globules to a smaller size so that they remain suspended evenly in the milk rather than separate and floating on the surface.

Both pasteurization and homogenization add further downsides to milk consumption. Heating milk compromises its nutritional value. Homogenization changes the structure of milk’s proteins and makes it much harder to digest. The body is usually efficient in removing potentially harmful elements of milk, but homogenization enables certain substances to sidestep the protection filter, such as the hormones and steroids that may have been administered to the cows to increase production.

Bone-Building Myth

The food industry has inculcated a deep sense of trust in milk for its bone-building properties. However, these widespread claims are now coming into question. According to a 12-year Harvard University study of some 80,000 women, those who drank milk three times per day broke more bones than those who rarely drank milk. Another study conducted by the Department of Public Health at the University of Sydney in Australia followed elderly men and women and found that higher dairy product consumption was associated with an increased risk of fracture. Those who had the highest dairy product consumption levels were also those that experienced double the risk of hip fracture compared to those with the lowest consumption levels.

Replace Milk

Calcium loss in bones occurs when calcium from bones dissolves in the blood stream, passes through the kidneys, and then leaves your body in urine. Reduce your sodium intake and you can decrease calcium loss in bones. Smoking is also a risk factor. According to a study of identical twins, in which one was a long-term smoker and the other not, the smoker’s risk of a fracture was 40 percent higher.

Lifestyle shifts can make a huge difference, without the false reassurance provided by milk consumption. Sure, dairy products contain calcium, but it is often accompanied by cholesterol, sugar, growth hormones, drugs, and other toxins, ultimately overshadowing the possible benefits. Opt for plant-proteins over animal-proteins, and you can avoid the leaching of calcium from your bones. Consume more beans, grains, and vegetables in place of fish, poultry, red meat, eggs, and dairy products.

A diet rich in easy-to-digest green leaves and vegetables including broccoli, Brussels sprouts, collards, kale, mustard greens, and Swiss chard is a great way to include calcium. They also contain many other important nutrients and minerals that are easily absorbed by the body. Beans are another great source of calcium. They are not only rich in calcium, but they also contain magnesium, which calcium works with to strengthen bones.

If you are looking for the consistency of milk rather than simply the benefits, try your hand at homemade nut milks or purchase them from your local grocery store.

Photo Credit: LollyKnit

The post Better than Milk? Dairy-Free Calcium Sources for Strong Bones appeared first on EcoSalon.

Easy substitutions for a plant-based lifestyle. 

One of the nasty pitfalls of becoming vegan or pursuing a more plant-based, healthy lifestyle is the allure of vegan or low-calorie products. These packaged goods mock the “real” thing with often not so forgiving preservatives, colorants, and other additives. That’s why one of the biggest challenges is finding simple, within-hands-reach ways to replace the most common ingredients with their vegan or healthy (and just-as-real) counterparts.

Brighten your kitchen, nourish your heart, and spread the love with these animal-friendly and nutritional kitchen substitutions.

Eggs

If you aren’t eating an egg-centric dish, chances are that a recipe calling for eggs is looking for either a binding or leavening agent. Eggs are viscous and hold ingredients tightly together, which is why they appear in most baked goods, burgers, and creams. They also help to leaven, or “rise” baked dishes. Depending on what you’re making, the replacement will change accordingly.

To replace one egg in a baked recipe, alternatives that have worked for me in include:

• 1 tablespoon a of ground flaxseed mixed in 3 tablespoons of water and allowed to sit until the mixture thickens
• 2 tablespoons of cornstarch or potato starch
• 1/2 large banana, mashed, but only for sweet recipes
• 1/4 cup applesauce, but only for sweet recipes

Keep in mind that the replacement should adjust according to the recipe. The flaxseed mixture wouldn’t work in a smooth batter, so opt for another alternative. If the recipe calls for more than two eggs, add some baking powder – 1/2 teaspoon per additional egg – as it will help with the rising effect.

