"Loaded Potato Soup" Recipe & More Planetary Imperatives
6.16.2020
I think the human zeal to have a competition to see who can shove the most food down their gullets is one of the most awful things we do as a society (especially in a country where so many go hungry), but it’s topped by humanity’s race to throw as many animals into confined mass-farms as possible, stuff them full of antibiotics (leading to our own antibiotic resistance), feed them their own piglets, and slaughter them so we can gobble them down and fill ourselves with preventable disease while also continuing to ruin the planet.
In case you didn’t want to click that link about piglets: “Footage from a 2014 undercover investigation by The Humane Society of the United States shows pigs being fed diarrhea and the ground-up intestines of their own piglets.”
So, you could eat that.
You could eat your typical “Loaded Potato Soup” which usually has ham or bacon from a pig whose diet you want no part of, whose factory farmed existence is driving us toward environmental collapse, and whose salty muscle has been listed as a carcinogen by the World Health Organization for since 2015.
More so, this “tasty” pig has tested to be more intelligent than dogs, and has suffered all its life merely for taste, yet its natural inclination is to thrive in a matriarchal system and sing to its young.
As someone who used to “love” bacon, I want absolutely no part of that suffering in my life anymore.
Want to move forward too? Snuggle into a big bowl of this soup which has all the same flavor of the standard spud soup, but is bursting with kindness and health.
How does our version manage to be plant-based yet still have all the complicated layers of your typical Loaded? I use smoked paprika and caramelized onion to bring it the same smokey, umami flavor of cured muscle, and nutritional yeast gives it the creamy tang one would usually get from processed cow breastmilk.
Why would you want to avoid those tasty delights? I’ve covered that here and here.
The result of shifting it plant-based? A soup so good that if Ian and I were forced into a food competition, this is what we’d be wanting to be gluttonously gobbling. I’d attach a whole pot of it to my mouth like one of those horse feeders if I could.
Continue for: Plant-Based Whole-Food “Loaded Potato Soup”, even more planetary imperatives (fresh and forward-shaking podcast), and 2 full days of a family thriving on Plant-Based foods and Lifestyle Medicine pillars.
Live Kindly, Feast Kindly, Grow Forward.
What you need to get started: onion (or shallots), garlic, potatoes, smoked paprika, nutritional yeast, salt.
What’s “healthy” about a plant-based potato soup?
Minerals and vitamins (even Vitamin C)
Antioxidants (<— Why would I want those? They are anti-inflammatory.)
Alliums (the onion and garlic) contain cancer-fighting compounds
Wait, “cancer fighting”?!
“Eating vegetables of the Allium genus like garlic and onions has been linked to a lower risk of certain cancers, including stomach and colorectal.
A review of 26 studies showed that people who consumed the highest amount of allium vegetables were 22% less likely to be diagnosed with stomach cancer than those who consumed the least amount (17).
Moreover, a review of 16 studies in 13,333 people demonstrated that participants with the highest onion intake had a 15% reduced risk of colorectal cancer compared to those with the lowest intake (18).
These cancer-fighting properties have been linked to the sulfur compounds and flavonoid antioxidants found in allium vegetables.
For example, onions provide onionin A, a sulfur-containing compound that has been shown to decrease tumor development and slow the spread of ovarian and lung cancer in test-tube studies (19, 20).
Onions also contain fisetin and quercetin, flavonoid antioxidants that may inhibit tumor growth.”
And, AGAIN: this is unlike the bacon and ham that is actually classified as a Group 1 carcinogen… which means there is no doubt, they are directly linked with colorectal cancer.
Dice up the onions or shallots first and add them to the pot so you can start caramelizing them.
You’ll do this with water and salt, just like in the lentil loaf and refried bean recipes.
Or you could do oil too, if that’s your jam.
And when I say “grated garlic” to truly mean freshly grated garlic. Not granulated garlic. :-) This imparts a totally different flavor.
Chop up the potatoes and add them to the pot of onion and garlic.
Season and cover with water. Bring to a boil and let simmer for about 30 minutes.
Remove the bay leaf (and keep to put back in) and use and immersion blender to puree once the potatoes are soft. Add more water if necessary. Season to taste. Add back in the bay leaf. Simmer for another short spell.
Enjoy immediately or throw it in the fridge and use it throughout the week.
We eat it in big bowls with all sorts of additions like: roasted broccoli, mushrooms, quinoa, and garlicky kale.
Or buffalo hempeh, brussel sprouts, broccoli, and garlicky kale.
Or (my favorite): with bell peppers, quick-pickled cabbage, kale & quinoa salad, and mushrooms.
