Sprouts and Cookbook

We went to a new grocery store called Sprouts today. They have a “farmer’s market” theme. They have lots of good produce, and natural and whole foods. Their prices were good too, on certain things. (they had nectarines for 39 cents/lb) Amber and I realized that we both don’t really know what to cook now that we are trying to switch to a whole-foods, plant-based diet. (I don’t say vegan, because I’m not sure I want to completely eliminate meat, plus that word makes me think of people that live to tell me why I should feel guilty for eating beef because the cow is mistreated and has equal rights under the PETA act of 2002)

I looked for a cookbook while at the store, but none of them really jumped out at me. I looked on Amazon.com when I got home to see what they had. I decided to get two cookbooks, one had great reviews because it had so many good recipes. The other book that caught my eye was from Mark Bittman, who is the author of the cookbook I use most “How to Cook Everything”. I was interested in this because I know many of the recipes in his original book rely very heavily on traditional American foods, like eggs, dairy, and meats. Mark’s reasoning behind writing this cookbook is answered on Amazon’s site:

Q. What motivated you to write a comprehensive cookbook of vegetarian recipes right now?

A: What motivated me–several years ago–was seeing the handwriting on the wall: That although being a principled, all-or-nothing vegetarian was not a course of action that would ever likely inspire the majority of Americans, the days of all-meat-all-the-time (or, to be slightly less extreme, of a diet heavily dependent on meat) could not go on. Averaging a consumption of two pounds a week or more of meat (as Americans do) is not sustainable, either for the earth or our planet. And, as more and more of us realize this, I thought it was important to develop a cookbook along the lines of How to Cook Everything, but without meat, fish, or poultry. Needless to say, there’s plenty of material.

He created a blog entry with several interesting points, so check it out.