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Salad & Sandwich
16 Jan 2022
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How may we prepare a Whole Food Plant-Based sandwich packed with nutrition?

GENERAL RECIPE FOR SALAD SANDWICH

👉 Whole Grains: Buy Ezekiel 4:9 bread or whole wheat pita bread or Mestemacher bread or Genuine Bavarian bread. These are available in stores like Sprouts, Trader Joe's and Whole Foods.

👉 Beans: Buy some oil-free hummus (or prepare hummus at home) and spread it on 1 slice of bread (or the inside of a whole wheat pita pocket).

👉 Veggies: Layer the sandwich (or pack the pita bread) with a salad: cucumber, tomatoes, onion, thinly sliced tofu. Also, introduce some leafy greens like “Mixed Greens” from Sprouts are great; experiment with arugula! Optionally, introduce some fermented veggies like sauerkraut or beet (in brine). Rinse these fermented veggies in water to minimize sodium intake.

👉 Fruits: Introduce some fruit to the salad: pomegranate is great! Sliced grapes are also awesome! Sometimes, thin slices of apple or pear are wonderful.

👉 Berries: Consider adding sliced strawberries or some blueberries.

👉 Nuts & Seeds: Introduce 1 tsp oil-free tahini (ground sesame seeds). Or a few sunflower seeds or pumpkin seeds or sesame seeds.

👉 Herbs & Spices: Fresh herbs are awesome but take time to mince: experiment with fresh mint, cilantro, parsley, basil and various other fresh herbs available in the market. Consider sprinkling some Herbs de Provence, a combination of dried herbs. Try salt-free spice mixes from Sprouts or Trader Joe's or Local Spicery.

👉 Dressing (optional): This sandwich will taste great even without a dressing. But we can prepare a dressing with fresh herbs like mint and cilantro, tomato, and so on. Add some lemon & vinegar (ACV or balsamic vinegar, for example).

👉 Enjoy!

Whole Grain Bread

Here are some healthy bread and tortilla options I have come across in Bay Area, California:

  • Ezekiel or Manna Bread: Try Ezekiel 4:9 from Sprouts or Trader Joe's. Buy Low Sodium version (with no added salt) if we would like to minimize salt. Ezekiel Bread and Manna Bread are the healthiest breads in the market :)
  • Whole grain pita bread from Trader Joe's. Slice the whole grain pita bread into two to make ‘pita pockets’ :) Read nutritional labels to make sure that the bread is made from whole grains; prefer salt-free pita bread and with minimal additives.
  • Mestemacher Bread: Experiment with Mestemacher bread. Available in Whole Foods and a few other stores in Bay Area. Read nutritional labels to make sure the bread has whole grains and minimal additives.
  • Genuine Bavarian Bread: Experiment with Genuine Bavarian bread. Available in Whole Foods and a few other stores in Bay Area. Read nutritional labels to make sure the bread has whole grains and minimal additives.
  • Corn tortillas: often made from minimal ingredients. Read nutritional labels.

I usually make an ‘open sandwich’ with only 1 slice of bread with goodies on top; not 2 slices of bread with goodies in between. Why? I already consumed whole grains in breakfast, so an open sandwich enables me to eat more of those health promoting beans and veggies!

Beans

Hummus:

  • Prepare some homemade hummus (or buy oil-free hummus from some store). We can prepare homemade hummus from garbanzo beans very easily! See Simpe Hummus Recipes.
  • There are dozens of WFPB hummus variations — all are super easy to make. Some good ones are white bean hummus (white beans are great), edamame hummus (edamame are soy foods), beetroot hummus (beets are awesome for multiple reasons), and so on. See Fancy Hummus Recipes. I'd recommend browsing through Hummus Recipes by Esselstyn Family.
  • Instead of homemade hummus, we can simply soak & boil chickpeas (garbanzo beans), then crush them with our hands. That's all — no need or a blender :)

Other Beans: Experiment with other beans — over time, we discover what we like :) Basically the idea is to soak any bean overnight, then boil them in the morning to dry out most of the water, then mash cooked beans with a food masher like this one; we can do this with our hands too after cooling down the beans.

Sprouted Beans: If comfortable with sprouting, experiment with sprouted mung beans for the sandwich. Or sprout some black gram (‘kala chana’) & crush them with hands. Or use sprouted ‘kulthi dal’ or sprouted ‘moth dal’ or sprouted adzuki beans. All of these sprouted beans are nutritious but the most flavorful are sprouted mung beans & sprouted kala chana. My sprouting setup is described here.

Canned Beans: Canned beans by Eden Organics are great! Buy them and keep them as backup at home (or use them regularly if we’re short on time):

  • Most canned beans use salt, so we should drain the water and rinse the beans before using them (this way, we consume less salt).
  • Eden Organics doesn’t use salt! They use a tiny amount of kelp (which is a good thing -- it is a ‘sea vegetable’ with some iodine in it).
  • Actually kelp has too much iodine, so we should eat tiny amounts; Eden Organics uses the right amount of kelp to stay within those limits.