Q’s Morning Chalkboard (sandworm and an octopus) and a visual reminder of why I need to cut back mornings of typing: we need to paint this house ourselves and this body is needed outdoors helping with that venture.
Sunday Plant-Based Breakfast: strawberry oatmeal, a bit of the black bean brownie, apple, “breakfast cereal” cream, and peanut butter.
Before
After
Did my best to turn the hedge in the back into a sandworm for Q. It’s total j-level art: haphazard and impressionistic.
(Ian is a total meticulous meaningful realist, Q is fantastical with a Wes Anderson quirk of doing so precisely as he views it.)
Old wood for a tongue, and Q make this tiny Fremen. <3
Grandma - “Interesting. Why did you decided to not give him legs?”
Q - *sounding like a total teenager* “Grannnndma, it’s a robe. Fremen wear robes.”
Amazing discovery: you can slice up the lentil loaf and throw it on a hardshell taco and top it with seared peppers/onions, fresh greens, quick-pickled cabbage, and hot sauce and it is AMAZING.
As soon as I can have people over to the house THIS is what the appetizer will be, because I could also attach a plate of these like a feed trough and eat happily all the livelong day as well.
Also amazing (and a plant-based whole-food): blueberry and mango nice cream.
Sunday Grandma and Grandpa came over for a distant spell. Q ran back and forth showing Grandma Tara all his latest fantastic drawings, and eventually they just sat and chat.
(I’d spent the afternoon trimming the quince bush and lilac tree on the back of the house, and Ian continued preparing the East wall for me to start painting.
We still have Good Planet Cheese kicking around, so I made black bean and buffalo hempeh enchiladas, and served with seared onion-and-peppers, fresh garden greens, and quick picked cabbage and it was AMAZING.
I’m going to try to post how to do our homemade enchilada sauce soon, but if you want to buy some Frontera makes a great sauce
There are souls I love who say they are tired of their cooking thus this remain-in-place is driving them crazy, and my heart breaks at the thought. I wish I could cook for anyone who wails that lament. Not only does a day never pass that I am tired of my cooking, I’m loving every dang meal and dessert to the point of holding myself back from hovering over the fridge (there are too many dang things to do for me to be eating berry bread and brownies all day!)
I thought I ”couldn't live” without cheese/meat, yet I’m LOVING this food realm significantly more and feeling stronger/better while doing so! (Not sitting back and wailing that I can’t eat the muscle of some soulfully singing mama pig.)
Get ye some quick-pickled cabbage in your system and let that fiber start radiating out some light. Get ye some black rice and find a blast of minerals in a world of pale white nonsense food. And for good heavens! Make sure you’re eating something green several times a day!
Our weekend swept by in a breeze and I forgot to photograph Sunday’s books, so on we go to Monday morning.
Monday morning was also a whirl and I caught Q making his breakfast midway, and it was gone before I remembered to take another photo. :-)
It was strawberry oatmeal, a sliver of black bean brownie, banana, and oatmilk.
Q: drawing any moment he isn’t speaking or eating. <3
Plant Based Lunch: left over black bean and hempeh enchiladas, green beans, quick-pickled cabbage, and sorrel from the yard.
Blueberry, strawberry, oatmilk smoothie.
I spent Monday afternoon meal prepping for us and then preparing these meals for my father: loaded potato soup, lentil loaf, garlicky peas, and steam-sauteed mushrooms.
Lentil loaf tacos for dayyyyyyys!
With steam-seared peppers/onions/garlic/mushrooms, quick pickled cabbage, and yard sorrel. Covered this heavily with hot sauce but forgot to document. :-)
Hey, so humor over how-much-I-love-my-food aside: you can actually enjoy your food every day and have it actually be beneficial for you and the environment. We’re doing it it day in and day out, and there are better cooks out there than I likely living a whole other layer of flavor. Either way: it is completely doable for you, but MOST IMPORTANTLY: it is imperative.
Need a casual, mind-shaking, yet also inspiring podcast that’ll illuminate you again to what we’re up against by 2050 if y’all keep eating animal products the way you are? Set aside an hour and list to this podcast interview with Environmental Researcher Nicholas Carter with Simon Hill (Physiotherapist/Nutritionist).
How do those important realms align, and what are these two souls going to discuss?
What is climate change?
What are the implications of a warming planet?
What are planetary boundaries?
Is climate change more than an energy issue?
What are greenhouse gases?
