Veganuary: Now What?

VEGANUARY – Now What?

You’ve taken the leap and its an exciting challenge but where to from here? Cruising the local supermarket Free From isles can be a total head space free fall. So many options and so many health claims that may or may not be true confuse the heck out of us mere mortals.

Our go to guiding light is to keep it simple and as unprocessed as possible.

Veganuary is an ideal time to explore a new dietary style, to stretch our tastebuds, get creative and find ways to increase our health. Your back stop is to reach out for whats familiar and all the latest meat substitutes make that a really easy option. But it truly is in essence a gateway to a world of amazing conscious cooking for vibrant healthy life.

Our main objective in starting Taw Valley Microgreens a year back this week (eeeek time flies) was to ensure a steady supply of locally grown fresh flavourful baby greens for our community and the hospitality industry.

However in the midst of the darkest coldest time of the year turning to salad or raw food is not exactly a turn on.

So why would you and how do we increase our intake of natural food and keep our taste buds happy?

It takes a bit of research and experimentation and the internet is an amazing tool for this. Mushrooms – so many meaty varieties available, beans including mung beans, lentils and the regular range of dried beans are all really healthy meat substitutes. Experimenting using herbs and spices is a simple way to up their flavour value but then theres also Taw Valley MICROGREENS! The fab news is they are more than simply adornments to a beautiful plate of food at a function or restaurant, they can be a main ingredient and they are tiny power houses of nutritious flavour.  Meaning a little goes a long way if you feel the need for some restraint.

Take a simple home made veggie soup and upgrade its cred to a double yum yum status with a base of onions and two servings (60grams) of rainbow mix microgreens (radish broccoli red cabbage salad mix). This is our super colourful anti- inflammatory mix. Add them to a curry – especially our coriander as their flavour tops any dried or ground seeds plus research studies have recently indicated their spike protein neutralising capabilities and theres something amazing about the zing in mashed potatoes with a handful of radish microgreens mixed in. The possibilities are there for the choosing and when we are forced to look at a meal not with meat as the focal point life gets really exciting, well eating does at any rate.

Most of us believe a vegetarian or vegan diet lacks protein and meat plus diary are our go – to supply, but all nuts, grains and legumes contain protein. Its just we don’t understand how much is enough  (80-120gr per day). This becomes more important if you decide to totally change your eating habits but for starters going meat dairy and egg free is just for January. There’s no rush to make a complete break just a slow growing awareness of how a change in diet can positively impact not just physical but mental health as well.

Our products are available through Dart Fresh distributors or contact Taw Valley Microgreens directly.