Nuts & Seeds

Nuts and seeds help us boost micronutrient absorption — see Should Salad Dressings Be Fat Free? Keeping this in mind, how may we introduce some nuts & seeds into our sandwich?

  • Tahini is basically ground sesame seeds. I don't overdose on tahini. I introduce approximately 1 tsp per open sandwich.
  • Seeds: If we didn’t introduce tahini into our sandwich, then we may introduce some other seeds: sunflower seeds or pumpkin seeds or sesame seeds, for example.
  • Avocados: A wonderful alternative to nuts & seeds is avocados. We can make a flavorful guacamole using avocados (guacamole is oil-free)! Guacamole can be used as a dressing.

For disease reversal, Whole Food Plant-Based guidelines encourage low total fat intake. For low fat, we have to be mindful of total fats introduced by tahini, avocados and various nuts and seeds that we added to our sandwich.

Veggies

Veggies are the mainstay of our salad! I try to add as many veggies as possible on any given day.

  • Rainbow Veggies: Make a salad with cucumber, tomatoes, onion, thinly sliced tofu, lemon, ACV (or any other vinegar that we like), any mixture of herbs & spices (use dried herbs if short on time; freshly chopped herbs if we have time at hand); use any spices that we feel like.
  • Alliums: I invariably introduce finely chopped red onion or scallions into my sandwich. Onions belong to the The Allium Family — this family of veggies has many health benefits including cancer protection! Alliums are so valuable that Onions are part of Dr Fuhrmans’ G-BOMBS mnemonic (Greens, Beans, Onions, Mushrooms, Berries, Seeds); see Health Benefits Of Garlic & Onion — Dr Fuhrman.

    Over time, experiment with all members of the allium family: red onions, sweet onions, spring onion (scallions), garlic, leeks, chives. As months go by, you'll be surprised to the degree our taste buds undergo changes to find all of these Whole Foods delectable in our sandwich.

  • Leafy Greens: Introduce some leafy greens into the salad: “Mixed Greens” from Sprouts are great for this purpose; they have some 15 different varieties of leaves mixed together; variety is good. We can also use red lettuce; don’t buy iceberg lettuce -- that’s the famous veggie with the least amount of nutrition :-) Even USDA doesn’t count iceberg lettuce as any servings of veggies. Experiment with arugula! Experiment with chopped purple cabbage!
  • Tubers: Potatoes and sweet potatoes go really well with the kind of sandwich we're making. Preparing sweet potatoes for sandwich is actually easy: put a medium sized sweet potato in a microwaveable bowl, add a few tablespoons of water, cover the bowl with a wet paper towel, then microwave for 4-6 minutes. Our sweet potato is ready! We can slice it or mash it and spread it on bread (as a layer below hummus).

    Tubers can be batch cooked! On the weekend, we can steam or roast potatoes or sweet potatoes in their whole form — without skin removal. Make sure that the skins haven't cracked open, then store them in fridge & eat them whenever we feel like as a snack. In fact, cooking & fridge storage & re-heating is encouraged because it increases something called ‘resistant starch’ in them — more resistant starch is a good thing for our gut bacteria. See Dr Greger on Resistant Starch and Which Foods Are Rich in Resistant Starch?

  • Fermented Veggies: Experiment with fermented veggies like sauerkraut (raw cabbage in brine) or beet in brine. In order to minimize sodium intake, rinse sauerkraut and fermented veggies in water — even after rinsing, they will add their unique flavor to the sandwich!

Fruits & Berries

Can we introduce fruit into our salad sandwich? Yes! Experiment with pomegranate seeds, sliced grapes, diced orange, sliced apples and sliced pears! These fruits introduce interesting texture and flavors into our sandwich!

Herbs & Spices

Fresh herbs are awesome! Experiment with basil (basil and tomato is an amazing combination), mint, cilantro, parsley, dill, and so on. In addition, experiment with dried herb mixtures like Herbs de Provence. And experiment with salt-free spice mixes found in Trader Joe's and Sprouts. I invested in SOS Free Spice Mixes by Local Spicery.

Dressing

I don't use any dressings for salads or salad sandwiches. When we mix various ingredients listed above, including fresh herbs, spices, lemon and vinegar, we don't really need any dressings! But if we do use a dressing, the overall taste will indeed improve.

  • We have tons of WFPB dressings on the internet. We can store these dressings in the fridge for 2-3 days. So we need a pipeline of dressings in place. This dressing is optional. The salad we prepared above is already quite flavorful without any dressing. But if a dressing is needed, here are some ideas:
  • I somtimes prepare an Indian-style WFPB dressing with mint, cilantro, tomato, etc.
  • Healthy Girls’ Kitchen has two “Big Lists of No Oil Salad Dressings”: Part 1 and Part 2. These recipes are by WFPB docs, nutritionists, chefs or popular bloggers
  • I personally like the idea of preparing a salad dressing from simple salad ingredients themselves: 5 Salad Dressings by Fully Raw Kristina — she’s the most famous ‘raw food’ personality on YouTube.

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