The major greenhouse gases – Carbon Dioxide, Methane and Nitrous Oxide
Human activity and greenhouse gases
Agriculture and GHG’s
Importance of understanding land use, deforestation and carbon sequestration when land is left alone
Animal versus plant based foods and their environmental impact
Impact of transport on the footprint of our food compared to the type of food
Holistic grazing (form of regenerative agriculture proposed by Alan Savoury and Game Brown etc) – is it a climate change solution?
What a more efficient food system looks like
Animal manure vs green manure
Monocultures vs Polycultures and soil health
Access to food that has a lower environmental footprint to make it the easier decision for people (Default-Veg)
Top tips that we can implement on an individual basis to lower our environmental footprint
This is the kind of information that shook me awake a few years ago, that is harked in We Are The Weather, and you NEED to start internalizing so you can make steps forward.
It isn’t all doom and gloom if we all start moving forward!
I don’t care how imperfectly those steps are: I just care that they are happening. That every day is bringing you further and further forward; because once you start *hearing* the science, you understand that we have far worse coming for us than months of quarantine if we don’t start acting now. We have oceans acidified beyond repair, food shortages, water shortages, ever-more devastating storms…. or we could instead try forward movement for our health, and planetary/environmental HEALING for all species.
And the food is still delicious. Win, win, win. :-)
Ian’s late night dinner bowl. :-)
That long-working man works remotely from 6-3:30 that transitions to working on the house til after 8.
Last night’s reading. (Opted for less picture book and more read-aloud Dune.)
What’s the most impactful thing you can do as an individual to help your kin, community, millions of species, and planet? Transition as plant-based as possible.🌎♥️
Why? Plant-Based foods are environmentally imperative 🌎. They also promote ideal health💪 (which takes stress off our overburdened health care system), are inexpensive🙌, delicious🤤, & compassionate. 💕
Why imperative, though? 🤔We’re approaching (& have crossed) climate tipping points that will doom our kin & millions of other species. 😱📣Reducing/eliminating animal products is the *most impactful thing an individual can do* to prevent worse. 🌎🔥
Why? Animal Agriculture creates more emissions than the entire transportation sector combined, it’s tied to water waste/loss/pollution (<-- freshwater is our most precious resource💧), land loss/deforestation (<-- exacerbates climate change by reducing our ability to sequester carbon🔥🌎), ocean acidification (<-- FYI 50-85% of earth’s oxygen originates from oceanic plankton🌊) & vast species loss/extinction/suffering💔📣🌎
Plus, consuming animal products is tied to increased risk of cardiovascular disease❤️🩹, diabetes👎, cancer👎, and chronic disease👎; whereas Plant-Based feasting is linked to preventing/reversing some of our most common diseases (<— like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer); plus it promotes ideal health & robust strength (ie Olympians, Weightlifters, Endurance Athletes are thriving via PBWFs too). 🎉🙌♥️
What organizations are promoting plant-based diets for best health and environmental stability? National Institutes of Health, Mayo Clinic, Yale, the United Nations, Harvard School of Health, American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology, American Cancer Society, American Diabetes Association, The American Academy of Pediatrics, National Kidney Foundation, even the Parkinson’s Foundation.
We’re all overwhelmed in one way or another, but for the sake of our kin (and the millions of species we share this planet with) we need to start pivoting forward. As someone who once rarely ate green things & used to eat animal products at every meal, I can assure you that is possible, affordable, enjoyable, & purposeful to pivot Plant-Based. In fact, our whole family is now healthier/stronger than ever. 🙌♥️
Anecdotally, our son had failure-to-thrive, was also plagued with perpetual ear-infections/sinus-infections, and had an omnipresent runny nose. What was he eating? Grass-fed milk, organic/antibiotic-free/grass-fed/local meats, eggs from organic-fed/well-loved chickens from a neighbor, every meal came with vegetables, and we limited junkfood. He was healed via a plant-based diet: he’s launched out of that diagnosis and the last time he had a sinus-infection (or was sick at all) was in 2019 when he had some cheese at a school Christmas party. Before shifting to PBWF’s he was sick every month, and how he’s a robust, vital, thriving kiddo. 🙌🎉♥️
If you think any of the above sounds over-reached/absurd/impossible, please go read the links above. I understand the inclination to hackle-raise (<—because I was once totally there) but the science is clear: any step we make forward is imperative (<—and again “STEPS” is the focus. Don’t leap, just start making steps!). It’s as simple as starting with one meal a week and growing from there.💕
We have the ability (deliciously, healthfully, kindly, inexpensively) to *preserve/protect* the planet we share with millions of species & our kin. How are we going to use that power today?✌️🤟🖖
