Bennett - Very Vegetarian

THE COMPLETE
VEGAN
KITCHEN

JANNEQUIN BENNETT

Foreword by Carl Lewis

Photography by Double Image Studio

Text copyright 2001 by Jannequin Bennett.
Introduction copyright 2001 by Carl Lewis.

All rights reserved. Written permission must be secured from the publisher to use or reproduce any part of this book, except for brief quotations in critical reviews and articles.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee. Thomas Nelson is a trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Color photographs by Double Image Studio, Richmond, Virginia

Photograph on page vii by Tim Alexander

Illustration on page 38 by Janet Brooks

More information about Carl Lewis can be found on his website www.carllewis.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bennett, Jannequin, 1956
Very vegetarian / Jannequin Bennett ; introduction by Carl Lewis.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 1-55853-952-2 (hardcover)
1. Vegan cookery. I. Title.
TX837 .B463 2001
641.5636dc21

2001004336

Printed in the United States of America
07 08 09 10 11 5 4 3 2 1

To
Lois Florence Bennett,
mother, mentor, inspiration,
and
Gordon Clowe Bennett,
father, editor, counselor

Contents

Introduction
by Carl Lewis

Introduction
Carl Lewis

C an a world-class athlete get enough protein from a vegetarian diet to compete? Ive found that a person does not need protein from meat to be a successful athlete. In fact, my best year of track competition was the first year I ate a vegan diet. Moreover, by continuing to eat a vegan diet, my weight is under control, I like the way I look (I know that sounds vain, but all of us want to like the way we look), I enjoy eating more, and I feel great. Heres my story.

When I grew up in New Jersey, I always enjoyed eating vegetables and was influenced by my mother, who believed in the importance of a healthy diet even though we ate meat regularly because my father wanted it. At the University of Houston I ate meat and tried to control my weight the wrong wayby skipping meals. Frequently I would skip breakfast, eat a light lunch, and then have my fill at dinnerjust before I went to bed. Not only is skipping meals the wrong way to diet, but the way I did it is the worst way because your body needs four hours to digest its food before you go to sleep.

In May of 1990 I decided to change the way I ate when I realized that controlling my weight by skipping meals was not good for me. Within the space of a few weeks, I met two men who changed my way of thinking and eating. The first was Jay Cordich, the Juice Man, whom I met at the Houston radio station where I worked in the early morning. He was there to talk about his juicer, which makes fresh juice from fruits and vegetables. He said that drinking at least sixteen ounces of freshly squeezed juice each day will increase a persons energy, strengthen the immune system, and reduce the risk of disease. A few weeks later while doing publicity for a track meet in Minneapolis, I met Dr. John McDougall, a medical doctor who teaches about the link between good nutrition and good health and was promoting his latest book. Dr. McDougall challenged me to make a commitment to eating a vegetarian diet and then to just do it.

I remember vividly making the decision in July of 1990 to become a vegan. I was competing in Europe and ate a meal of Spanish sausage on a Saturday and on the following Monday started eating vegan. The hardest thing for me was changing my eating habits from skipping meals to eating throughout the daywhich is much healthier. I also missed salt, so I substituted lemon juice for flavor.

In the spring of 1991eight months after beginning to eat veganI was feeling listless and thought I might need to add protein from meat to my diet. Dr. McDougall, however, explained that my listlessness was due to my needing more calories because I was training so many hours each day, not because I needed more animal-based protein. When I increased my calorie intake, I regained my energy. I was drinking twenty-four to thirty-two ounces of juice a day. I ate no dairy products. And I had my best year as an athlete ever!

You have total control over what you put in your body. No one can force you to eat what you dont want to eat. I know that many people think that eating a vegetarian dietand especially a vegan dietwill require sacrifice and denial. Jannequin Bennett demonstrates in this book that eating vegan does not have to be tasteless and boring. As she says, vegan eating is a truly indulgent way of life, as vegans regularly partake of the very best foods that nature has to offer. Here are recipes that will excite your taste buds. By the way, a few of my own recipes are included.

Keep in mind that eating vegan does require a commitment to being good to your body and to acting responsibly toward the world around you. Most of us are not aware of how much damage we do to our bodies and to our world by the way we eat. I challenge you to write down everything you eat and drink for one week. You will probably be amazed at the amount of snacks you eat, the different ways in which milk and cheese are a part of your diet, andworst of allhow much fast food you consume.

Most snacks such as cookies, chips, candy, French fries, and soft drinks are highly processed foods that have lost many of their useful nutrients. Worse still, most of these foods are loaded with fat, salt, and chemicals. For instance, a 1.5-ounce bag of barbeque potato chips has the same number of calories as a medium baked potato, but 70 times the amount of fat and 20 times the amount of salt. Cheese and other dairy products are loaded with artery-clogging saturated fat and cholesterol. Most cheeses get 70 to 80 percent of their calories from fat.

You have to be especially careful when you eat in fast food restaurants. As the consumption of unhealthy fast food has increased, so has obesity, which is now second only to smoking as a cause of death in the U.S. Eric Schlosser reported in FastFood Nation that the rate of obesity among American children is twice as high today as it was twenty-five years ago. Moreover, it seems that wherever people eat unhealthy fast food, waistlines start to expand. Between 1984 and 1993, for instance, the number of fast food restaurants in Great Britain roughly doubled. And so did the obesity rate among adults. Overweight people were once a rarity in Japan. Fast food restaurants arrived there thirty years ago, and today one-third of all Japanese men in their thirties are overweight.

Your body is your temple. If you nourish it properly, it will be good to you and you will increase its longevity. Being good to your body, however, requires diligence and determination. I began eating vegan for health reasons and continue primarily because of that. Others eat vegan for ethical or spiritual reasons. Whatever your reasons are for eating a plant-based diet, Very Vegetarian will help you do it with style and taste.

More information about Carl Lewis can be found on his website www.carllewis.com.

I would like to thank the entire staff at the Jefferson Hotel for their generous support, especially Pat Manning, Assistant General Manager and Food and Beverage Director; Joseph Longo, General Manager; and the staff of TJs, in particular my peeps Angel Fields, Charlie Peebles, and Marion Coe. Thanks also go to David Bunger, Amber Marchant, Jackie Chan for his enthusiasm about seitan, and Melanie Schoof for getting the ball rolling.