Meatless Mondays - The Ongoing Adventures

I'm just going to start right in without too much preamble, because I am including a couple of lists this week which take up a lot of room. The vegetable of the week this week is beans. They are, too! Okay, technically, they are a legume (also called pulses). But légume is French for vegetable and Stella goes to French school, which gives me translation rights, so I win again. Beans are a true superfood: high in fibre, low in calories, with a positive impact on cholesterol and stabilizing effect on blood sugar. Plus they are part of traditional recipes in cultures all across the world, including French Canada. 

This gets me to my main subject this week, which is health-promoting foods versus disease-promoting foods. Full disclosure up front, I took my inspiration from a "Disease-Proof" article to which I will refer you for full details. All of the health-promoting foods have now, with the inclusion of beans as today's vegetable of the week, been profiled here in all their glory. You're welcome.

Top Five Health-Promoting Foods:

1. Green vegetables (like kale--yes, I'm mentioning it again)
2. Onions and mushrooms
3. Fruits, especially berries and pomegranates
4. Beans
5. Nuts and seeds

How many of the above do you eat in an average week? Now compare this to how many of the following list you eat in a week.

Top Five Disease-Promoting Foods:

1. Cheese, butter and ice cream
2. Potato chips and French fries
3. Refined carbs (sugar and white flour)
4. Salt
5. Pickled, smoked, barbecued or processed meats

Now keep in mind that four of those five foods are meatless. When we discuss the health benefits of reducing our meat consumption, we aren't talking about just replacing it with one of the above "junk food" items. We are talking about increasing our consumption of the  healthy foods on the first list. Whole, unprocessed plant foods are where it's at for health, disease prevention and as we've seen over the last twelve recipes, great tasting meals. I hope you'll agree with that.

Which brings us to this week's recipe, which as a result of bad planning, doesn't contain very many of the foods from list one--only green onions. But it's made with whole grain pasta and it is wicked delicious. If you were a person who was dealing with a peanut allergy in the home and had recently discovered that your soy allergy was a thing of the past, you could make this recipe with Soy Nut butter (or Pea butter; just saying) instead. If you are avoiding gluten, I have provided GF instructions. Bon appetit!