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fruits and veggies
Flu season is just around the corner, and whether you decide to get the flu shot or not, you can only benefit from making food selections that will help to boost your immune system’s capacity to protect you. One of the best protections you can offer your body is a nutritionally sound diet.
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veggie overload — image source: unsplash
As you may know by now, I decided to not have my VegFusion vegetarian blog on its own. Rather, vegetarian-related posts will now be here, as many of my hot food recipes are actually vegetarian, or can be. I know that people who are staunchly vegetarian would not be happy with such a decision, but let me explain.
Anyone who is staunchly vegetarian is already “converted”. I am not trying to convert anyone. Many many years ago, purely for health reasons, I decided that I would like to try becoming a vegetarian. Fortunately, I come from a culture in which vegetarian food figures very highly. There are many delicious, nutritious choices for indian vegetarian food, and fusion dishes derived from them. In fact, many of my punk rocker and deadhead friends of my youth were introduced to vegetarian food through various East Indian friends. Some of them even went to the Indian temples around Toronto or Montreal, Canada for the evening “prasad” (offering) given free (or for a donation, if you desired). The prasad was always vegetarian, and usually contained rice and lentil soup, and sometimes a vegetarian curry.
Over the years, I’ve been able to tweak many meat-inclusive recipes into vegetarian ones. And while I managed to be near-vegetarian for 8 years and full-vegetarian for 3 years, I found it hard to maintain. My previous lifestyle of being a consultant meant eating away from home. This meant salad and french fries for lunch or supper far too often. Sure, I could have a veg pita or a veg sub. But none of this is satisfying if you have it every day. Finding a hot vegetarian meal within your lunch break becomes a holy grail. The temptation to cheat and get a burger is overwhelming.
The rest of my immediate family has managed to become and stay vegetarians; however, all of them work primarily in the city they live in. Me, I might be in 4 or 5 different cities in the same day, or more in the same week. I didn’t always have time to make myself a lunch, and I had limited time, often having to eat while driving a stick-shift car. It wasn’t so easy to stay vegetarian.
But that was all 5 years ago. Nowadays, it is very easy to find a good felafel sandwich stand or even a reasonable good veggie burger at a fast food joint. You may have more success becoming vegetarian than I did. For different health reasons, I have been eating meat again for a few years. Nevertheless, I like to spend 2-3 days a week either reducing the quantity of meat in my meals, or skipping meat all together. It’s a balance that’s worked for me to keep my health problems in check. Which is not to say that you could not maintain a fully vegetarian diet.
(c) Copyright 2005-present, Raj Kumar Dash/ CurryElvis.com
food and health — image source: unsplash
For the longest time, I was always quite healthy. But shortly after leaving Toronto after my hazy, crazy punk days of hard work and harder play, I went back home to my parents, broke both emotionally and financially. Very shortly after I moved home, I developed numerous allergies to food and environment. Over the next 14 years, I slowly developed a number of other illnesses culminating in the terrible symptoms of diabetes and hypothyroidism. They’ve affected my ability to hold down full-time work.
There are always all manner of explanations for these illnesses. First and foremost, stress from finances, work, family, and other relationships affects your health. Second, bad diet aggravates your stressed health. Third, for me, poor sleep habits make things even worse. I am of the opinion that if I didn’t have to sleep, I wouldn’t. For me, there isn’t enough time in the world to learn and do everything I want to do. Layer these factors together and you have serious health problems. So what to do?
I experimented with a number of variations of diet, as well as trying many natural ingredients and remedies. I am not a big fan of Allopathic Medicine (aka “Western” Medicine). I come from a very long line of “natural” doctors, who practiced naturopathy, homeopathy, and ayurveda. (However, my maternal grandfather WAS an Allopathic Doctor.) These practices are far older than Western Medicine, and I have very little respect for doctors and powerful, wealthy pharmaceutical companies who tell you that Western Medicine is and always will be better. What they will never tell you is that many of the modern medicines of today were in fact derived from natural remedies. But unless they can mass produce the remedy, they can’t make a cent.
Now, I strongly discourage you to do what I did without consulting both your physician and a Homeopathic/ Naturopathic expert, but I tried a number of homeopathic remedies (after consulting an expert myself). My results have been spotty at best, but then, there are so many factors affecting my illness. I spent eight years trying to be a vegetarian. And after I managed to be fully vegetarian for three years, one business trip to Atlanta, Georgia changed everything. I went back to being a meat-eater. But I struggled with trying to balance my allergies to most meats with my (then unknown) diabetic symptoms which caused me to fall alseep if I had too much starch and not enough protein.
Ultimately, I’ve found the best results with a balanced diet, free-range meats and eggs, minimal starches, and some naturopathic remedies. Now, I know that us North Americans typically are uncomfortable with with discussions of alternate medical practices. So rest assured that this will probably be the only such discussion in this blog. However, whenever possible, the recipes you find here will be geared towards health.
(c) Copyright 2005-present Raj Kumar Dash/ CurryElvis.com