For the pure purpose of binding ingredients in a mixture, the options are wide and varied. Instead of one egg, you could use 1/2 avocado, 2 tablespoons tahini, 2 tablespoons nut butter, 2 tablespoons bread crumbs, or 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast. Anything viscous and thick enough to hold things together without changing the taste will work. The dry replacements work best in mixtures with a liquid element.

Milk

This is probably the easiest of the bunch, because there is a hot market for dairy-free “milk” these days. Peruse the health section aisles at your grocery store and choose from the array of rice, almond, hemp, coconut, and soy milks. Avoid brands with too many additives – sugars, flavoring or preservatives.

Whenever I have the ingredients on hand, I like to make my own almond milk. All you need is 1 cup raw almonds, enough water to soak them in overnight, 1/2 teaspoon sea salt, and 3 cups water. Soak the almonds in the salt and water overnight. The next day, rinse them and toss into a blender. Blend them with 3 cups of water until thin. Separate the almond milk from its fibers with a cheese cloth. Drink immediately and store in the refrigerator.

Cheese

Dairy cheese can be replaced by any store-bought soy or rice-based cheese, but these often include strange ingredients that are necessary to achieve the same texture, taste, and look of cheese. They are also not much more forgiving in terms of calories and fat.

Luckily, these vegan alternatives make things a bit more interesting and are easy enough to make on the regular:

• white cheese dip
• sweet potato cheese
• basil cashew cheese

Keep in mind that when it comes to cheese, nutritional yeast is your most trusted accomplice. It has a cheesy flavor that, when paired with a creamy base, can mock cheese to the T (or C).

Gelatin

Ever wonder where gelatin comes from? It’s a protein obtained by boiling animal bones, tendons, ligaments, hooves, and skin. Not necessarily the kinds of things you associate with jellied candies, toaster pastries, cereals, and Jell-O.

Alternatives include carrageenan, agar-agar, fruit pectin, and locust bean gum.

Butter

In sweet recipes, you can replace up to 3/4 cup butter with applesauce. Replace the rest with a vegan butter substitution, such as Earth Balance. In cooking, where butter is scant, use a vegan substitution.

Oil

Oil has little benefit when it is cooked, literally, to death. Oil biochemically changes when it is heated, and it loses many of its nutritional benefits. Opt to enjoy oils in their raw, extra-virgin states. The healthiest raw oils include olive oil, grapeseed oil, avocado oil, walnut oil, sesame oil, flaxseed oil, and peanut oil. When cooking, use coconut oil – it has a high burning temperature and can withstand heat.

Buttermilk

To replace buttermilk, simply combine 1 tablespoon of white vinegar with 1 cup of vegan milk, such as almond, soy, coconut or rice milk.

Sugar

In baked goods, marinades, and sauces, maple syrup is a great replacement for sugar. In fact, I find that it gives the dish a deeper, more complex flavor, making it more unique and enjoyable to eat. You can replace every 1 cup of sugar with 3/4 cup of maple syrup. This requires that you reduce the dominant liquid in the recipe by 2-4 tablespoons, for consistency’s sake. Pick and choose with the liquids – you don’t want to sacrifice an important taste, so don’t reduce the oil or vinegar measurements when you have 2 or 3 cups of milk to take from. To offset maple syrup’s slight acidity, you may choose to add 1/4-1/2 teaspoons of baking soda. If the recipe calls for sour cream, buttermilk, or sour milk, skip the baking soda.

In tea and coffee, there is no need to reach for sugar anymore. Stevia is the only sweetener out there that has a zero-glycemic level and zero calories – to say nothing of its a-little-goes-a-long-way poster child status. Stevia is 300 times sweeter than sugar and if you find a brand that fits your tastes – I am a NuNaturals fan – you won’t be able to leave the house without it! I prefer liquid stevia, because it’s seamless to use and easy to carry around in my purse. A few drops later, and my beverages taste like liquid gold. One 2-ounce bottle tends to last me 3-4 months.

Some manufacturers have come out with powdered versions that can replace sugar in recipes. There are also sugar and powdered stevia mixes that aim to reduce sugar, but not completely nix it.

