👉 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!
Here are some healthy bread and tortilla options I have come across in Bay Area, California:
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!
Hummus:
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):
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?
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 are the mainstay of our salad! I try to add as many veggies as possible on any given day.
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.
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?
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!
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.
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.