Lentil Loaf Recipe, Type 2 Diabetes Increases Your Cancer Risk, & Why My Klaxon Howls So LOUD

NOTE: those are COOKED lentils. Forgot to write that and someone made this with uncooked lentils much to their/my horror.

6.10.2020

If folks only hurt themselves with their harmful food choices, my heart would be heavy but my mouth would be silent.

Why is my klaxon so passionately loud? Because participating in animal agriculture isn’t just harming yourself (and that animal), it’s ruining the environment for every soul and species on this earth. There is no nutritional need or benefit: it’s sadly purely for taste and cultural comfort.

The selfish destruction of that cycle woke me the heck up (<— I was a total meat/dairy Hobbit), and it’s now my life’s duty to continue shaking awake as many others as possible. My son’s future is on the line (and that of millions of other species we share this planet with), so this energy is boundless.

What’s a great forward-moving path? Get that cow-carcass out of your house right now. Not only are beef cattle the one of biggest contributors to our environmental damage, consuming cow carcass ruins your microbiome and sets you up for a feast of preventable diseases (like cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes).

Meatloaf was never one of my favorite dishes (it grossed me the heck out), but Ian LOVED it. Guess what he loves even more? This lentil loaf. It has all of the dark umami flavor of your standard soul loaf, but it is a compassionate choice, environmentally-kind, budget-friendly, and nutritionally dense.

Continue for: our super easy Lentil Loaf recipe (plus added info on the nutritional bounds lentils have over cow carcass, budget comparisons, & environmental imperatives), how an animal-product-dense diet leads to Diabetes and how Diabetes increases cancer risk, and a full day of Plant-Based Whole-Food family feasting and thriving via Lifestyle Medicine pillars.

Live Kindly, Feast Kindly, Grow Forward.

NOTE: those are COOKED lentils. Forgot to write that on the paper.

Change the seasonings per your taste. We’ve made it with only paprika (when we didn’t have other seasonings on hand) and it was still delicious. Other seasonings just give it a different flare (ie oregano and thyme make it taste like a meatball loaf.)

Have a big family to feed? Double this and it fits in a lasagna style pan. Can be used in all sorts of meals through the week. (Plan to do this later today, actually.)

Any plant-milk can be subbed in.

What you need to get started: oats, flax meal, oatflour, oatmilk, cooked lentils, garlic, onion, seasonings.

(To make oatflour or flax meal, just add whole oats or whole flax seeds to a processor/blender/grinder.)

How to saute your onions without oil? Sear them in water and salt with the lid on.

If you want to add some oil, go right ahead.

Why wouldn't we use oil??
Because all the nutritionally-focused, whole-food docs hark that we need to limit our processed oil intake and this dish really doesn’t need it.
Why are oils considered processed? Because “They contain no fiber [like you get if you instead ate nuts, seeds, avocados, etc], no minerals and are 100% fat calories. Both the mono unsaturated and saturated fat contained in oils is harmful to the endothelium, the innermost lining of the artery, and that injury is the gateway to vascular disease.” .

Which docs are advising against oil? Dr Caldwell Esselstyn (gold medalist turned cardiologist/heart surgeon, who was the first to prove that you can reverse and prevent heart disease through no medications, just plant-based whole-foods), Dr Dean Ornish (another doc who proved the same reversal and prevention, and is now showing all sorts of other diseases one can avoid following a plant-based whole-food diet), Dr Neal Barnard (who showed all of the above and that plant-based whole-foods can reverse Diabetes or completely prevent you from getting it), the list goes on and on.

How they look after the first 1/2 cup has evaporated.

How they look after 2 more cycles.

While the onions are caramelizing, prep your dried ingredients.

You can also prep your grated garlic (I like to grate it into the last 1/2 cup of water so it can simmer and brown with the onions) and your glaze (recipe was above and will be coming up again below)

Onions with the grated garlic. Simmer for a few minutes until the excess water is gone.

Add the lentils and oatmilk.

Puree with an immersion blender.

Stir in dry ingredients.

Add to a loaf pan, spoon on glaze, and distribute evenly over the top (Q loves helping with this part).

Glaze ingredients. Simple enough. :-)

One of the best things about this lentil loaf is that you can taste-test it throughout the process without worry of toxoplasmosis, e coli, or salmonella.

Throw it in the oven @ 375 for about 40 minutes, or until set.

Voila!

With polenta, peas, and homemade marinara.

You can also slice this thin and use it on open-faced tacos.