ALSO CHECK OUT: 

Vegan Chocolate Mousse with Sea Salt

Make Your Own Vegan Salted Caramel Ice Cream

Recipe: Vegan Avocado Alfredo Sauce

Aylin Erman currently resides in Istanbul and is creator of plant-based recipe website GlowKitchen.

Images: Furry Scaly, Robert S. Donovan, Tétine, Jeffrey W, MRBECK, Aylin Erman

The post 8 Substitutions for the Most Common Kitchen Ingredients appeared first on EcoSalon.

Learning to love avocados, one Alfredo recipe at a time.

Avocados often get a bad rap, but for the wrong reason – for being fat. It’s about time we all got over this myth. We need healthy fats in our diet for a properly functioning brain and nervous system, a strong heart, glowing skin and, dare I say it, a fit and thin physique. Sure, nix the saturated fats fraught in animal meat, dairy and eggs when looking to slim down or reach a greater sense of well-being, but avocados are plant-based and thus on an entirely different playing field.

Half an avocado has 15 grams of  heart-healthy unsaturated fat and only 2 grams of saturated fat. This is fat your body not only can recognize but also likes. Avocados are packed with fiber, potassium, vitamins C, K, and B6 and folate. They aid in digestion and help in the absorption of lycopene and beta-carotene.

Aside from its nutritional benefits, avocados are versatile in the kitchen. Their creaminess serves as the perfect base for made-vegan desserts, sauces and smoothies. A few slices of avocado can also substitute the mayonnaise in a sandwich or the yogurt, cream cheese or sour cream component in a dip. The possibilities are truly endless.

One of my favorite ways to take advantage of avocados’ smooth ways, is to use them as the foundation for an Alfredo sauce. The garlic, lemon and basil cut the avocado taste and leave behind a fragrant and rich sauce that is as satisfying and comforting as its dairy, butter and egg-laden counterpart, which, by the way, will not be missed.

Vegan Alfredo

Serves 2

Ingredients:

• 1 avocado
• Handful of basil
• 2-3 cloves of garlic
• Juice of 1/2 a lemon
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 2 servings of cooked pasta
• Garnish of lemon zest and black olives

Directions:

In a food processor, blend the avocado, basil, garlic, lemon juice and salt and pepper until smooth.

Mix the Alfredo into two servings of spaghetti cooked according to package instructions. Garnish with lemon zest, freshly ground black pepper and olives.

The freshly cooked pasta warms up the Alfredo sauce on contact, so don’t worry about this dish being cold.

Bon Appetit!

Aylin Erman currently resides in Istanbul and is creator of plant-based recipe website GlowKitchen.

The post Recipe: Vegan Avocado Alfredo Sauce appeared first on EcoSalon.

Have your gluten free walnut cake and eat it too.

Packed with protein, omega 3s, and antioxidants, walnuts are an excellent source of energy. Their rich flavor also makes them perfect to bake with. And why wouldn’t you want to bake a cake entirely out of walnuts? Enter the Fig and Coconut Walnut Cake.

This dense cake was inspired by a recipe in a recent issue of Bon Appetit, but with a few tweaks it quickly turned into a gluten and dairy free version. Add in figs, coconut and chocolate and you have a cake that’s just as good for breakfast as it is for dessert.

Fig and Coconut Walnut Cake

Ingredients:

• 3 1/2 cups raw walnuts
• 1/3 cup buckwheat flour
• 3/4 cup almond meal
• 1/3 cup vanilla sugar (place a vanilla bean in a jar of sugar and store in your pantry for easy use)
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup coconut oil
• 1/2 cup coconut milk
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/2 cup dried figs, chopped
• 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 teaspoon powdered ginger
• 1/4 cup shredded coconut + a couple of tablespoons for covering bottom of cake pan

Directions

Preheat oven to 350F.

Put walnuts in food processor and chop coarsely. Remove 1 cup and set aside in a bowl.

Add buckwheat, almond meal, salt and ginger to the remaining walnuts in the food processor and mix until well blended.

