Friday, May 22, 2020 7Brooklin Town Crier Plant-Based Eating by Sheree Nicholson How to eat healthy What does eating healthy mean? It can mean different things to different people. For me, it's eating whole-food plant-based foods; for others, it may mean something different. Years ago, I realized that the goal of eating is to provide the necessary energy and needed nutrients to sustain life and its activities. This may seem obvious, but I'd always thought of food as pleasure and/or a reward. I was always seeking food that satisfied those needs. I found that once I switched to thinking about food as fuel, everything else seemed to fall into place. I started to see my meals as giving me the needed energy for a run, a yoga class, or a long day at my desk writing. I wanted to ensure that whatever I ate gave me sustained energy, rather than the crash and burn effect some foods have. Eat for energy Eating for energy makes food choices simple. I ask myself how will this make me feel in an hour. If the answer is tired, I choose something else. Plant-based foods digest easier, leaving you more energetic after meals. I'm sure you've had the experience of eating a heavy meal and then feeling tired afterward. This is partially due to the digestive system doing its job since the digestive process takes about 50% of your energy. Basically then, other than being vegan, I avoid sugar and fast-burning carbs, like white rice and white pasta. For example, I love vegan sushi, but if I eat it before a workout or run, I feel slow and tired. The reason is that the rice vinegar in sushi is loaded with sugar and, when combined with white rice, it produces a sugar crash which affects the quality of my day. It doesn't mean I won't eat sushi. It just means I do so on a day that I don't have evening run club. Breakfast is essential to me. There are plenty of plant-based, easy-to-digest options evne though I know there are many articles on the web that claim it's not as crucial as we initially thought. I wake up hungry since, after all, it's been 10 hours or more since I last ate. I like to start my day with great energy and I stick to a few simple breakfasts that I rotate during the week. The following breakfast ideas sustain me with slow-burning energy that won't have me grabbing a mid-morning coffee or sugary snack to kick start my energy. Simple breakfast ideas: Avocado toast: Whole grain toast, covered with mashed avocado and sprinkled with nutritional yeast. Oatmeal: With chia, flax, and hemp seeds and some fresh or frozen fruit. Smoothie: One scoop of vegan protein powder (you can use 2 tblsp hemp seeds instead), ½ a frozen banana, ½ cup frozen berries, a cup of frozen kale, and enough unsweetened nut milk (or water) to make a creamy smoothie. Breakfast wrap: One small whole wheat wrap, peanut butter, ½ a banana and some hemp seeds. Sheree's Hack: Keep your mornings stress free by making overnight oats.