We can’t get enough lentil loaf tacos these days! They are perfect for a hot night when you want a quick meal that is delicious, yet won’t heat up your house. Go get yourself a hot sauce you love, make yourself a big batch of quick-pickled cabbage, make a big batch of lentil loaf, and start slicing that deliciousness onto hardshell tacos and topping it with your heart’s delight.

Just like “meatloaf” tastes like saucier ground-up muscle; lentil loaf tastes just-like/but-better muscle-meatloaf, and it holds together better than ground beef. If you add it to a taco, you get all the flavor you want from muscle-meat, but you have it in an easier-to-eat-form. Plus it is healthier for you and better for the planet than the cow carcass.

This amazing delight was sparked by Crystal gifting us some amazing, plant-based tzatziki.

We put it on a wrap with thinly sliced lentil loaf, quick-pickled cabbage, peppers, greens, and hot sauce, and it tasted like shwarma! <3

Another shwarma-style but it had steam-seared mushrooms-onions—and-peppers on it too.

GOOD GRAVY. I could eat this all day, every day, all of the days!

Here’s a fun link showing that lentils are roughly $1.59 per pound, vs beef’s $4.98 (“based on Walmart.com price for 93% lean/7% fat lean ground beef tray”)

“Ok, I get it, lentils are cheaper, but they don’t compare to cow carcass on nutrition.”

Actually, 1 cup of lentils has 18g (72%) of your daily (ESSENTIAL) fiber. Guess how much that slaughtered soul is giving you? ZERO.

“But what about the protein! I need that animal’s muscle to get the protein I need to thrive!”

Again, FALSE.

And 1 cup of lentils has 16g of protein vs the 20g of protein in the cow. That’s plenty, and Americans are not at risk of protein deficiency. We’re at risk for FIBER deficiency. (Only 5% of us get enough fiber!)

That cow carcass is ruining our cardiovascular health, ruining the environment, harming another soul for naught, and we’re only eating it because we like the taste of it (despite all the harms).

Guess what lentils also have going for them?

• they have vitamins you won’t find in meat (Vitamin C and Vitamin K)

• they are flush with iron (necessary for your health)

• they are bursting with essential fiber (there is no fiber is animal carcass, breastmilk, or embryo)

• the have been clinically proven to be “protective against colorectal cancer”

• they actually promote cardiovascular health (instead of ruining it)

• they have free-radical fighting antioxidants

If you’re still hiding behind the excuse that you “need” animal products, you are sadly 100% wrong. Our leading doctors say the exact opposite (they say you need to cut animal products out of your family’s diet right now to stop the cardiovascular disease that begins in infancy); and you have Olympians, professional athletes, record-breaking ultra marathoners, professional bodybuilders, and the only American Olympic Level Weight Lifter out there inspiring you with their powerful Plant-Based example.

There is health/strength/energy/mental-keenness around the corner of forward movement.

The below is some more mind-opening info from Dr. Will Bulsiewicz’s book “Fiber Fueled”

How many folks do you know with the diseases seen above? My son has eosinophilic esophagitis and has a gluten intolerance bad enough it called for an endoscopy, my family is filled with eczema, and my mother died from sarcoidosis. I have friends and family with a many of the other diseases listed.

So, again: what you do with your body is your own choice, but Type 2 Diabetes is preventable.

You could be eating in a way that gives you robust health, strength, and vibrant energy…or you could keep eating animal products that fill your cardiovascular system so full of fats that the following happens:

“Fat in the bloodstream can build up inside the muscle cells, creating toxic fatty breakdown products and free radicals that block the insulin signaling process. No matter how much insulin we have in our blood, it’s not able to sufficiently open the glucose gates, and blood sugar levels build up in the blood. And this can happen within three hours. One hit of fat can start causing insulin resistance, inhibiting blood sugar uptake after just 160 minutes.”

Want some more information on this? Here’s

• a link from the American Diabetes Association also saying to cut out saturated fats and trans fats

• “Diabetes: Surprising new role of fat revealed”

• “Fat is the Cause of Type 2 Diabetes”

• A great podcast interview with nutritionist James Marin explaining how fats lead to diabetes, how to reverse the damage done by a fat-dense (<—animal products) diet, and a well-explained layout of our digestive system and how it correlates to gut-health-equals-whole-health.

• “What the Health” Documentary, which is full of doctors pointing to decades of research, studies, clinical trials, evidenced-based fact that animal products are causing diseases like diabetes.

• “Dr. Neal Barnard's Program for Reversing Diabetes”

• “A plant-based diet is a powerful tool for preventing, managing, and even reversing type 2 diabetes”