In a separate bowl, beat eggs and sugar together. Note: if you don’t have vanilla sugar, add in a teaspoon of vanilla extract.

In a saucepan, melt the coconut oil. Combine with sugar and eggs and mix in coconut milk.

Add in walnut, buckwheat and almond meal mixture along with the shredded coconut and chocolate chips and mix all ingredients together.

Fold in the remaining cup of chopped walnuts.

Put a tablespoon of coconut oil in a cake pan (I use a 9″ quiche dish) and place in oven until coconut oil is melted. Make sure the bottom of dish is completely greased and sprinkle a layer of shredded coconut. Pour in batter and bake for approximately 30 minutes or until edges of cake are lightly browned.

The post Sunday Recipe: Fig and Coconut Walnut Cake appeared first on EcoSalon.

If you haven’t heard, fancy-shmancy cupcakes are stealing the hearts of America as we downsize our celebrations with treats that fill us up, not out.

For a growing number of sweet teeth, four bites and one candle do the trick as we replace the wasteful sheet cake of old with an indulgent Red Velvet vegan confection made to order at your chic neighborhood cupcake boutique.

Call it theater in the round for the bakery hound!

The new stars are the vegan assortments  introduced by bakers such as Yummy Cupcakes in Los Angeles, which sells from its healthy alternative menu three days a week at its shops in Burbank and Santa Monica.

Yummy’s flavors include Almond, Blood Orange, Chocolate Chili,  Brown Sugar Cinnamon, and my favorite, the Arnold Palmer – black iced tea and lemonade.  They sell for around $3.25 a pop for the classic size and $1.50 to $1.65 for the mini size. Of course, you can buy them by the dozen, as well.

Tiffani Soforenko, one of the three partners at Yummy, says the vegan menu was  inspired by an offer to prepare cupcakes for talk show host Ellen DeGeneres and her crew. “We knew Ellen was a vegan and hadn’t done vegan recipes yet, and figured it was the perfect time to figure out how to do it,” she recalls. “We brought the red velvets for her and her staff and they were a huge hit.”

It took off from there. “We thought if we can make that, what else can we make? Our normal menu is 156 flavors and we do 43 as vegan,” says Soforenko.

What sets them apart? No animal-based products, eggs or butter or egg replacers. They are also topped with raw sugar instead of colored sprinkles. People with food and dairy allergies are gobbling them up!

Another gourmet vendor, Kara’s Cupcakes in San Francisco (with four Bay Area locations) proudly boasts it is “green” on its web page, from its sustainable local and organic ingredients to environmentally-friendly recyclable and compostable packaging to its bakeries built with green certification standards. It even uses green cleaning products and delivers its treats in ultra low emission vehicles. Plus, the cupcakes are to die for, from Kara’s Karrot on Halloween night to Raspberry Dazzle and Milk Chocolate Ganache.  They look good and are filled with good stuff. What else would you expect from the daughter of a dentist?

While pure ingredients are naturally in high demand in buff California, the notion of a greener cupcake is just now making its way to glitzy Miami, where the founders of Cupcake Nouveau – Cristina Valdes and Shayrin Badillo – are getting in the groove.

“We are in the process of developing new recipes that are sugar, gluten and dairy free,” shares Valdes, who says her South Beach clientele is all about glamor and chic. These skilled bakers are known for the artistic detail they add to their specialized cupcakes for weddings and fundraisers, such as pearls and roses adorning the Vanilla Bean Madagascar creations. You grow, girls!

Rather bake em yourself? Many of these gourmet cupcake companies offer cupcake party baking kits for around $42 that ensure hours of fun and a terrible mess for moms as the guests go crazy stirring, blending, frosting and decorating their visions. Either way, the naturally beautiful end result seems to be taking the cake.

Main Image: Cupcakes Nouveau

Image One: Yummy Cupcakes

Image Two: Cupcakes Nouveau

Image Three: Luanne Bradley

The post Green Ecosalon Recipes: Gourmet Cupcakes on the Rise with the Vegan Wise appeared first on EcoSalon.